Milestones, Aug. 7, 1972

Died. Lance Reventlow, 36, auto racer and heir to the Woolworth five-and-ten fortune; in a plane crash; near Aspen, Colo. The son of Barbara Hutton and the second of her seven husbands, Reventlow devoted most of his time and much of his $25 million inheritance to his passion for racing. Though he mockingly described himself as “a playboy,” his win in Nassau’s 1958 Governor’s Cup Race—in a car he both designed and drove—established Reventlow’s reputation as a serious competitor. His love of auto racing and his refusal to give it up led to divorce from his first wife, Actress Jill St. John, in 1964. He later married a former Disney TV Mouseketeer and left the tracks in favor of polo and skiing. –

Died. Rose LaRose, 59, ecdysiast extraordinary whose artistry as a burlesque stripper earned her $2,000 a week during the 1940s; of cancer; in Toledo. A five-foot-two brunette, LaRose began working as a cashier in New York City’s Minsky’s Theater at the age of 14 to buy herself clothes for school. She quickly graduated to the stage, then to stardom, and in her heyday paid as much as $2,500 per costume. After her retirement from the runway in 1958, she managed her own burlesque house in Toledo before hard times forced its conversion into an adult movie theater. –

Died. Helen Traubel, 69, the Metropolitan Opera’s dominant Wagnerian soprano of the 1940s and ’50s; following a heart attack; in Santa Monica, Calif. A buxom woman with a gigantic voice, the St. Louis-born singer was the first fully American-trained soprano to play Isolde and the three Brünnhildes at the Met. Many critics considered her superior to her rival, Kirsten Flagstad. Independent and unstuffy, she was dropped by Met Manager Rudolf Bing for singing in nightclubs. She withdrew to care for her ailing husband and former business manager, William Bass. –

Died. Senator Allen J. Ellender, 81, by seniority automatically president pro tempore of the Senate and therefore third in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency; of a heart attack; in Bethesda, Md. The Senate’s oldest and most senior member, Ellender was a graduate of Huey Long’s once powerful political machine and was elected to succeed Huey as Senator after Long’s assassination in 1935. Though Ellender loyally supported liberal New Deal legislation, he was an old-style Dixie conservative on matters of segregation and social legislation, and once filibustered over 27 hours against an anti-lynching bill. Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee for the past year, he was campaigning for his seventh term at the time of his death.