Milestones

DIED. Ruth Gordon, 88, outspoken actress whose seven-decade career first peaked in the 1930s and '40s, when she reaped acclaim in such works as Broadway's A Doll's House (1937) and Hollywood's Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), then crested again in her 70s when she became a cult figure, especially for young people, in such offbeat films as Where's Poppa? (1970), Harold and Maude (1971) and, most notably, Rosemary's Baby (1968), for which she won a supporting actress Oscar; of a stroke; in Edgartown, Mass. Talented in many modes, she also wrote two hit plays in the 1940s (Over Twenty-One and Years Ago), a novel (Shady Lady, 1982), three volumes of autobiography and, with her husband of 43 years, Director and Novelist Garson Kanin, a host of antic romances, including the Hepburn-Tracy vehicles Adam's Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952).