Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:02:38 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Stephen Miller :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Stephen+Miller istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/picking-up-the-flag-of-the-sun/86844/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST One day in April 2002, the managing editor of what was about to become The New York Sun, Ira Stoll, sat down with a reporter for the paper, Ben Smith, for an interview with New York's new mayor. When conversation turned to the proposed Second Avenue subway line, Mr. Stoll inquired whether the city might sell the subways to a private entrepreneur. The mayor, Michael Bloomberg, responded with the question, "What are you smoking?" That question inspired the headline over the Sun's first editorial... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/elinor-guggenheimer-96-consumer-advocate/86867/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A joyful warrior for consumers, women, and the disadvantaged, Elinor Guggenheimer founded day care centers, women's organizations, and served on the New York City Planning Commission. As commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs, Guggenheimer, who died yesterday at 96, operated at a frenetic pace to protect the city's citizens from gas stations that gouged, delis that sold short-weight salamis, and fly-by-night lawyers who promised overnight divorces. Boasting "ten immediate goals"... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/norman-whitfield-67-stalwart-motown-songwriter/86140/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Norman Whitfield, who died Tuesday, helped create the Motown sound by writing and producing scores of hits including "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Just My Imagination." Sick in recent years with diabetes and other ailments, he was said to be 67 and died in a Los Angeles hospital. As the main producer for the Temptations from the mid-1960s, he also wrote and arranged the group's hits "I Wish It Would Rain" and "Cloud Nine," which won a Grammy in 1968, Motown's first. Whitfield's... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/rick-wright-65-pink-floyd-keyboardist/85906/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Richard Wright, who died yesterday at 65, was a co-founder of Pink Floyd. His brooding yet sometimes jazzy organ licks were an integral part of the band's trademark melancholy sound. His death from cancer, coming two years after former lead singer Syd Barrett's, leaves just two original members of Pink Floyd: guitarist Roger Waters and drummer Nick Mason. Wright is heard all over Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," the 1973 album that has sold more than 40 million copies. He later helped... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/ralph-plaisted-80-north-pole-adventurer/85622/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Ralph Plaisted, who died Monday at 80, left his St. Paul, Minn., insurance agency in 1968 to become the first person indisputably to trek overland to the North Pole. But somehow, his name never quite made the Arctic explorers' pantheon with Peary and Cook and Byrd, whose achievements were far less certain. Leading a four-snowmobile caravan, Plaisted succeeded where he'd failed the year before and traveled for 43 days over perilous pack ice to reach the pole on April 19, 1968. A twin-engine... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/wd-mohammed-74-transformed-nation-of-islam/85520/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST W.D. Mohammed, who died yesterday in Chicago at 74, transformed the original Nation of Islam, led by his father, Elijah Muhammad, into a mainstream Sunni Muslim organization, rejecting its original black separatist ideology. "It's a great loss for the entire Muslim community," the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan, Dawud Walid, told the Associated Press. "He was encouraging his followers to accept the best of their humanity and to extend the moral and... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/bill-melendez-91-peanuts-animator/85181/ Thu, 4 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Bill Melendez, who died Tuesday at 91, had an extraordinarily long career as an animator, and helped draw life into Bambi, Bugs Bunny, and Babar. But his most famous creation was the animated version of "Peanuts," which Melendez drew for nearly 70 television specials, four films, and hundreds of commercials. A Disney animator from the late 1930s who worked for several other studios before opening his own operation in 1964, Melendez created his first "Peanuts" animation in 1959 on behalf of the... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/jerry-reed-71-country-guitarist-and-genial-actor/85071/ Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Jerry Reed, who died Monday at 71, became a country music guitar hero as a session man, songwriter, and honky-tonk singer whose hits included "When You're Hot, You're Hot" and "Guitar Man," and a late-blooming novelty number, "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)." He parlayed decades of country music success into a lightweight film acting career, with roles that included Burt Reynolds's truck-driving sidekick, the Snowman, in the "Smokey and the Bandit" trilogy (1977-83), and also as Coach... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/daniel-neal-heller-83-lawyer-who-beat-the-irs/84143/ Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Daniel Neal Heller, who died August 3 at 83, was a Miami lawyer involved in many high-profile cases, but the best-known was his protracted tax-evasion dispute with the Internal Revenue Service that ended with his winning a $500,000 settlement from the agency. He later boasted of being called "the man who beat the IRS," and said he donated the money to charity. Pugnacious and driven, Heller served as general counsel for Miami newspapers, and was credited with winning the first Florida "Sunshine... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/erik-darling-74-leader-in-folk-revival/83339/ Thu, 7 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Erik Darling, who died Sunday at 74, journeyed to New York to sing in Washington Square Park in the 1950s and became part of the folk music revival, with hits including "The Banana Boat Song" and "Walk Right In." He was also Pete Seeger's hand-picked successor as tenor/banjoist when Mr. Seeger left the Weavers in 1958. Born September 25, 1933, in Canandaigua, N.Y., Darling decided not to join the family paint store business and instead came to New York in the early 1950s. There he joined a... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/nicola-rescigno-92-co-founded-dallas-opera/83267/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Nicola Rescigno, who died Monday at 92, was founding conductor of both the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Dallas Opera, where he led the American debuts of singers including Joan Sutherland and Placido Domingo, the designer Franco Zeffirelli, and a host of others. He was closely associated with Maria Callas, and conducted her American debut in 1954 at the Lyric in "Norma." Three years later, the diva made national news at the Dallas Civic Opera debut with a program of showpiece arias under... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/ted-solotaroff-79-founder-of-new-american-review/83975/ Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Ted Solotaroff, who died August 8 at 79, founded the New American Review, an influential if small-circulation literary quarterly in the 1960s and 1970s. He later worked as a book editor with a stable of writers including Russell Banks, Robert Bly, and Bobbi Ann Mason, and he published glowingly reviewed memoirs. The New American Review, which he began in 1967, took its name from the New American Library, its original publisher, which was also a distinguished publisher of paperback books."... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/louis-teicher-83-half-of-a-virtuoso-pop-piano-duo/83189/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Louis Teicher, who died Sunday at 83, was half of the piano duo Ferrante & Teicher, which toured for four decades and released 150 albums, some as suitable for elevators as for concert halls. Yet for their fans — and there were enough to purchase 88 million of their records — they were "the grand twins of the twin grands," virtuoso showmen in the tradition of Liberace and perhaps Liszt. Ferrante & Teicher were perhaps best-known for their hit instrumental versions of 1960s movie themes... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/margaret-ringenberg-87-high-flying-aviatrix/83059/ Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Margaret Ringenberg, who died Monday at 87, was a pilot who ferried planes as a WASP during World War II and then blanketed her hometown of Fort Wayne, Ind., with air-dropped leaflets bearing news that war had ended. Later she became known as a leading endurance racer in the Powder Puff Derby and flew around the world. She raced as recently as a month ago, finishing third in the women-only annual Air Race Classic (the successor to the Powder Puff Derby). She died while attending the... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/jack-nash-79-a-founder-of-odyssey-partners-and-sun/82955/ Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Jack Nash, who fled Nazi Germany as a child and went on to co-found one of the seminal hedge funds, Odyssey Partners, died yesterday at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. He was 79. He was also a founder of The New York Sun. RELATED: Jack Nash. Employed at Oppenheimer & Co., the pioneering mutual fund management and investment banking firm from the early 1950s, he became a partner and served as the fund's president between 1974 and 1979, when he was named chairman. He founded Odyssey with... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/june-walker-74-was-president-of-hadassah/82882/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST June Walker, who died yesterday at 74, was chairwoman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and an activist national president of Hadassah, where she spearheaded the women's Zionist organization's advocacy of stem-cell research and support of medical institutions in Israel. Walker was a respiratory therapist who taught for many years at Passaic Community College in New Jersey and was a director of education for pulmonary medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/h-tracy-hall-88-created-man-made-diamonds/82789/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST H. Tracy Hall, who died Friday at 88, was the first to synthesize diamonds in the laboratory, in 1954, fulfilling what scientists sought for at least two centuries. These weren't gem-quality diamonds, and the world is in no danger of being overrun with lab-generated Hope Diamonds. But the tiny, super-hard crystals he produced found a multitude of uses in industry in drill bits from oil wells to dentistry, as well as in diamond-tipped saws and polishing tools. A charter member of General... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/eugene-foster-81-pointed-finger-at-jefferson/82518/ Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Note: Correction appended. Dr. Eugene Foster, who died July 21 at 81, raised a fuss over presidential progeny that sloshed outside strictly historical circles when he showed through DNA testing that President Jefferson was the likely father of at least one child by one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Unschooled as a historian, Foster was a pathologist who worked for many years at the University of Virginia Medical School at Charlottesville, Va., and later Tufts University New England Medical... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/estelle-getty-84-golden-girl-had-avant-garde/82436/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Note: Correction appended. Estelle Getty, who died yesterday at 84, played the tiny, tart-tongued octogenarian Sophia on TV's "Golden Girls" for seven seasons starting in 1985. Despite being two decades younger than the role, the job represented for Getty the culmination of decades of toiling in near obscurity in avant-garde New York productions, mostly far off Broadway. It was reprising one of those roles — as the Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein's "Torch Song Trilogy" — that brought her fame... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/artie-traum-65-folk-guitarist-and-teacher/82381/ Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Artie Traum, who died at home Sunday at 65, was a guitarist who had a long career in folk and later jazz from his home base in Woodstock, N.Y. In the early 1960s, he gravitated toward the Greenwich Village folk scene, playing at Izzy Young's Folklore Center and Gerde's Folk City, seminal gathering spots for folkies. He joined Dave Van Ronk's band, the Ragtime Jug Stompers. He later formed a duo with his brother, Happy Traum. They performed at the 1969 Newport Folk Festival and then toured... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/robert-bendick-91-early-producer-of-today-show/81675/ Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Robert Bendick, who died June 22 at 91 at his home in Guilford, Conn., was an early producer of NBC's "Today Show" who went on to create sports shows and documentaries, and also teamed with "King Kong" director Merian Cooper to develop Cinerama, a super-wide film format. In the 1970s, he produced Emmy-winning episodes of the PBS series "The Great American Dream Machine," and also "The Fight for Food," a public TV series focusing on global hunger problems. Born February 8, 1917, in Manhattan... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/investor-templeton-dies-at-95/81512/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST John Templeton, the billionaire investor who died yesterday at Nassau in the Bahamas at 95, was considered by some the finest stock-picker of the 20th century. But his foundation doles out millions of dollars to increase what he called "spiritual wealth." As the creator of the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries About Spiritual Realities, Templeton tried to create a kind of Nobel Prize for spiritual improvement and made sure that the annual monetary award — currently $1... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/thomas-m-disch-68-eclectic-writer-of-science/81378/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Thomas M. Disch, who died July 4 at 68, was the author of dozens of books. A genre-defying powerhouse of a writer, he was best known for such science fiction novels as "The Genocides" (1965), "Camp Concentration" (1968), and "On Wings of Song" (1979), a Hugo Award finalist about a device that enables singers to transcend their bodies. As his reputation grew, he came to be identified with a "new wave" of science fiction writers including Ursula Le Guin and Michael Moorcock. But Disch, who was... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/clay-felker-85-trend-spotting-editor/81144/ Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Clay Felker, who died of natural causes Tuesday morning at 85, created New York magazine as a package of trend-spotting, reporting, slick writing, and journalism that spoke directly to its readers and, in the process, set the standard for city magazines across the nation. In recent years, he had battled cancer and pneumonia, and moved to a home for the aged in 2006. He died in his Manhattan home. New York magazine announced his death on its Web site. Mr. Felker gave a forum to a new generation... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/clay-felker-85-trend-spotting-editor/81059/ Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:46:35 EST Clay Felker, who died of natural causes Tuesday morning at 85, created New York magazine as a package of trend-spotting, reporting, slick writing, and journalism that spoke directly to its readers and, in the process, set the standard for city magazines across the nation. In recent years, he had battled cancer and pneumonia, and moved to a home for the aged in 2006. He died in his Manhattan home. New York magazine announced his death on its Web site. Mr. Felker gave a forum to a new generation... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/victor-remer-88-led-childrens-aid-society/80728/ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Victor Remer, who died June 17 at 88, was the executive director of the Children's Aid Society from 1965-1981, a period when the venerable welfare association faced a welter of new challenges. Under his leadership, the society introduced numerous new programs to help developmentally challenged children, opened new health clinics and learning centers, and restructured its bureaucracy to help administer emerging federal programs such as Head Start. "He set the stage and led us into a whole new... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/george-carlin-71-wry-monologist/80549/ Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST George Carlin, who died Sunday at 71, was both lionized and (briefly) prosecuted for endangering the youth of America with sheer profanity, but his real talent lay in making existential anger and despair into a compelling topic for stand-up comedy. His routines veered from the wry acerbity of Mark Twain to the profane mordancy of Lenny Bruce, the comedian Carlin often cited as his greatest inspiration. From the early 1970s, when his first solo records began appearing, he was at the top of the... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/stefan-grayek-92-fought-in-warsaw-ghetto-uprising/80254/ Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Stefan Grayek, who died Friday in Tel Aviv at 92, was a fighter in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising and went on to help resettle Jews in Israel and became a leader of the movement to memorialize the Holocaust. While German troops held Warsaw's Jews captive and systematically starved and transported them to the Treblinka death camp, Grayek helped organize resistance and escapes through the ghetto's sewer system. During the uprising that raged between April 19 and May 18, 1943, he taught others... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/cyd-charisse-86-dancer-had-5-million-legs/80176/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST A lanky Texas beauty whose legs were once insured for $5 million, Cyd Charisse danced her way into cinematic immortality in such films as "Singin' In the Rain," "Brigadoon," and "Silk Stockings." Charisse, who died yesterday in Los Angeles at 86, was MGM's leading female dancer of the 1950s. She had her pick of partners, from Gene Kelly to Fred Astaire, who said, "When you've danced with her, you stay danced with." Her height was 5 feet, 6 inches, but in high heels and full-length stockings... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/edwina-froehlich-93-la-leche-league-founder/79854/ Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Edwina Froehlich, who died Sunday at 93, was one of seven suburban Chicago women who gathered in 1956 to help spur what became a national renaissance in breast-feeding. La Leche League International, which for years met in her suburban Franklin Park basement, now reaches mothers in 60 countries and is generally cited as the largest organization of its kind in the world. But it was founded as nothing more ambitious than a support group for mothers who wanted to suckle their babies and couldn't... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/robert-becker-84-raised-concerns-over-power-lines/79741/ Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Robert Becker, who died May 14 at 84, helped define the study of bioelectricity and spearheaded early opposition to high-voltage power lines because of suspicions about health effects. A professor of surgery at the State University of New York's Upstate Medical Center and chief orthopedist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse, Becker studied the effects of radiation on bodies as well as the action of electricity within them. He used electric stimulation to regenerate limbs in... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/jimmy-croll-88-trained-stakes-winners/79647/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Jimmy Croll, who died Friday at 88, was a Hall of Fame trainer whose horses included Bet Twice, the winner of the 1987 Belmont Stakes who thwarted Alysheba's bid for the Triple Crown. Croll was the trainer and owner of Holy Bull, voted horse of the year as a three-year-old in 1994. Holy Bull was favored to win the Kentucky Derby that year, but finished 12th in a field of 14. Croll insisted that unnamed conspirators had drugged the horse. Holy Bull went on to win a number of other stakes races... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/bo-diddley-79-a-grandfather-of-rock-music/79134/ Tue, 3 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Bo Diddley, who died yesterday at 79, was a swaggering blues belter whose crackly feedback guitar riffs and infectious rhythms helped give birth to rock 'n' roll. With homemade square guitars, replete with dials for electronic distortion boxes of his own devising, Diddley produced an unmistakable rock sound for such songs as "I'm a Man," "Who Do You Love?," and "You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover." He rose from poverty in Chicago to become a seminal part of rock history, but he somehow missed... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/louise-firouz-74-rediscovered-caspian-horse-breed/78835/ Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Louise Firouz, who died Sunday at 74, rediscovered the diminutive Caspian Horse in the steppes of northern Iran and managed to establish herds abroad as revolution swept the nation. In a life with shades of Isak Dinesen and Cinderella, Firouz grew up in Virginia horse country, married a Persian prince, and settled in the late 1950s in Shiraz. There she lived in regal splendor. Having studied veterinary medicine and ridden in show-jumping competitions, she decided to open a children's equestrian... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/ernst-stuhlinger-94-rocket-designer/78717/ Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Ernst Stuhlinger, who died Sunday at 94, was Wernher von Braun's chief scientist and a key designer of American rockets from the first satellite launches of the late 1950s through the space shuttle. Stuhlinger was originally a nuclear engineer and space scientist who worked on Germany's atomic energy program before World War II. He later joined von Braun's team at Peenemünde, where V-2 rockets were produced by slave labor under the supervision of the SS. After Hitler's suicide, the group... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/bobo-rockefeller-91-married-well-divorced-better/76767/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Barbara Sears Rockefeller, who died Monday at 91, was a coal miner's daughter who on Valentine's Day of 1948 married the Standard Oil scion, Winthrop Rockefeller, in what was billed as "the Cinderella wedding of the century." The marriage collapsed within two years, and in 1954 she received a settlement worth more than $6 million. Just as shocking as the record-setting sum were courtroom charges that the abstemious John D. Rockefeller's heir was a philanderer and boozer with a vast collection... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/huntington-hartford-97-eccentric-art-patron/76712/ Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Huntington Hartford, the A&P supermarket heir who died yesterday in the Bahamas at 97, was a playboy who blew through a fortune, in part trying to sponsor moral and aesthetic uplift to a largely indifferent public. He left for a monument one of the most flamboyant buildings in the city: 2 Columbus Circle, originally home to his Gallery of Modern Art but known to a generation of New Yorkers as the "Lollipop Building" for its mod Venetian-inspired filigree. Hartford was also one of the great... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/robert-rauschenberg-82-protean-collage-artist/76412/ Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Robert Rauschenberg, who died Monday at 82, was a foundational figure in American art. He helped spark the Pop Art movement and stayed in the forefront of the art scene, from the 1950s until his Metropolitan Museum of Art retrospective in 2005, as an enfant terrible-cum-éminence grise. His busy, collage-like constructions were originally constructed of detritus that in some cases were the only materials the impoverished young artist could afford. Conceived as a reaction against the sterile... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/irena-sendler-98-saved-2500-children-from-nazis/76346/ Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Irena Sendler, who died yesterday at 98, was a Polish social worker who helped save an estimated 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and giving them false identities. Her dramatic story, including how she was captured and nearly tortured to death and how she managed to preserve the children's true identities in jars buried under an apple tree, became widely known only in recent years. A group of four Kansas schoolgirls brought her to worldwide... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/irvine-robbins-90-founded-ice-cream-chain/75959/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Leveraging the sheer joy of ice cream as his marketing tool, Irvine Robbins co-founded America's first national ice cream franchise, Baskin-Robbins. Robbins died Monday at 90 at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Baskin-Robbins offered a trademark 31 flavors — three more than its motel chain rival Howard Johnson. Customers faced a blizzard of choices. There was Jamoca Almond, Chocolate Mint, Yankee Doodle Strudel for the bicentennial, and Flip Wilson's favorite, Here Comes the Fudge. Founded... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/alvin-colt-91-doyen-of-broadway-costumers/75924/ Tue, 6 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Alvin Colt, who died Sunday at 91, designed costumes for more than 50 Broadway shows in a career that started with the landmark musical "On the Town" in 1944. He spent the last 15 years designing for "Forbidden Broadway," a revue in which some of his satirical send-ups were based on costumes he had created himself. Among the highlights in a seven decade career were "Guys and Dolls," "The Golden Apple," "Li'l Abner," "Destry Rides Again," and "Pipe Dreams," for which he won a Tony award in 1956... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/james-day-89-public-tv-pioneer/75673/ Thu, 1 May 2008 00:00:00 EST James Day, who died April 24 at 89, was co-founder of San Francisco public television station KQED and went on to serve as president of WNET during the early 1970s, when the station was producing and broadcasting such shows as "The Great American Dream Machine," "An American Family," and "The Forsyte Saga." Day was also credited with developing the on-air fund-raiser, which began in 1955 as a broadcast auction when money ran low just a year after the station's founding. The auction persisted... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/henry-brant-94-spatial-composer-and-impresario/75590/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Henry Brant, who died Saturday at 94, was a composer known for his use of "spatial" music utilizing large ensembles of musicians stationed at some distance from one another playing in ways that some critics likened to salvos. In a prolific career that spanned seven decades, Brant composed music for radio, film, ballet, and jazz groups as well as the concert hall. He won the Pulitzer for "Ice Field," a 20-minute organ concerto that the San Francisco Symphony premiered in December 2001. Brant... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/hyman-spotnitz-99-psychiatrist-specializing/75216/ Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Hyman Spotnitz, who died Friday at 99, was a psychiatrist who sought to broaden psychoanalysis into a treatment for schizophrenia. The Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in Greenwich Village was founded in 1970 as a teaching institution dedicated to the propagation of Spotnitz's ideas, which he dubbed "Modern Psychoanalysis." Among its distinctive ideas was an emphasis on the role of aggression in schizophrenia. The son of Eastern European immigrants who ran a candy store in Boston's... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/madeline-lee-gilford-84-actress-and-activist/74950/ Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Madeline Lee Gilford, who died Tuesday at 84, was an actress on Broadway and radio, a social activist who organized fellow students and defied the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the wife of actor Jack Gilford for four decades. An actress from the 1920s, when she is said to have appeared in silent "Our Gang" reels shot in Brooklyn (cast lists are hard to verify), Gilford went on to a successful career in radio serials, in which she would often appear on several stations in a single... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/henry-moses-66-headmaster-at-trinity-school/74886/ Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Henry Moses, who died yesterday at 66, was headmaster of Trinity School, the elite preparatory school on West 91st Street where Latin and Greek still form an integral part of the curriculum. He died of complications following a heart transplant, the school announced. A veteran college administrator who served as dean of freshman at Harvard, Moses was an expert on the transition to college. He wrote a guidebook for students, "Inside College: New Freedom, New Responsibility" (1990). At Trinity... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/ollie-johnston-95-veteran-disney-animator/74810/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Ollie Johnston, who died Monday at 95, was the last of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men," the master animators responsible for "Snow White," "Pinocchio," and other classic cartoon features. A California native who went to work for Disney in the mid-1930s as an assistant, Johnston was the supervising animator for Thumper in "Bambi" (1942) and designed Pinocchio's expanding nose. He worked on nearly every animated Disney film between 1935 and 1976, when he retired after directing "The Rescuers."... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/lois-murphy-91-treated-cancer-in-children/74676/ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST As a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Lois Murphy helped develop pioneering treatments for children suffering from leukemia and other cancers at a time when such a diagnosis was almost always fatal. Murphy, who died April 8 at 91, was a pediatric oncologist at the cancer center for four decades, including 11 years as chairwoman of the pediatrics department. Her work is credited with developing therapies that brought the survival rates for many childhood cancers to 70%... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/eugene-ehrlich-85-exotic-word-aggregator/74315/ Tue, 8 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Eugene Ehrlich, who died Saturday at 85, was a Columbia University English professor and author of a score of reference books on words and usage. As an editor of the Oxford American Dictionary, which first appeared in 1980, he took credit for the inclusion of "humongous," among other regional slang. He also wrote books about how and when to use Latin phrases while avoiding appearing a pedant. Raised in the shadow of his parents' Third Avenue Stationery store in Murray Hill, Ehrlich grew up with... STEPHEN MILLER http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/herbert-friedman-89-jewish-fund-raiser/74118/ Thu, 3 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Herbert Friedman, who died Monday at 89, helped settle thousands of Jews in Israel in the wake of World War II and led the national United Jewish Appeal between 1954 and 1971. He was also founding president of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, dedicated to teaching young Jewish leaders about their heritage. Born in New Haven, Conn., Friedman was the son of a traveling salesman. His father lost his job and the family's home in the Depression. Friedman matriculated early at Yale, supporting himself...