Dr. Samuel Y. Dorfman, Jr. passed away on Saturday, September 6, surrounded by family and loved ones. Born September 10, 1935 in Longview, Texas, Sam Dorfman was a true product of the American Dream. He was the son of Elizabeth Florsheim Dorfman of Shreveport, Louisiana and Samuel Y. Dorfman, Sr., a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant who escaped religious oppression to come to the United States via Galveston as a teen, speaking no English, and who forged success in the East Texas oil field and co-founded the Delta Drilling Company - which in its heyday was the world's largest privately-owned oil and gas drilling contractor. Sam, Jr. graduated from Longview High School and the University of Texas, obtaining a B.S. in Geology in 1957. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, the Silver Spurs student service organization, and the United States Navy ROTC. It was at the University that Sam met Judith Abrams, the mother of his two children, Stacey Leigh Dorfman Kivowitz, of Dallas, and Judge Grant Dorfman, of Houston. Following graduation, Sam served in the U.S. Navy on board a destroyer escort based out of New Orleans and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Upon returning to civilian life, he initially worked as a geologist in the oil and gas industry. He later served on the Board of Delta Drilling and ran, along with his brother Louis Dorfman, Dorfman Production Company - an independent oil and gas operator. Always seeking further challenges, Sam enrolled at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, securing his M.D. in 1967. He interned at the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital and returned to Dallas to practice Internal Medicine at the Brookhaven Medical Center (now known as the R.H. Dedman Memorial Medical Center), where he rose to become Chief of Medicine. Combining a restless spirit, a love of hamburgers and the fairer sex, and a burgeoning collection of vintage gas station paraphernalia (accumulated over years of rummaging through East Texas towns), Sam opened the Filling Station Restaurant and Bar on Greenville Avenue in 1975, quickly becoming a Dallas landmark and ultimately growing to five locations in Dallas, Addison, Austin and Houston.Although physically limited in more recent years, Sam was an avid sportsman and a hobbyist with many and varied interests, among them playing golf and tennis, skiing, bicycling, ballooning, sailing, scuba diving and underwater photography. He loved watching sports of all kinds, too: Wimbledon and U.S. Open tennis, the Masters and Open golf tournaments, the Dallas Cowboys, World Cup soccer and of course his adored Texas Longhorns. He was also an enthusiast of world travel, who regularly cruised to exotic locales and entered numerous floating contract bridge tournaments with his devoted partner, Barbara Stanfield. Outside of spending time with family and close friends, his greatest enjoyment in recent years came from jointly running the day-to-day operations of the Dorfman Production Company with his brother and coming home to Barbara and their menagerie of four-legged children: dogs Zachary, Murphy, and Ziva, and cats Titus, Tiger Lilly, Berkeley and Belle Starr. Those who knew Sam best will never forget the unique and multi-faceted character he truly was. He was the TV Dr. House before there was a Dr. House. Wildly imaginative and playful, whip-smart and ever-armed with a caustic wit, he could be abrasive and downright crotchety at times. He was also free with his opinions, which were invariably strong and ranged broadly - from politics and sports to finance, science, medicine, entertainment and beyond. Sam was also justly famous for his frugality and inconspicuous consumption - he loved shopping the fine fashion aisle at Fed Mart and K-Mart, and over time he owned just about every model of car made by the American Motors Company. But he was frequently generous to friends and family and sponsored many educational and philanthropic efforts; prominent among the latter category was his alma mater the UT Southwestern Medical Center. Sam was preceded in death by his parents, Sam and Elizabeth Dorfman, and his brother Myron Dorfman. He is survived by his beloved Barbara Stanfield, daughter Stacey and her husband Don Kivowitz, son Grant and his wife Angie Dorfman, and grandchildren Courtney and Brooke Kivowitz, Emma and Ryan Dorfman, Bailey Premeaux, Ella and Yossi Trubek, and great-grandson Max Kivo Donatelli. He is also survived by his brother, Louis Dorfman, his wife Julia, and nephew Mark Dorfman. The family wishes to express its gratitude and deep appreciation to his dedicated caregivers, in particular Augustine Fannah, Solomon Awadi and Willie Mose, for their loyal service and friendship to our El Supremo. A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, at 2:00 p.m., at Sparkman/Hillcrest Northwest Chapel, with a private entombment to follow at the Hillcrest Memorial Park Mausoleum.
Published in Dallas Morning News from Sept. 7 to Sept. 10, 2014