Milestones, Jul. 5, 1971

Died. Claire McGill Luce, 47, former publishing executive, and since 1960 wife of TIME Publisher Henry Luce III; of cancer; on Fishers Island, N.Y. At the age of twelve, Mrs. Luce was already hard at work as a cook and cowgirl on her grandfather’s Oregon cattle ranch. After joining Time Inc. in 1943, she soon assumed responsibility for managing the company’s stock portfolio and various holdings. She left the company in 1948 to join a special U.S. aid mission to China, where she was twice the target of snipers, and returned to Time Inc. eight years later as business manager of the company’s new-building department. Mrs. Luce had been a director of the China Institute in America since 1964.

Died. James Ramsey Ullman, 63, author-adventurer; of cancer; in Boston. The Manhattan-born son of a bookie, Ullman became “more familiar with Tibet than with Times Square.” After a brief career in the theater, he headed for the Andes in 1936, returned the next year to write The Other Side of the Mountain. Among Ullman’s later works was the bestselling 1945 novel The White Tower.

Died. Libby Holman, 65, tragedy-plagued torch singer of the 1920s and 30s; in Stamford, Conn. Beauty and an earthy voice propelled her to stardom on Broadway, where she is best remembered for her bluesy renditions of such songs as Body and Soul and Moanin’ Low. In 1931 she married Tobacco Heir Zachary Smith Reynolds, who was mysteriously shot to death the following year. Libby was indicted, along with one of Reynolds’ friends, but murder charges were dropped for lack of evidence. In 1945 her second husband, Actor Ralph Holmes, died from an apparent overdose of sleeping pills; five years later, her 17-year-old son Christopher was accidentally killed while mountain climbing in California.

Died. Lord John Boyd Orr, 90, Nobel-prizewinning nutritionist; near Edzell, Scotland. A pipe-smoking Scotsman who advocated the creation of a “global granary” to feed the world’s hungry, Lord Boyd Orr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949 after battling hunger as the first director-general of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Died. John S. Sumner, 94, for 35 years quixotic guardian of New York City’s morals; of pneumonia; in Floral Park, N.Y. As executive secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice between 1915 and 1950, Sumner made smut chasing his lifework. He fought to have James Joyce’s Ulysses banned, and helped send Mae West to jail for directing a 1926 play called Sex.