• U.S.

Milestones, Jun. 27, 1977

2 minute read
TIME

Married. Lesley Hornby, 27, singer and former model, better known as Twiggy; and Michael Witney, 44, an American actor (The Way West, W);she for the first time, he for the second; in Richmond, England.

Died. Dr. George Constantin Cotzias, 58, neurologist who developed the widely used L-dopa drug treatment for Parkinson’s disease; of lung cancer; in Manhattan. Greek-born Cotzias left his Nazi-occupied homeland in 1941 and came to the U.S. for medical training. In 1967 he found that the drug Levodihydroxyphenylalanine successfully countered the major chemical deficiency in the brains of Parkinson victims; the discovery led him to an understanding of the biochemical abnormalities underlying the disease. When he learned he had cancer in 1973, Cotzias expanded his research to that field as well.

Died. Wernher von Braun, 65, German-born impresario of the U.S. space program; of cancer; in Alexandria, Va. (see SCIENCE).

Died. Nathan Homer Knorr, 72, third president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the 105-year-old denomination also known as Jehovah’s Witnesses; after a long illness; in Wallkill, N.Y. During his 35 years as president of the society, which believes that Armageddon is near at hand, Knorr helped build up its membership from 113,000 to 1 million, in 80 countries. A vigorous preacher, Knorr charged that organized religion was working the world’s destruction by perverting the Bible’s teaching.

Died. Tom Campbell Clark, 77, former Supreme Court Justice (1949-1967); of an apparent heart attack; in Manhattan. The genial, Texas-born Clark came to Washington in 1937 and rose quickly in the Department of Justice, where he prosecuted war fraud cases. A close associate of Senator Harry Truman, he was appointed Attorney General when Truman became President, and an Associate Justice four years later. Clark initially aroused Truman’s ire by joining the court’s conservative wing, but gradually moved leftward as a member of the Warren Court. He wrote several far-reaching liberal opinions, including one prohibiting mandatory Bible reading in public schools, and another forbidding state criminal prosecutors to use evidence seized during illegal searches. To avoid conflict-of-interest charges, he retired from the court in 1967 when his son Ramsey was appointed Attorney General, but remained an active circuit-riding jurist, the first judge to sit in all eleven U.S. Courts of Appeals.

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