Milestones, Jun. 29, 1959

Married. Brigitte Bardot, 24; and Jacques Charrier, 23, leading man in Brigitte’s latest film (Babette Goes to War); she for the second time, he for the first; in Louveciennes, France.

Died. George Reeves, 45, TV’s bullet-defying Superman; by his own hand (gunshot); in Beverly Hills, Calif. Though in private life Reeves resembled prissy Clark Kent more than Superman, he gloried in the role, kept in shape with bar bells beside his bed, but when Superman turned into reruns (1957) he was too closely identified with his extrahuman role to get a normal, worldly one.

Died. Acee Blue Eagle, 49, Creek-Pawnee artist who revived Indian hunts and ceremonials in vivid paintings, fought the white man as an extra in westerns; of a liver infection; in Muskogee, Okla.

Died. Joseph Barbara, 53, host to one of gangland’s most baffling conclaves at his plush hilltop home in Apalachin, N.Y.; of a heart attack; in Johnson City, N.Y. Mystery still shrouds Barbara’s famed barbecue, where police caught 65 Mafia mobsters carrying among them $300,000 in cash, a combined record of 153 arrests, 74 convictions. An immigrant (1921) from Sicily who was convicted only once (a $5,000 fine for sugar smuggling). Barbara avoided police for 25 years at Apalachin, but after his party he was indicted —with 26 others—for refusing to explain the purpose of the meeting and for evading $14,000 in income taxes.

Died. Max Sherover, 70, founder (1929) and president of the Linguaphone Institute of America, which offers a $60 phonograph record course in any of 34 languages and such offbeat items as a Dormiphone, which drills a student in vocabulary while he sleeps; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. Polish-born Sherover once edited a socialist newspaper in Buffalo, published a five-language trade journal in Japan, built a Brooklyn hotel. Able to converse in twelve languages, he used to startle garrulous cab drivers by correctly guessing their birthplaces.

Died. Hitoshi Ashida, 71, Premier (1948) of Japan, who went to jail briefly when his scandal-ridden coalition government (though backed by General MacArthur) collapsed after seven months, a member of the Diet in the 30s, who criticized Japan’s military aggression; of cancer; in Tokyo.

Died. Maurice M. Milligan, 74, tenacious U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri (1934-45), who toppled the corrupt Pendergast machine, sent Boss Tom Pendergast to jail for income tax evasion; in Kansas City, Mo. Milligan struck the entrenched machine at its vitals: the ballot box. He convicted 259 Pendergast lackeys for fraud in the 1936 election alone. He later lost (1940) a bitter primary race for U.S. Senator to Pendergast Protege Harry Truman, who as Vice President in 1945 closed Milligan’s career-by blocking his reappointment as D.A.

Died. Thomas I. Parkinson, 77, longtime (1927-53) president and board chairman of Equitable Life Assurance Society; of a stroke; in Bay Shore, L.I. Under his leadership, Equitable boosted its assets from less than $1 billion to $6.5 billion, became the third largest insurance company in the U.S. (after Metropolitan and Prudential). While building up Equitable, vigorous, outspoken Parkinson denounced inflationary policies of banks and Government, led the fight (1950) against an attempt to collect retroactive taxes from life insurance companies. His long, solid career ended in a cloud when he was accused of favoritism toward his son in placing contracts, and his own board, after a twelve-hour struggle, forced him to resign.