Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 64, widow of President John F. Kennedy and of billionaire shipbuilder Aristotle Onassis; no U.S. first lady so mesmerized a nation as she did as Kennedy’s wife, bringing youth, culture, grace and charm into the White House and changing the way a nation thought of itself; for the 31 years since Kennedy’s assassination, she had spurned the spotlight, working for the last several years as a book editor; May 19, in New York, of cancer.
Henry Morgan, 79, satirist who became the legendary bad boy of radio in the 1940s and went on to appear on many television panel shows; he often used no script and few notes to ad lib through his broadcasts; he was unpredictable, iconoclastic and derisive about the media in which he worked; although he was blacklisted in the 1950s, he appeared frequently on “What’s My Line?” the CBS quiz program, and in 1963 became a regular panelist on “I’ve Got a Secret”; May 19, in New York, of lung cancer.
Thomas E. Kluczynski, 90, who served on the Illinois Supreme Court for 12 years; he was elected to the court in 1966, stepped down in 1976 under mandatory retirement rules, then was recalled in the spring of 1978 upon the death of Justice James A. Dooley; he then served until the general election in 1980, when he retired again; earlier, he had been a judge in Cook County, where he presided over Family Court and was chief justice of the Criminal Court and later of the Circuit Court; May 16, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Harold R. “Jeff” Metcalf, 71, retired dean of students at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business; he also was chairman of the Graduate Admissions Council and of the Professional Schools Financial Aid Council and had been the university’s athletic director (1976-80); in World War II, he was a member of Carlson’s Raiders, an elite U.S. Marine Corps combat unit; May 14, in his home in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Gilbert Roland, 88, Hollywood leading man whose career began in the silent era and endured for decades; his most famous silent film role was as Armand in 1927’s “Camille,” with Norma Talmadge; in the 1930s, he appeared in “She Done Him Wrong” and “The Last Train from Madrid” and in the early ’40s was featured in “The Sea Hawk” with Errol Flynn; he later starred in John Huston’s “We Were Strangers,” “The Furies” and “The Bullfighter and the Lady”; among his later films were “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “Bandido,” “The Big Circus,” “Cheyenne Autumn” and “Islands in the Stream”; May 15, in his Los Angeles home, of cancer.
Niels G. Friedrichs, 64, managing director of the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest; he had served more than 30 years as the official German trade representative for the 13 Midwestern states; he was a resident of Wilmette; May 15, in St. Francis Hospital, Evanston.
W. Graham Claytor Jr., 82, who ended a long railroading career by guiding Amtrak to a measure of prosperity; he and his managers patched together a network that eventually offered improved service, ticketing and reservations and cut costs; before retiring last year, he predicted that Amtrak might be able to cover all its operating costs-something no national railroad system in the world does now-by the year 2000; May 14, in Bradenton, Fla.
John D. Hayes, 63, Chicago attorney who was a former president of the Chicago Bar Association (1984-85) and of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association; he also was a member of the Inner Circle of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; after winning a major settlement from a local hospital, he fought for mandatory testing of infants for phenylketonuria, or PKU, which can cause brain damage if not detected early and treated; May 15, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Mario Einaudi, 89, writer and former Cornell University professor and son of Luigi Einaudi, an economist who was the first president of the Italian Republic after World War II; he graduated from Turin University with a degree in political science and emigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape fascism; he taught at Cornell (1945-73) and founded the Center for International Studies there; May 15, in Turin, Italy.
Paul Shulman, 72, onetime U.S. Navy officer who went on to become the first commander of Israel’s navy; the New York City native was deputy commander of a destroyer in World War II and left the U.S. Navy in 1945 as a lieutenant junior grade; he immediately joined the effort to smuggle Jewish refugees and arms from Europe into Palestine; in November 1948, six months after the establishment of Israel, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion asked him to set up and command Israel’s navy; May 16, in Haifa, Israel, of heart disease.
Vasek Simek, 66, character actor who taught at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York and who appeared in such films as “House Sitter,” “My Life,” “Green Card” and “Mistress”; he was working on the film “Gospa” with Martin Sheen, Michael York and Morgan Fairchild, being filmed in Croatia, when he died; a Czechoslovakian native, he was a friend and supporter of Czech president and playwright Vaclav Havel; May 16, in Croatia.
Perdue W. Lawrence, 82, retired Dallas police captain who was driving the lead car of John F. Kennedy’s motorcade on the day the president was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963; he retired from the Dallas Police Department in 1966; his daughter said her father had said he did not hear the shots that killed Kennedy and wounded Texas Gov. John Connally and that he agreed with the findings of the Warren Commission; May 15, in Cleburne, Texas.
Val A. Browning, 98, Utah philanthropist who was the son of John M. Browning, the most prolific firearms inventor in history; he was the former president of his family’s firearm company, Browning Arms Co.; his father designed more than 80 military and sporting arms, including the automatic shotgun, the Colt .45 automatic and the Browning Automatic Rifle; May 16, in Ogden, Utah.
Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet, 81, former French ambassador to the United States (1972-77), the United Nations (1970-72) and NATO (1969-70); he entered government service in 1947; May 15, in Paris.
Thomas T. Hodson, 63, former producer and news writer for WLS-Ch. 7; he retired two years ago after nearly 30 years at Channel 7, where he won two local Emmy awards in 1979 and 1980 for outstanding achievement in investigative reporting; May 14, in his North Side home.
Arthur C. Dorrance Jr., 70, retired attorney who was the son of a former president of Campbell Soup Co.; he retired in 1984 as a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Dechert, Price & Rhoads; his father was president of the Camden, N.J.-based soup company from 1930 to 1946; his uncle, John T. Dorrance Sr., invented condensed soups in 1897; May 15, in Newtown Square, Pa.
Alfred O.C. Nier, 82, physicist whose research helped lead to the development of the atomic bomb; working in 1938 with a mass spectrometer, an instrument that weighs and sorts atoms, he measured the various isotopes or atomic forms of lead; the results allowed a determination of the age of the Earth at about 5 billion years; in 1940, he used a mass spectrometer in his basement workshop at the University of Minnesota to identify uranium-235 as the type of uranium that could sustain slow-neutron fission; the results helped lead to the development of the atomic bomb; May 16, in Minneapolis, of injuries suffered in an auto accident two weeks earlier.