Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Elisabeth Salemme

SENTENCED. James Barker, 23, U.S. Army specialist; to 90 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to participating in the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of the girl, her younger sister and her parents last March in the village of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad; in Fort Campbell, Ky. Asked why he did it, Barker, who cut a deal to avoid the death penalty and agreed to testify against his four alleged co-conspirators, said, "I hated Iraqis ... They can smile at you, then shoot you in your face without even thinking about it."

DIED. Florence Tullis, 70, former go-go dancer and biker mother of the severely disfigured Rocky Dennis, whose life was dramatized in the award-winning 1985 film Mask; of an infection following a motorcycle accident; in Montebello, Calif. As portrayed by Cher, Tullis dismissed predictions that Rocky--whose skull deformity grossly enlarged his face--would not live past age 7 and fought teachers who discouraged him from attending public school. Rocky died at 16, nine years before Tullis lost her elder son, Joshua, to AIDS. "You don't understand," she said to people who pitied her. "My kids lived every day of their lives."

DIED. Joseph Ungaro, 76, journalist whose question at a 1973 editors' conference--about whether Richard Nixon had accurately reported his income taxes--prompted Nixon to reply "I am not a crook," the line that forever haunted him; in South Kingstown, R.I.

DIED. Ruth Brown, 78, Big Band singer turned R&B diva, known for her seductive delivery and ability to sway between tenderness and swagger; in Las Vegas. In the 1950s the fledgling Atlantic Records--for whom she recorded hits like Teardrops from My Eyes and (Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean--was called "the house that Ruth built." After a 25-year lull, she won new fans in the '80s, performing in the Broadway stage revue Black and Blue and winning a Grammy for the 1989 album Blues on Broadway.

DIED. Robert McCurry, 83, auto-industry executive who developed Toyota's luxury Lexus line in 1989 and, at Chrysler, created cash rebates to sell cars, now a standard practice in the industry; in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

DIED. Lee Gordon, 84, the first U.S. prisoner of war to escape a German camp during World War II; in Menlo Park, Calif. In October 1943, after two failed attempts to flee Stalag VIIA, he used a fake ID tag to enter an outdoor work area, sneaked past a distracted guard and walked away. He reunited with Allies through a French Resistance group, arriving a free man in England a year later. In the 2000 TV documentary Escape from a Living Hell, he recalled stumbling, free, into a French cafe: "The waitress walked up to me. I looked at her, and I said, 'I'm an American.'"

DIED. Marian Marsh, 93, starlet of 1930s Hollywood who, in her short-lived career--she retired in 1942 at age 29--won acclaim for playing innocents, memorably the milkmaid turned diva Trilby in Svengali (tagline: "All Paris desired her, but Svengali owned her!"), opposite John Barrymore; in Palm Desert, Calif.

DIED. Milton Friedman, 94, pioneering free-market economist who won a Nobel Prize in 1976; in San Francisco (see page 59).

DIED. Bo Schembechler, 77, gruff, opinionated ex--University of Michigan football coach who won 13 Big Ten championships and over 21 seasons became the winningest coach in Michigan history; in Southfield, Mich. His death darkened the mood of the most important college football game of the year, No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Michigan, which Ohio State won, 42-39. In 1969, his first year at Michigan, Schembechler sent ripples through the college-football world by leading the struggling Wolverines to a 24-12 upset over Ohio State, coached by his friend and mentor, the irascible Woody Hayes. That game lifted the century-long rivalry to a more explosive level; it remains college football's fiercest. An unrelenting disciplinarian, Schembechler, who compiled a 234-64-8 career record over 26 years, collapsed after taping a TV preview of the big game--a show he insisted on completing despite feeling ill. "There are laid-back coaches who are highly successful," he said last week. "I'm just not one of them."