Milestones

By Richard Corliss; Melissa August, Elizabeth L. Bland, Janice M. Horowitz, Unmesh Kher and Kate Novack

DIED. ROBERT STACK, 84, grimacing movie stalwart; of heart failure; in Los Angeles. Over a 60-year career, he is best remembered as Eliot Ness in TV's The Untouchables. But the L.A. native was equally impressive in 1950s epics by Budd Boetticher (The Bullfighter and the Lady), Samuel Fuller (House of Bamboo) and William Wellman (The High and the Mighty). Beneath his rugged looks and rough voice, Stack often suggested a psychic danger, an imminent imploding that got him an Oscar nomination for Written on the Wind and gave his Ness the undertone of obsessiveness: a G-man Javert. As host of Unsolved Mysteries, Stack lent this same Old Testament God authority to tales of missing persons and unquiet ghosts. And he was married to the same woman for 46 years. All in all, a life that might make even Robert Stack smile. --By Richard Corliss

MARRIED. CAROL CHANNING, 82, relentlessly effervescent actress best known for her role in the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!; to a junior-high sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, 83; in Atherton, Calif. The pair was reunited after a mutual friend saw several mentions of Kullijian in Channing's recent autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, and suggested he call her. His first response: "I thought she was dead."

WON. FUNNY CIDE; the Preakness Stakes; bringing him one step closer to being the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years; in Baltimore.

CONFIRMED. POPE JOHN PAUL II, 83, suffers from Parkinson's disease, according to a senior Vatican official. It was the first official acknowledgement of the Pope's disease, although doctors, noting his slurred speech and trembling hands, had guessed his condition for years.

RECUPERATING. GERALD FORD, 89, former President; hospitalized briefly after becoming dizzy while playing golf; in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

DIED. NOEL REDDING, 57, bassist with the Jimi Hendrix Experience; of natural causes; in Ireland. Redding, whose untraditional bass line provided essential support to Hendrix's revolutionary guitar playing, backed Hendrix on three of the most influential records of the late 1960s.

DIED. DAVE DEBUSSCHERE, 62, Hall of Famer who starred on the New York Knicks' championship teams of the early 1970s; of a heart attack; in New York City. Known for his tenacious defense and rebounding, he joined the Knicks as the dependable power forward they needed to become the smartest, most unselfish team in basketball history.

DIED. PRINCE SADRUDDIN AGA KHAN, 70, tireless philanthropist and environmentalist; after a short illness; in Boston. Both the youngest and longest serving U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Prince Sadruddin spent nearly four decades working with the U.N. on disaster relief before devoting his later years to preserving the Alps and protecting rare birds.

DIED. MARK MCCORMACK, 72, father of sports marketing; after a heart attack; in New York City. Before McCormack helped turn Arnold Palmer into golf's first celebrity, athletes could expect only product samples and meager sums for making commercials and public appearances. Today his billion-dollar-a-year company, IMG, with 85 offices in 35 nations, stands alone in managing lucrative athletic careers. He had been called the most powerful man in golf, tennis and sports.

DIED. JUNE CARTER CASH, 73, country singer and songwriter and wife of country giant Johnny Cash; after heart surgery; in Nashville, Tenn. Born into the Carter family, country-music royalty, she started performing at age 6 with her mother, Mother Maybelle Carter, and is best known for co-writing the classic Ring of Fire, a tortured love song about her husband, which he performed.

DIED. DAME WENDY HILLER, 90, eminent British stage star and Oscar-winning film actress; in London. A regal woman with a rich voice, Hiller was George Bernard Shaw's leading lady, first as Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion and then, most memorably, in Major Barbara. Her aristocratic bearing served her well as a tourist in Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express and as the elegant widow in the London stage version of Driving Miss Daisy.