Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Victoria Rainert, Sora Song, Deirdre VanDyk

MARRIED. J.K. ROWLING, 36, multi-millionaire Harry Potter creator, to physician NEIL MURRAY, 30; in Perthshire, Scotland. It is the second marriage for both.

CLEARED. ROBERT TORRICELLI, 50, Democratic New Jersey Senator alleged to have accepted illegal gifts from donor David Chang; after three years of investigation by U.S. prosecutors, who declined to file charges. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White referred material from the probe to the Senate Ethics Committee.

FIRED. DENNIS GREEN, 52, coach of the Minnesota Vikings for the past 10 years; after a hapless 5-10 season in which he was criticized for losing control of his players, notably star receiver Randy Moss.

DIED. KATHRYN KING, 30, ex-wife of the late CIA officer Johnny ("Mike") Spann, who was killed in November during a prison uprising in Afghanistan; of cancer; in Birmingham, Ala. Spann's parents plan to raise their two young daughters.

DIED. LANCE LOUD, 50, journalist, punk rocker and eldest son of the Santa Barbara, Calif., Loud family, whom PBS filmed for 300 hours for the groundbreaking 1973 documentary An American Family; of complications from hepatitis C; in Los Angeles. With its intimate look at family life, the 12-part series won the praise of Margaret Mead; the openly gay Lance, who wore blue lipstick and came out on the show, was its star. The Louds later regretted participating. Lance wrote, "Television ate my family."

DIED. JULIA PHILLIPS, 57, producer of such 1970s movie hits as The Sting and Taxi Driver, whose biting 1991 book, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, scandalized Hollywood; of cancer; in West Hollywood, Calif. Phillips skewered herself along with celebrities like Warren Beatty ("priapic") and Mike Ovitz ("a Valley viper") in her book. Of the angry reaction in Hollywood, Phillips said, "I wasn't a pariah because I was a drug-addicted...rotten person [but] because I lit them with a harsh fluorescent light and rendered them as contemptible as they truly are."

DIED. NIGEL HAWTHORNE, 72, British stage and screen actor internationally known for his role as the pompous, conniving civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby in the 1980s British television series Yes, Minister; of a heart attack; in Hertfordshire, England. Expert at dry, laconic wit, Hawthorne scored a late-career triumph in the title role of The Madness of King George, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.

DIED. ALFRED HEINEKEN, 78, beer tycoon and marketing guru who led the Heineken brewery through nearly half a century of growth and designed its famous red star logo; in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

DIED. EILEEN HECKART, 82, animated, gravelly-voiced actress known for her down-to-earth performances on stage, screen and television; of cancer; in Norwalk, Conn. Widely known as Mary's savvy Aunt Flo on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Heckart got her break in Picnic on Broadway in 1953 and won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as the overbearing mother in the 1972 film Butterflies Are Free. In 2000 she returned to the stage with an acclaimed performance as a woman dying of Alzheimer's in The Waverly Gallery.

DIED. DAN DECARLO, 82, Archie Comics cartoonist known for sketching curvy women; of pneumonia; in Scarsdale, N.Y. The creator of the characters Josie and the Pussycats and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, DeCarlo worked for the comics publisher for more than 40 years.

DIED. FOSTER BROOKS, 89, teetotaler whose trademark act--an endearing lush trying to pretend he's sober--was a staple of TV variety shows of the '70s and '80s; in Encino, Calif. A friend asked Brooks to tell a few jokes at a 1969 charity golf tournament. His improvised drunk, which delighted the power crowd, led to appearances on Dean Martin roasts and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.