Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Sean Gregory, Janice M. Horowitz and Rebecca Winters

UPHELD. By the SUPREME COURT, California's "THREE STRIKES" law, which sends repeat offenders to prison for 25 years to life, and Megan's Law, which alerts the public to the names, addresses and photographs of sex offenders after they have been released from prison. The court rejected arguments that the popular law-and-order measures--prompted by the murders of two young girls, Polly Klaas in California and Megan Kanka in New Jersey--were unduly harsh and said they were necessary to protect the public.

RESIGNING. JANET REHNQUIST, 45, as Inspector General of the Health and Human Services Department; on June 1; amid a congressional investigation into her conduct; in Washington. the daughter of Chief Justice William Rehnquist was under fire for, among other things, seeking to delay an audit of a Florida pension fund until after the re-election of governor Jeb Bush, and possessing an unauthorized gun in her office.

DIED. HORST BUCHHOLZ, 69, German-born film star, best known to American audiences as one of the seven cowboys in the 1960 classic The Magnificent Seven and as a communist heartthrob in Billy Wilder's 1961 cold-war comedy One, Two, Three; of pneumonia; in Berlin.

DIED. HANK BALLARD, 75, rhythm-and-blues man whose soulful, often raunchy songs helped set the stage for Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry; of throat cancer; in Los Angeles. As frontman for the Midnighters, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer won teen adulation, if not radio play, for such racy hits as 1954's Work with Me Annie. In 1958 he wrote and recorded The Twist as the b side of the sappy Teardrops on Your Letter. After Chubby Checker recorded Twist a year later, the song launched a dance craze and became one of rock's seminal hits. "They call Chubby the father of the twist," Ballard said, "but he's just the stepfather. I'm the father."

DIED. GEORGE MILLER, 61, stand-up comedian and frequent guest on David Letterman's late-night talk show; of complications from a blood clot in the brain following a long bout with leukemia; in Los Angeles. He and Letterman met on the L.A. comedy-club circuit in the 1970s, and the talk-show host invited him for more guest appearances--56--than any other comic.

DIED. LUIS MARDEN, 90, genteel, globe-trotting explorer and photojournalist for National Geographic whose expeditions, which often involved disappearing for months at a time, produced numerous gems of reportage; in Arlington, Va. Marden arrived at the magazine in 1934 at 21, and over the next 64 years he retraced the transatlantic route of Christopher Columbus, unearthed dinosaur eggs in Madagascar, discovered the wreck of the H.M.S. Bounty in the South Pacific and helped pioneer the use of underwater photography.

DIED. SIR HARDY AMIES, 93, Savile Row designer who clothed Queen Elizabeth for four decades; in Langford, England. London's most successful couturier (with model Faraday, above), he was a self-described snob who disdained strapless gowns and resisted critics who would have the Queen look more chic, insisting her understated style suited her. "I'm for elitism and its survival," he said.