Seeking Divorce. Sara Dylan, 34; from Folk-Rock Superstar Bob Dylan, 35; after eleven years of marriage, five children. Dylan included an ode to his wife on Desire, an album released in 1975: “Sara, Sara—so easy to look at, so hard to define … Don’t ever leave me, don’t ever go.”
Died. Bill Vaughan, 61, author of the Kansas City Star “Starbeams” column, syndicated as “Senator Soaper Says”; of lung cancer; in Kansas City, Mo. For 31 years, Vaughan filled his daily columns with 13 pithy paragraphs. Sample: “People we agree with are calm and enthusiastic; everybody else is apathetic and hysterical.”
Died. John Dickson Carr, 70, dapper, scholarly author of more than 100 mystery novels; of cancer; in Greenville, S.C. Under his own name and two pseudonyms (Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson), he created two super sleuths: an Oxford don named Gideon Fell and an engaging buffoon, Sir Henry Merrivale. Carr’s specialties were historical mysteries and locked-room murders, involving a corpse found alone in a room sealed from the inside. Though his subject matter was grisly, Carr maintained that “morbidity has nothing to do with it, any more than with solving chess or mathematics problems.”
Died. Eddie Anderson, 71, who played the late Jack Benny’s hoarse, heckling valet Rochester on radio, TV and film for more than 30 years; of heart disease; in Los Angeles. In 1937, Anderson made what was supposed to be a one-shot appearance on the Benny broadcast; the audience loved his drollery, and he became a member of the cast. Anderson constantly deflated Benny’s pomposity with a high-pitched, incredulous, “What’s that, boss?”
Died. Edward Dahlberg, 76, contentious critic, poet and author (Bottom Dogs); in Santa Barbara, Calif. The illegitimate son of a hairdresser, Dahlberg had a bleak childhood in and out of orphanages. His early angry proletarian works evolved into high-styled aphoristic essays in which he denounced contemporary life and letters in a manner reminiscent of Thoreau.
Died. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, 84, foreign correspondent and syndicated columnist for the Chicago Daily News from 1914 to 1969; on the Portuguese island of Madeira. As Berlin bureau chief in the ’30s, Mowrer received a Pulitzer Prize for his vivid reporting on Hitler’s rise, was expelled from Germany and enraged Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who said he would expend an army division to capture Mowrer. As a columnist, Mowrer became increasingly conservative and looked on peaceful coexistence with Communism as “the opium of the West.”
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