Milestones Aug. 27, 2001

SUSPENDED. JOSEPH ELLIS, 57, Pulitzer-prizewinning history professor who regaled his students with fabricated tales about his combat experiences in Vietnam; for one year without pay from his teaching post at Mount Holyoke College; in South Hadley, Mass. Ellis, author of such popular works as Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, issued a formal apology in June after the Boston Globe reported he had never served overseas. He must relinquish his endowed chair.

SUSPENDED. PETER BART, 69, Hollywood influence monger and former producer; from his post as editor of Variety, the entertainment industry’s most powerful trade publication. Its owner, Cahners Business Information, said it would investigate charges made in the latest issue of Los Angeles magazine, in which anonymous sources claim that in meetings at Variety, his language was filled with offensive remarks about women, gays and minorities. The magazine quotes him as describing middle-class African Americans as “not very black” and “ghetto blacks” as those who “bury themselves in black-itude.” Other charges: that he manufactured anonymous quotes, kept staff members from reporting negative stories about his friends and violated his own conflict-of-interest rule by selling a screenplay to Paramount. Bart denied the allegations.

EXECUTION STAYED. NAPOLEON BEAZLEY, 25, death-row inmate who was 17 when he killed a 63-year-old man in a carjacking attempt; in Huntsville, Texas. Though neither Governor Rick Perry nor the U.S. Supreme Court (in a rare 3-to-3 vote, with three Justices abstaining because they know the victim’s son, a federal judge) would halt the execution amid protest against applying the death penalty to teens, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a reprieve four hours before his scheduled death.

RECOVERING. JOSHUA FARRAKHAN, 42, one of nine children of inflammatory Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan; from gunshot wounds; in Chicago. The minister’s son was visiting a friend on Chicago’s South Side when two attackers entered the house just after 1 a.m., shot him once in each leg, then beat him and a woman who was in the home. Farrakhan, described as “his father’s right hand,” remains in fair condition.

DIED. EARL ANTHONY, 63, gentlemanly champion bowler and record-setting title winner; after falling down a flight of stairs at a friend’s house; in New Berlin, Wis. Anthony won 41 titles on the regular Professional Bowlers Association Tour, setting a record that still stands in a sport that was his second-choice career: his quest to become a major-league pitcher was derailed by an ankle injury in the minors. He failed to win a pro-bowling title until past age 30, but went on to become a six-time Bowler of the Year, the tour scoring leader five times, and the first to amass $1 million in prize money ($1,441,011 in all).

DIED. FLOYD SPENCE, 73, 16-term G.O.P. Congressman from South Carolina and former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; after emergency brain surgery to remove a blood clot; in Jackson, Miss. An opponent of Big Government, he was nevertheless a proponent of an enlarged military and national missile-defense program.