Milestones

DIED

Arthur Gelb, 90, long-tenured New York Times editor who rose from copy boy in 1944 to managing editor in 1986. Gelb played an instrumental role in growing the paper’s Arts and Metropolitan sections.

DIED

Don Meyer, 69, basketball coach at Northern State University who notched 923 career victories, the sixth most for any coach in men’s college basketball history.

DIED

Mary Stewart, 97, British author who penned the best-selling Crystal Cave Merlin trilogy and was a pioneer of the romantic-suspense-novel genre.

DIED

Viktor Sukhodrev, 81, Soviet interpreter who played a central role in Cold War summits, serving as a personal interpreter for every USSR leader from Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev.

DIED

Jerry Vale, 83, singer who rose to fame in the 1950s with songs like “Al Di La” and “You Don’t Know Me” and frequently adapted Italian love songs for American listeners.

DIED

Clyde Snow, 86, pioneering forensic anthropologist who studied skeletons for subtle clues about how their owners lived and died. He examined the remains of John F. Kennedy, King Tut and victims of John Wayne Gacy.