LOS ANGELES - Nathan Friedman, a dentist whose comforting rapport with patients drew celebrities such as Danny Kaye and Lucille Ball to his Beverly Hills practice, has died. He was 97.

Friedman's daughter Susan told the Los Angeles Times that her father died May 27 in Los Angeles of complications related to old age.

Friedman, who practiced dentistry until he was 88, worked to ease his patients anxieties by talking them through their fears.

He also founded a department of behavioral dentistry at University of Southern California, where he was a professor. Its faculty taught students how to quell patients' fears of dental work.