Milestones, Oct. 22, 1951

Born. To Valentina Cortesa, 25, Italian-born cinemactress (Thieves’ Highway), and Richard Basehart, 27, Ohio-born cinemactor (Fourteen Hours) : their first child, a son. Name: John. Weight: 7 Ibs. 10 oz.

Married. Linell Chenault Nash, 19, daughter of Poet Ogden Nash (Family Reunion), U.S. master of versiflage; and John Marshall Smith, 29, Baltimore insurance man; in Baltimore.

Married. Nancy Chaffee, 22, sixth-ranking U.S. women’s tennis star, and Ralph Kiner, 28, Pittsburgh Pirates left fielder; for five seasons in a row, the major leagues’ home-run king (51 in 1947, 40 in 1948, 54 in 1949, 47 in 1950, 42 in 1951);* in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Married. Stepin Fetchit (real name: Lincoln Theodore Andrew Monroe Perry), 53, molasses-slow Negro comedy actor of the ’30s (David Harum), now making a film comeback; and Bernice Sims, 35, housekeeper to a Catholic priest in Tulsa; he for the second time; in Tulsa.

Died. Leon Errol, 70, veteran stage & screen comedian; of a heart attack; in Hollywood. Equipped with collapsible legs and an elastic face which he contorted into caricatures of exasperation, bewilderment, bliss or imbecility, he played most often the part of a tottering drunk. In Australia, where he was born, he left a Shakespearian stock company to travel with a circus as clown, acrobat and animal trainer. He came to the U.S. in 1908, rose from burlesque to become one of Ziegfeld’s top comedians (Sally in 1920), later went to Hollywood, where he made scores of strenuous two-reelers.

Died. Edgar Byram Davis, 78, eccentric Texas oil millionaire, best known for his support of a famous Broadway flop, The Ladder, which he kept going for two years because he wanted to help its author and spread its message of reincarnation; of a heart ailment; in Galveston, Texas. Davis made a rubber fortune in Sumatra and got $12 million for the sale of his oil wells in Texas, spent his money lavishly on such items as $1,000,000 in bonuses for drillers and a golf course for his Negro servants. The Ladder became a favorite target for reviewers’ darts, and Davis had to give away tickets to provide an audience. He squandered $1,300,000 on it before it closed in 1927 to the faint applause of 54 nonpaying guests.

Died. Everett Welles Frazar, 84, who inherited Frazar & Co., oldest and biggest Oriental trading company in the U.S. (founded in 1856 by his father), which introduced automobiles, airplanes, electric lights, phonographs and food-canning to Japan; in Daytona Beach, Fla.

*The all time record: Babe Ruth’s 60 in 1927.