Monday, Dec. 30, 1957
Married. Cyrus Stephen Eaton, 73, silver-haired Cleveland tycoon (steel, iron ore, coal, railroads); and Cleveland Socialite Anne Kinder Jones, 35, confined to a wheelchair by polio since 1946; both for the second time; in Northfield, Ohio.
Marriage Revealed. Sam Spiegel, 55, Austrian-born Hollywood producer (The Bridge on the River Kwai, On the Waterfront); and Betty Benson, 27, onetime model; he for the third time, she for the first; on Nov. 26, in Manhattan.
Died. John William van Druten, 56, prolific (27 plays) writer for stage and screen, top-drawer director (The King and I), novelist (The Vicarious Years); of a heart attack; in Thermal, Calif. A reserved bachelor, London-born Van Druten turned from law teaching to drama in 1926, scored flashy success with sophisticated, bittersweet comedies (The Voice of the Turtle, There's Always Juliet).
Died. Jere Cooper, 64, Tennessee Congressman (from 1929), head of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee since 1955; of coronary thrombosis; in Bethesda Naval Hospital, Md. A slow-moving, oratorical technician, Democrat Cooper helped push through the present pay-as-you-go tax system in 1943.
Died. Dorothy Leigh Sayers Fleming, 64, erudite, cherub-faced whoduniteer (The Nine Tailors), translator (Chanson de Roland), playwright (The Devil to Pay), rapier-witted Anglican writer on theology (Creed or Chaos?); of a coronary thrombosis; in Witham, England. One of Oxford's first women graduates (Somerville College, 1915), Dorothy Sayers gained fame and fortune with her deft mysteries, wrote religious dramas for the Church of England's Canterbury Festival, worked since 1947 on her magnum opus, Dante's Divine Comedy in a vivid, homiletic translation, completed two canticles (Inferno, 1949; Purgatorio, 1955) before her death.
Died. Admiral (ret.) John Dale Price, 65, rawboned, good-natured naval aviator, Truman-era Vice Chief of Naval Operations, credited with making the first night landing on an aircraft carrier (in the mid-'20s); after long illness; in San Diego Naval Hospital.
Died. Ray Sprigle, 71, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter, who won a Pulitzer Prize (1938) for revealing that Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black had been a Ku Klux Klansman; of injuries suffered in an auto crash; in Pittsburgh.
Died. Robert Carl Zuppke, 78, alltime great football coach (University of Illinois, 1913-41); of cancer; in Champaign, Ill. Sharp-witted "Zup," German immigrant, played football (but won no letter) at the University of Wisconsin, at Illinois created teams that for 15 years were challengers for the Big Ten championship (overall record: 131 victories, 81 defeats, 12 ties, 7 conference titles).
Died. Leonidas Carstarphen Dyer, 86, lawyer, longtime (1911-13, 1915-33) Republican Congressman from Missouri; in St. Louis. An ardent fighter against Prohibition during the '20s, "Lee" Dyer authored (in 1919) the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act which made interstate traffic in stolen autos a federal offense.
Died. Melvin Maynard Johnson, 86, topflight Mason, dean (1935-43) of the Boston University Law School; in Boston. A veteran Masonic official, he was Illustrious Sovereign Grand Commander, Supreme Council, 33rd Degree, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rites of Freemasonry for the Northern Masonic Jurisdiction of the U.S.A. from 1933 to 1954.
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