Milestones Jul. 15, 2002

To be DEPORTED. MOHAMMED NOUR AL-DIN SAFFI, 36, New Zealand citizen and stepson of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein; after his arrest by FBI and immigration officials. Saffi, in the U.S. on a tourist visa, admitted not having the student visa required for his planned enrollment at a Miami aviation school.

DIED. JOHN FRANKENHEIMER, 72, acute director of social dramas and political thrillers; after spinal surgery; in Los Angeles. A force in TV and movies for nearly half a century, he directed 42 Playhouse 90 shows (including Days of Wine and Roses) before turning to feature films. In 1962 he made Birdman of Alcatraz and The Manchurian Candidate, template for the modern paranoid conspiracy tragicomedy. Seven Days in May and Seconds painted bleak portraits of an America at war with its best instincts. He sagged personally and professionally after the death of Robert Kennedy, whom he drove to the candidate’s rendezvous with an assassin. The director rebounded in the ’90s with such HBO films as Andersonville, George Wallace and The Burning Season; he won four Emmys.

DIED. ARTHUR MELIN, 77, entrepreneurial co-founder of Wham-O, the toy giant that brought baby boomers the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee and the SuperBall; of Alzheimer’s disease; in Costa Mesa, Calif. After a friend showed Melin and his partner a rattan hoop popular in Australia, Wham-O introduced a plastic version in 1958. Mania over the Hula Hoop was ferocious but short lived; it cost Wham-O, which at one point made 20,000 a day, $10,000 in losses that year.

DIED. KATY JURADO, 78, Mexican actress, who often played sultry seductresses but was best known in the U.S. for roles in 1952’s High Noon (as Gary Cooper’s ex-mistress) and 1954’s Broken Lance (the placating wife of Spencer Tracy), for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress; in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

DIED. HENRY (BUDDY) CIANFRANI, 79, flamboyant Democratic strategist and former Pennsylvania state senator who won back an old ward-leader seat in 1988 after serving 27 months in jail in the late ’70s on racketeering charges; after a stroke in May; in Philadelphia. His romance with his future wife, journalist Laura Foreman, who covered him at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times, led Times executive editor A.M. Rosenthal to ask for Foreman’s resignation in 1977, reportedly saying, “It’s O.K. to f___ elephants, just don’t cover the circus.”

DIED. TED WILLIAMS, 83, Hall of Fame Boston Red Sox slugger (see APPRECIATION, p. 72).

DIED. BENJAMIN DAVIS JR., 89, first black general of the Air Force, who led a group of all-black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen; in Washington. In a segregated military during World War II, Davis and his men escorted bombers over Europe; their success is credited with helping integrate the armed forces.

DIED. RAY BROWN, 75; nimble-fingered jazz bassist whose deep, rich tones and swinging, melodious style elevated the upright bass from a reliable rhythm setter to a sophisticated starring player; in his sleep; in Indianapolis, Ind. On Brown’s first day in New York City, in 1945, he won a place in Dizzy Gillespie’s famously fast-paced, tuneful bebop quintet. A longtime member of the Oscar Peterson trio–hailed by many critics as the best ensemble of its kind–Brown, a generous mentor to younger musicians, later played in an early incarnation of the Modern Jazz Quartet. He collaborated with vocalists like Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, left, who became his wife, and performed on some 2,000 recordings, including the early signature One Bass Hit.