Milestones
By Harriet Barovick, Gilbert Cruz, Kristina Dell, Andrea Ford, Sean Gregory, Elisabeth Salemme, Carolyn Sayre, Tiffany Sharples, Alexandra Silver, Kate Stinchfield
DIED His deadly alleged exploits--a 1985 hijacking that led to the death of a U.S. Navy diver; attacks that killed 200 Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s; the 1992 bombing of Israel's embassy in Argentina--put him on the FBI's most-wanted list. After a car bombing in Damascus, officials announced that Hizballah's Imad Mughniyah had been killed. The incident, for which Hizballah blamed Israel (who denied involvement), was a hefty blow to the militant group--it was the first killing of a top leader since 1992. Mughniyah was believed to be 45.
o In the weeks after 9/11, TV broadcasters were beacons for edgy viewers. Few were more unflappable than former ABC News chief national-security correspondent John McWethy. After a plane crashed into the Pentagon, the Emmy-winning McWethy, then in the building, reported from a nearby lawn. Known for his fairness, wit, trove of sources and willingness to tell editors they were wrong, he counted among his admirers the most senior members of ABC and the Defense Department. McWethy, recently retired, died after sliding chest-first into a tree while skiing. He was 60.
o He had one of the most famous lines in movie history. As police chief Brody in the 1975 blockbuster Jaws, Roy Scheider at last sees the 25-foot great white and says to shark hunter Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." The ex-boxer first got attention, and an Oscar nomination, as Gene Hackman's police partner in The French Connection and proved he could be vulnerable as choreographer Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse's semiautobiographical All That Jazz, a role for which he had to learn to dance. The film, Scheider's favorite, won him critical raves and another Oscar nod. He was 75 and had blood cancer.
o The order of malta, an ancient-Rome-based humanitarian entity whose senior members are knights and other nobles, aids victims of war and disaster, issues its own passports and holds diplomatic ties with 100 nations. In 1988 Andrew Bertie, a descendant of Britain's royal Stuarts, became its first British grand master since 1258. The journalist turned teacher upped membership, expanded relief efforts and doubled diplomatic missions. He was 78.
o When he was 16, The nazis occupied his native Hungary. Years after escaping death camps and fighting Nazis underground, Tom Lantos became the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress. The visible, sometimes blunt 14-term California Democrat, whose mother perished in the war, proudly ruffled feathers as a loud, consistent advocate for human rights. In one year as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Lantos demanded Japan apologize for wartime sex slavery and declared Turkey's World War I mass killing of Armenians genocide. Lantos was 80.
o Harry Caray he wasn't. But graphic designer Karl Ehrhardt achieved cult fame among baseball fans as the New York Mets' self-appointed commentator. From 1964 to 1981, the "Sign Man of Shea Stadium"--whom the Mets flew to the 1973 World Series for good luck--sat in the stands and held up hundreds of prepared block-lettered placards to tweak (JOSE CAN YOU SEE? when Jose Cardenal struck out) or praise (IT'S ALIVE! when a weak player got a hit). "I called them the way I saw them," he said. He was 83.
o He shot the A-bomb tests of the 1950s and stories on autism and education, but Allan Grant, a staff photographer for LIFE magazine from the '40s through the '60s, made his name capturing stars. The dashing Grant caught Howard Hughes flying his Spruce Goose in 1947, Richard Nixon atop his house during the 1961 Brentwood-Bel Air fire and the last pictures of Marilyn Monroe alive (shown above). Grant was 88.