MILESTONES
By KATHLEEN ADAMS, MELISSA AUGUST, NICK CATOGGIO, LINA LOFARO, MICHAEL QUINN, ALAIN L. SANDERS, ANASTASIA TOUFEXIS AND SIDNEY URQUHART
DIED. KRISSY TAYLOR, 17, model; of unknown causes; in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The younger sister of supermodel Niki Taylor, Krissy seemed destined for super-ness herself. But Niki discovered her sister's body on the living-room floor of their parents' home. Investigators are focusing on her possible misuse of an asthma inhalant.
DIED. BOB ROSS, 52, TV host of pbs hit The Joy of Painting, whose rumbling, reassuring baritone guided millions through the technically accessible if aesthetically unchallenging "wet-on-wet" method of landscape oil painting; of cancer; in Orlando, Florida.
DIED. WOLFMAN JACK, 57, disc jockey; of a heart attack; in Belvidere, North Carolina. Armed with a voice that sounded as if he gargled with iron filings, Wolfman Jack was the Elvis of rock radio--a white phenom who found success emulating the black DJs he admired (and always credited). Broadcasting from a clear-channel station based in Mexico, he developed a national following, serving North America a flavorsome stew of R. and B., jazz, rockabilly, rock 'n' roll, sporadic wolf howls and interjections of black slang. His 1973 bow as disc jockey/Delphic oracle in the movie American Graffiti finally gave his fans a face to go along with the famous nom de air.
DIED. PANCHO GONZALEZ, 67, tennis star with a thermonuclear serve; of stomach cancer; in Las Vegas. Gonzalez won U.S. national singles titles in 1948 and 1949. In 1969, at age 41, he was the oldest seeded singles player in Wimbledon history.
DIED. EVA GABOR, 74, actress; of respiratory illness; in Los Angeles. Of the notoriously oft-married Gabor sisters, Eva had the least mileage and the most talent. Her career peak: Green Acres, the pastoral sitcom on which she played a socialite unwillingly transplanted by husband Eddie Albert to the surreally corny hamlet of Hooterville.
DIED. MORRIS COHEN, a.k.a. "Peter Kroger," 84, master spy; in Moscow. Twelve days before the first atomic bomb flashed over the New Mexican desert, its secrets landed on Josef Stalin's desk half a world away, thanks to the intrepid treason of American Morris Cohen. In the '50s, he resurfaced in London, transmitting British naval documents to the U.S.S.R. Arrested in 1961, Cohen and his wife were eventually freed in a spy swap. He takes to the grave the name of the mole within the Manhattan Project who helped him pull off the century's espionage coup.
DIED. GALE GORDON, 89, actor; in Escondido, California. In real life, no one could have survived Gordon's career-long fit of apoplexy. His slow burn began in radio roles, started to steam on television in roles like put-out principal Osgood Conklin in Our Miss Brooks (1952-56) and reached glorious full throttle as bellowing bosses Theodore Mooney on The Lucy Show (1962-68) and Harrison Carter on Here's Lucy (1968-74), who vainly battled the amiable anarchy of Lucille Ball.
DIED. HELEN J. BOIARDI, 90, Cleveland restaurant owner whose plates of spaghetti sparked such a demand for doggie bags that the recipes evolved into a line of prepared foods known by the phoneticized name of Chef Boy-ar-dee; in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
DIED. GEORGE SELDES, 104, critic and crusader, whose books and essays (including those in the muckraking In Fact newsletter that he edited in the '40s) took on such evils as fascism in Europe and censorship in American journalism; in Windsor, Vermont.