Milestones

By Tam Martinides Gray, Nadya Labi, Michele L. Orecklin and Alain L. Sanders

INDICTED. THE REV. HENRY LYONS, 56, president-shepherd of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Inc.; on charges of racketeering and theft; in St. Petersburg, Fla.

DIED. J.T. WALSH, 54, character actor and specialist in obdurate personae; of a heart attack; outside San Diego. Walsh's sense of icy machismo made him perfect for David Mamet's anomic world; the playwright gave Walsh his first big break when he cast him in the 1984 Broadway production of Glengarry Glen Ross. Walsh did not start acting until he was 30, yet he brought his skill to nearly 60 film roles, including a turn as John Ehrlichman in Nixon and recently as a redneck kidnapper in the 1997 thriller Breakdown.

DIED. ANTONIO PROHIAS, 77, Cloak-and-dagger cartoonist who sketched the antics of Spy vs. Spy in Mad magazine; in Miami.

DIED. WILLIAM ("BILLY") SULLIVAN, 86, scrappy co-founder of the AFL; in Atlantis, Fla. The NFL didn't want Sullivan, who was hardly a high-stakes player as president of a fuel-delivery company, so he cobbled together $25,000 to buy an AFL franchise, the Boston Patriots, in 1959. In 1988 he unloaded his investment for more than $80 million.

DIED. ABRAHAM RIBICOFF, 87, Connecticut statesman who helped guide a junior Senator from Massachusetts to the White House, becoming a member of John Kennedy's first Cabinet; in New York City. In 1956, as Governor of the Constitution State, Ribicoff suspended 10,346 driver's licenses--compared with 372 in the previous year--to curb speeding; as a Senator, he combatted de facto desegregation in the North. Ribicoff prized civility, but his career was branded by a fiery, televised image of him on the podium at the 1968 Democratic Convention, railing against the "Gestapo tactics" of Chicago's police.

DIED. HENNY YOUNGMAN, 91, motormouth comic who was once clocked at 250 one-liners in 45 minutes; in New York City. One favorite standby: "Take my wife--please!" (See Eulogy below.)