Milestones

DIED. STAN MARGULIES,80, producer of the groundbreaking TV series Roots; in Los Angeles. After stints as a journalist and film publicist, Margulies started in movies working with Stanley Kubrick on Spartacus, but gained fameand an Emmyfor Roots in 1977, which raised America’s consciousness about slavery and black history. He also won Emmys for Roots’ 1979 sequel and for 1991’s Separate but Equal, a docudrama about the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice. For the big screen he produced nine movies,including perennial children’s favorite Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

DIED. ARTURO USLAR PIETRI, 94, Venezuelan novelist and politician who was one of the world’s leading Spanish-language writers; in Caracas. Uslar Pietri wrote 50 books, the best-known of which is the 1931 historical novel Las Lanzas Coloradas (The Red Lances), set against the backdrop of Venezuela’s struggle for independence from Spain in the early 19th century. He also played a prominent role in his country’s politics as a government minister, Supreme Court president, Senator and presidentialcandidate in 1963.

DIED. DONALD BRADMAN,92, Australian cricketer widely regarded as the greatest batsman in the history of the sport; in Adelaide. Bradman made his Test debut in 1928, and over the next 20 years played in 52 Test matches, achieving an unparalleled career average of 99.94 runs per innings and scoring a total of 29 centuries. Known as “The Don,” Bradman retired from Test cricket in 1948 and was knighted a year later.

DIED. GIN KANIE, 108, the last of Japan’s centenarian celebrity twins; in Nagoya. Gin and her sister Kin, who died inJanuary 2000, became household names after they turned 99 in 1991 and appeared in numerous television shows and commercials. Born in 1892, they lived through an era of tumultuous change in Japan, and made their first overseas tripto Taiwanwhen they were 102.

DIED. ARCHIBALD RANDOLPH (“A.R.”)AMMONS, 75, American poet whose conversational compositions on nature and the inner self were in contrast to the angry,rebellious verse of the American Beat poets of the 1950s and ’60s; in Ithaca, New York. A longtimeprofessor of English and poetry at Cornell University, Ammons published almost 30 books of poetry over 50 years. Among the honors he received were two National Book Awards, for Collected Poems in 1973 and for Garbage, often regarded as his finest work, in 1993.

CONVICTED. DARIO KORDIC,40, former Vice President of the self-proclaimed Bosnian-Croat Republic, of planning and instigating an ethnic cleansing campaign that resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Muslims during the 1992-95 Bosnian war; by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. In the landmark case, Kordic, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison, became the first senior politician to be convicted by the Tribunal.