--- description: Born. To Barbara Bel Geddes, 30, actress of stage (The Moon Is Blue) and screen (I Remember Mama), and Windsor Lewis, 34, summer-theater producerdirector: their first child, a daughter; in... title: Milestones, Jun. 15, 1953 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Milestones, Jun. 15, 1953 by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 15, 1953 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jun 15, 1953 4:00 AM CUT Born. To Barbara Bel Geddes, 30, actress of stage (The Moon Is Blue) and screen (I Remember Mama), and Windsor Lewis, 34, summer-theater producerdirector: their first child, a daughter; in Manhattan. Weight: 5 Ibs. 11 oz. Born. To Judy Canova, 36, hillbilly screen and radio (The Judy Canova Show) comedienne, and Philip Rivero, 39, wealthy Cuban importer: their first child, a daughter. Name: Diana. Weight: 8 Ibs. 14½ oz. Marriage Revealed. Ethel Merman, 44, trumpet-voiced songstress of stage & screen (Call Me Madam); and Robert Forman Six, 45, oilman president of Continental Air Lines; he for the second time, she for the third (her second marriage, to American Weekly Publisher Robert D. Levitt, ended in divorce last year); in Mexicali, Mexico, on March 9\. Married. Sir Alexander Korda, 59, British cinemogul (The Third Man, Breaking Through the Sound Barrier); and Alexandra Irene Boycun, 23, farm-bred Canadian singer; he for the third time, she for the first; in a surprise civil ceremony at Vence, in southern France. Said Moviemaker Korda: “She has never played in a film, and never will.” Divorced. By Diana Lynn, 26, cinemingenue (Meet Me at the Fair): John C. Lindsay, 35, Beverly Hills architect; after 4½ years of marriage, no children; in Santa Monica, Calif. Died. William Tatem (“Big Bill”) Tilden II, 60, longtime international tennis champion and one of the U.S.’s great athletes; of a heart attack; in Hollywood (see SPORT). Died. Roland Young, 65, veteran London-born cinemactor (Topper, Ruggles of Red Gap), whose clipped moustache, clipped accent and acidly debonair style made him a comic stand-by of the U.S. screen for more than two decades; in Manhattan. Died. James Shelley Hamilton, 69, composer of the famed college ballad Lord Jeffrey Amherst, and pioneer Hollywood scriptwriter (The Perils of Pauline); of uremic poisoning; in Rutland, Vt. Died. William Farnum, 76, oldtime idol of the silent screen; in Los Angeles. Making his cinema debut in The Spoilers (1914), He-Man Farnum outpunched Villain Tom Santschi in the-movies’ first bloody balcony-to-street saloon brawl, spent three days in the hospital with a broken nose, cuts and bruises, bent ribs. In the early ’20s Farnum made as much as $520,000 a year, lost $2,000,000 in the ’29 crash, survived the transition to sound to play supporting roles (Samson and Delilah). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6620931/milestones-jun-15-1953/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6620931/milestones-jun-15-1953/"},"headline":"Milestones, Jun. 15, 1953","datePublished":"1953-06-15T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T06:50:23.536Z","description":"Born. To Barbara Bel Geddes, 30, actress of stage (The Moon Is Blue) and screen (I Remember Mama), and Windsor Lewis, 34, summer-theater producerdirector: their first child, a daughter; in...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6620931/milestones-jun-15-1953/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6620931/milestones-jun-15-1953/","name":"Milestones, Jun. 15, 1953"}}]}] ```