Milestones

By Camille Agon, Harriet Barovick, David Bjerklie, SCOTT BROWN, Justin Fox, Scott MacLeod, Tim McGirk, Elisabeth Salemme, Carolyn Sayre, MARK THOMPSON

DIED

One Easter Sunday, when he was 3, Alvin Batiste slipped away from his family to follow a group of musicians on a parade route--a fitting start for a founder of New Orleans' modern-jazz scene. A versatile clarinetist-composer for greats from Ray Charles to Cannonball Adderley, Batiste drew national attention in the '80s as a member of the innovative band Clarinet Summit. The bebop master died of an apparent heart attack hours before he was to perform alongside Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. He was 74.

He was no Olivier, but in the 1950s Gordon Scott, a Las Vegas lifeguard turned actor, re-created a literate Tarzan and won acclaim for sporting the loincloth in one of the series' best films, 1959's sweeping and suspenseful Tarzan's Greatest Adventure. Scott, who faded into obscurity in the '60s, was aware that his appeal lay in his beefy pecs. "Tarzan was ideal for me," he said, "because I didn't have too much dialogue." He was 80.

Original Mercury 7 astronaut Walter Schirra Jr. was perfect for the part of brash space pioneer. The only one to fly in all three of NASA's first space programs, the garrulous, coolly competent perfectionist had a blast, smuggling a corned-beef sandwich aboard the Mercury, joking to reporters about his thoughts before a launch ("This was all put together by the lowest bidder") and cheering Americans with intra-capsule antics covered on TV. Yet he was the go-to guy for such delicate assignments as Gemini 6A--in which he made a critical snap call to stay aboard after an initial malfunction on the first launch attempt, and went on to outshine the Soviets by artfully orchestrating the first-ever space rendezvous. Recalling how vulnerable Earth looked from above, he said, "I left Earth three times and found no other place to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth." He was 84.

His esteemed career as a fair, levelheaded British politician may have been overshadowed by his fame. Onetime tailor Lord Weatherill, who kept a thimble in his pocket to stay humble, won fans by resisting pressure from fellow Tory Margaret Thatcher to be more partisan while he was Speaker of the House of Commons. Yet more knew him as the man who ushered in the age of TV coverage of the chamber in 1989 and the last Speaker to wear the traditional wig. (It allowed for selective hearing, he said.) He was 86.

It was an unofficial rule of stage and screen: If you need an actor to tap-dance, hire Henry LeTang, fast. Over six decades, the soft-spoken gentle giant of tap ran a world-renowned New York City studio. Among his credits: choreographing films (The Cotton Club, Tap) and Broadway musicals (Sophisticated Ladies, Eubie!, Black and Blue--the last of which won him a Tony). He mentored some of tap's brightest stars, including Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Chita Rivera and Ben Vereen. He was 91.

In 1947, the year Jackie Robinson debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a less celebrated event occurred: Pepsi hired adman Edward Boyd to promote the cola among blacks. With sleek images of happy, middle-class black consumers and endorsements from stars like Duke Ellington, Boyd pioneered niche marketing and boosted sales wherever his campaign ran--notably Chicago, where Pepsi overtook Coke for the first time. He was 92.

Three decades of sectarian conflict faded, at least temporarily, when Protestant Democratic Unionist Party head Ian Paisley, 81, became Northern Ireland's First Minister and Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness, 56, became Deputy First Minister. The historic union of Northern Ireland's major Protestant and Catholic parties prompted praise from Paisley for the "new beginning" and an optimistic declaration from Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams: "We are going to succeed."