Friday, Jan. 11, 1963
Born. To Romano Mussolini, 35, jazz pianist son of Italy's Il Duce; and Maria Scicolone, 24, younger sister of Cinemactress Sophia Loren: their first child, a girl; in Rome. Name: Alessandra.
Died. Jack Carson, 52. Canadian-born comedian, master of the double take and the slow burn, long stereotyped as the blustering loudmouth who always loses the girl; of cancer; in Encino, Calif. Most memorable roles: the boorish Joe the Twirler in 1942's screen version of Thurber's The Male Animal, and Big Daddy's grasping son, Gooper, in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Died. Dick Powell, 58, one of the first big-time Hollywood stars to leave the silver screen for the gold mines of TV, a onetime choirboy from Mountain View, Ark., who broke into the early talkies as a baby-faced crooner, later retyped himself as a good bad guy in a dozen movies, none as successful as his co-ownership (with David Niven and Charles Boyer) of Four Star Television, which had as many as 13 shows (among them: The Rifleman, Richard Diamond) going at one time; of cancer; in Hollywood.
Died. Robert Samuel Kerr, 66, Oklahoma Senator famed for his wealth and his sharp tongue; of a heart attack; in Washington (see THE NATION).
Died. Rogers Hornsby, 66, baseball's greatest right-handed hitter, "The Rajah of Swat," whose .424 average in 1924 set a record never surpassed; of a heart attack; in Chicago. Crusty and bluntspoken, Hornsby walloped his way up from the Texas sand lots to set a fistful of records with the St. Louis Cardinals (National League batting champion six times in a row, thrice with .400-plus) ; as player-manager in 1926, he brought St. Louis its first pennant and world championship, but had less success with other teams, going from club to club until in 1937, he left the majors growling that managers have to be "yes men" to hold their jobs.
Died. Sir Charles Galton Darwin, 75, British theoretical physicist, head of the standard-setting National Physical Laboratory from 1938 to 1949, Charles Darwin's grandson, cousin of Pioneer Eugenicist Sir Francis Galton, and an outspoken advocate of eugenics himself; of a heart attack; in Cambridge, England.
Died. Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, 89, professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University from 1910 to 1938, author of the 1936 classic on man's idea of his place in the universe, The Great Chain of Being; of a stroke; in Baltimore. Once asked if he believed in God, during a fitness exam for a Maryland state board of regents, Lovejoy spun out 33 definitions of God, then asked his examiner which meaning he had in mind; he was confirmed.
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