Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Nadia Mustafa, Carolyn Sayre

ENGAGED. India's wildly popular screen couple, Aishwarya Rai, 33, a former Miss World, and Abhishek Bachchan, 31, hunky son of film legend Amitabh Bachchan; in a private ceremony; in Mumbai. The Bollywood hotties, whose relationship had fueled gossip in Indian papers for months, have appeared together in several films, most recently the rags-to-riches tale Guru, which premiered in New York City Jan. 12.

DIED. Michael Brecker, 57, rich-toned, 11-time Grammy winner widely regarded as the most influential jazz saxophonist since John Coltrane; of leukemia; in New York City. A prized session player for artists from Chet Baker to Bruce Springsteen, he also dazzled as a front man in his own bands, including the rock fusion group the Brecker Brothers, with his trumpet-playing brother Randy. Of his early encounter with the dense, hypnotic riffs of Coltrane, who inspired him to become a professional musician, he said, "There seemed to be too many notes lying around. I kept listening to it, though, until one day something clicked for me, and the doors swung wide open."

DIED. Benny (B.P.) Parsons, 65, spirited taxi driver turned NASCAR champion and a fan favorite honored in 1988 as one of the organization's 50 greatest drivers; of lung cancer; in Charlotte, N.C. From 1964 until he retired in 1988 to call races for ESPN and other networks, he made 526 starts--with 283 Top 10 finishes--and memorably won the 1973 NASCAR championship and the 1975 Daytona 500.

DIED. Bong Soo Han, 73, Korean martial-arts grand master who introduced hapkido to the West; of complications from cancer; in Santa Monica, Calif. He moved to the U.S. after training in Korea in the art, which combines fluid, circular movement with fierce, sharp kicks. He taught thousands about "perfection of character" through his International Hapkido Federation, but was best known for his work in such films as The Kentucky Fried Movie and 1971's Billy Jack.

DIED. Donald Osterbrock, 82, courtly astrophysicist and longtime director of the University of California's Lick Observatory who mapped out the shapes of stars and galaxies; in Santa Cruz, Calif. A winner of such honors as the British Royal Astronomical Society's Gold Medal--almost never bestowed on an American--he determined that the Milky Way is shaped like a spiral and unearthed the processes that explain how the sun keeps its shape and size.

DIED. Bradford Washburn, 96, climber, cartographer and aerial photographer who in 1951 founded the all encompassing Museum of Science in Boston; in Lexington, Mass. Labeled "a roving genius of mind and mountains" by outdoor photographer Ansel Adams, Washburn mapped the Grand Canyon in the 1970s, using prisms and lasers to measure depth; and in 2000 he helped revise the height of Mount Everest, up to 29,035 ft., a 7-ft. correction.

DIED. Bo Yibo, 98, last surviving member of China's politically influential Eight Immortals; in Beijing. The group of veteran Communist Party leaders, purged during the Cultural Revolution, was elevated to top positions in the '80s and '90s under Deng Xiaoping. Although a conservative who supported the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, Bo steadfastly embraced Deng's financial reforms--which shifted China toward a market economy--and helped successfully fend off Marxist hard-liners determined to regain economic control.

DIED. Maureen Orcutt, 99, who played on four U.S. Curtis Cup teams and won more than 60 amateur golf championships, raising the profile of the women's sport during the 1930s, when no professional tour for women existed; in Durham, N.C. A World Golf Hall of Famer, she later wrote a column on golf for the New York Times, in which, as one of the nation's first female sportswriters, she tirelessly promoted the women's game.