Milestones

By By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elisabeth Salemme

SENTENCED. Jeffrey Skilling, 52, vilified former CEO of Enron who was convicted in May for his role in engineering one of the biggest frauds in corporate history; to 24 years and four months in prison, the longest term yet for an Enron defendant; in Houston. At his sentencing, Skilling, whose arrogance and lack of remorse fueled outrage over the scandal, told the judge, "I am innocent of every one of these charges."

DIED. Sandy West, 47, pioneering rock drummer whose muscular riffs propelled the punk-metal sound of the Runaways, the all-girl band she co-founded in 1975 with Joan Jett; of lung cancer; in San Dimas, Calif. Although dismissed as a novelty act in the male-dominated world of rock, the Runaways influenced female-led bands from X Ray Spex to the Go-Gos with raw, bratty anthems like Cherry Bomb and Born to Be Bad.

DIED. Todd Skinner, 47, revered rock climber known for record-setting free ascents--climbs without the assistance of rope ladders and other equipment; following a 500-ft. fall as he was rappelling down Leaning Tower in Yosemite National Park, Calif. The ex--rodeo cowboy counted among his many firsts ascending the 4,700-ft. east face of Trango Tower in the Himalayas and the Salathe Wall of Yosemite's El Capitan.

DIED. Trevor Berbick, 51, Jamaican-born former heavyweight boxing champion best known as the man who ended the career of Muhammad Ali--beating him in 10 rounds in a 1981 battle in Nassau, the Bahamas; from head wounds in a suspected homicide; in Norwich, Jamaica.

DIED. Leonid Hambro, 86, concert pianist with a superhuman memory; in New York City. He dazzled with a 1952 performance at New York City's Town Hall, for which he had to learn complex works by composer Paul Hindemith in less than a day. But the Juilliard alum found broadest appeal as the straight man to funnyman-pianist Victor Borge, with whom he performed for 10 years, starting in 1961.

DIED. Eric Newby, 86, venerated, genial British travel writer who infused his accounts of trips to remote locales--which often proved disastrous--with wit and humanity; in Surrey, England. His signature work, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, detailed his long, illness-ridden ascent of Afghanistan's 20,000-ft. peak, Mir Samir.

DIED. Benjamin Meed, 88, who escaped the Warsaw ghetto and became an organizer of isolated Holocaust survivors after World War II, when many wanted to forget; in New York City. Meed--who immigrated to the U.S. in 1946--set up a national registry of survivors, which now has 195,000 entries, and co-founded the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. Of its members' efforts to move on and create families, he said, "Our vengeance was rebuilding life."

DIED. Arnold Jacob (Red) Auerbach, 89, cigar-chomping Hall of Fame basketball coach of the Boston Celtics and mastermind of one of the great franchises in sports history; in the Washington area. Auerbach drafted Larry Bird and coached the likes of Bill Russell and Bob Cousy to nine NBA championships--including a record streak of eight straight titles from 1959 to 1966.

DIED. Jane Wyatt, 96, actress who became TV's favorite mother figure; in Los Angeles. The decision by the blue-blooded Barnard College alumna to enter show business led to the removal of her name from New York City's Social Register--and to a long career playing, in her words, "good wives of good men." Briefly blacklisted following a 1947 trip to Washington to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee, Wyatt needed a push from her husband to take what became her most famous role, sensible suburban mom Margaret Anderson opposite Robert Young on TV's Father Knows Best, for which she won three Emmys during its six-year run in the 1950s. Among her other memorable roles: a Shangri-la beauty who takes a starlit skinny-dip in Frank Capra's Lost Horizon and the human mom to Leonard Nimoy's half-Vulcan Mr. Spock on Star Trek.