Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Elisabeth Salemme

FIRED. Judith Regan, 53, controversial book publisher; by Harper- Collins, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.; after weeks of disastrous publicity over the planned, then scrapped, publication of If I Did It, O.J. Simpson's hypothetical account of how he would have committed the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman; in Los Angeles.

DIED. Lamar Hunt, 74, soft- spoken oil heir who founded the American Football League; in Dallas. Hunt enlisted fellow millionaires to start a new league in 1960, after the NFL refused to sell him a team. He became owner of the Dallas Texans and in 1963 moved the team to Kansas City, where it became the Chiefs. Hunt later coined the term Super Bowl for the big, season-ending match (the name came to him while he watched his daughter play with a Super Ball) and co-founded pivotal soccer groups, including the North American Soccer League and today's Major League Soccer.

DIED. Paul Arizin, 78, NBA Hall of Famer and a pioneer of the jump shot; in Springfield, Pa. The Villanova All-American developed the now ubiquitous shot in high school, where games were often played on slippery dance floors. "When I tried to hook, my foot would go out from under me, so I jumped," he once said. "I was always a good jumper."

DIED. Ahmet Ertegun, 83, singularly influential music mogul who in 1947 founded Atlantic Records, the label that launched seminal acts that included Ruth Brown, Ray Charles, Otis Redding (who called him Omelet), Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler and Cream; in New York City. The Turkish-born son of a diplomat, he fell in love with jazz in his youth, and as a teenager amassed a collection of 15,000 records. A hands-on producer, occasional songwriter, tireless talent scout and mentor to many of his artists, Ertegun--who started with a $10,000 loan from his dentist--popularized soul and later signed bands from the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin. Asked what he thought of Curtis Armstrong's nerdy portrayal of him in the film Ray, Ertegun said, "I don't care what the man looks like or anything, but it should have been somebody hip."

DIED. Georgia Gibbs, 87, sultry 1950s singer of torch songs, jazz and R&B who was affectionately known as Her Nibs Miss Gibbs, a reference to her diminutive stature; in New York City. Gibbs toured with Sid Caesar and Danny Kaye, made dozens of TV and radio appearances and recorded some of the era's biggest hits, including Tweedle Dee, recorded earlier by LaVern Baker, and the tango-inspired No. 1 hit Kiss of Fire.

DIED. Catherine Pollard, 88, the Boy Scouts of America's first female scoutmaster; in Seminole, Fla. Pollard, who had filled in as temporary leader of a troop in Milford, Conn., in the 1970s when no man volunteered, applied for the permanent job but was told women were not appropriate role models. Following a decade-long legal battle, the Scouts appointed her Milford's scoutmaster in 1988.

DIED. Raymond Shafer, 89, former Pennsylvania Governor; in Meadville, Pa. He chaired Richard Nixon's Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse--which stunned Nixon by recommending legalizing pot in small amounts. Shafer was nicknamed Dudley Do-Right for well-intentioned efforts that sometimes got him in trouble.

DIED. Martin Nodell, 91, creator of crime-fighting superhero Green Lantern and one of the last surviving artists from comics' golden age; in Muskego, Wis. Nodell got the idea for Green Lantern on a New York City subway when he noticed an engineer holding out a lantern. "It was green, which meant things were safe," he said. Infusing elements of Greek myth and Wagner's Ring operas, he created a flying good guy who draws his powers from a magic ring made from the remains of an ancient green lamp.

DIED. Augusto Pinochet, 91, Chilean general turned dictator who oversaw the torture of some 28,000 and "disappearance" of 3,200 perceived adversaries during his 17-year rule; in Santiago. After ousting Marxist President Salvador Allende in a bloody 1973 coup, the cunning, right-wing Pinochet banned political parties but also instituted free-market policies that stabilized Chile's economy. His 1998 arrest for war crimes as well as his subsequent house arrest offered some comfort to victims of his regime. But he always managed to evade trial, claiming illness and never expressing remorse. In 2003 he said, "I feel like a patriotic angel."

DIED. Peter Boyle, 71, actor who created some of show biz's most memorable eccentrics, both comedic and brutal, in films including Taxi Driver (a philosophical cabbie) and The Candidate (a shrewd campaign manager) and on the TV hit Everybody Loves Raymond (the title character's hilariously insensitive dad); of multiple myeloma and heart disease; in New York City. He chose acting after an unhappy stint as a monk and won seven Emmy nominations as Frank Barone on Raymond. His signature was finding vulnerability or humor in flawed characters, as in a masterly scene from the 1974 film Young Frankenstein. As the clumsy monster, he performs a soft-shoe routine with his creator (Gene Wilder) while screeching Irving Berlin's Puttin' On the Ritz. "He's big and ugly and scary," Boyle said of the ogre. "But he's just been born, remember, and it's been traumatic. To him the whole world is ... an alien environment."