Milestones
DIED Though he wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, Larry Harmon was perhaps the best. First portraying Bozo in 1952, Harmon later acquired the rights to the character and trained others to portray him. As his wife Susan recalls, "At one time he had 183 different Bozos all going at the same time in this country!" His dedication to the icon and ability to make people laugh were pervasive. "You would be sitting at dinner, and he would do the Bozo laugh for you," his wife says. "He was a born entertainer." Harmon was 83.
A man who passed his state's bar exam without having attended a day of law school, former National Park Service director George Hartzog was anything but conventional. During his nine-year tenure as director, the South Carolina native brought nearly 70 new areas--some 2.7 million acres (1.1 million hectares)--under Park Service protection and often used daring techniques to secure funding, including shutting down parks two days each week when President Richard Nixon cut the budget in 1969. After a public outcry, the funding was restored, and Hartzog's legacy was secured as a dedicated proponent of the environment. He was 88.
By age 12, Russian ballerina Irina Baronova had already won critics' hearts, thanks to famed choreographer George Balanchine. He launched the young dancer's career when he cast her in a 1931 performance of the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld. Baronova went on to perform in ballets such as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, but she is best known for touring the world with two other young Balanchine proteges. The trio, known as the "Baby Ballerinas," was hugely popular in the 1930s. Baronova was 89.