Monday, Aug. 31, 1981

MARRIED. Richard Pryor, 40, actor-comedian (Bustin' Loose, Stir Crazy), who only 15 months ago nearly perished in a fire; and Jennifer Lee, 29, songwriter and actress (The Sunshine Boys); he for the sixth time, she for the first; in Maui, Hawaii.

MARRIED. Alan Jay Lerner, 63, author of book and lyrics for Brigadoon, Camelot and My Fair Lady; and British Actress Liz Robertson, 26; she for the first time, he for the eighth; in Billingshurst, England. Lerner, who earlier this month was divorced from College Administrator Nina Bushkin, met Robertson two years ago, when she was chosen to play Eliza Doolittle in a London revival of My Fair Lady.

DIED. Ervil LeBaron, 56, fanatical leader of the polygamous San Diego-based sect, the Church of the Lamb of God, who was believed responsible for the deaths of at least 13 people between 1972 and 1977; of as yet undetermined causes; in a state prison in Draper, Utah. LeBaron, who served twelve months in a Mexican jail in connection with the 1972 slaying of his brother Joel, was sentenced last year to life imprisonment for ordering the murder of the head of a rival polygamous sect in Utah. LeBaron was also convicted last year of plotting to kill another brother, Verlan, who died last week on the same day as Ervil in an auto accident in Mexico City.

DIED. Arthur Keylor, 61, former vice president in charge of Time Inc.'s magazine group; of a heart attack; in Manchester, Vt. An associate publisher of LIFE and publisher of FORTUNE, Keylor took over the magazine group in 1972 and oversaw a tripling of magazine revenues to $1 billion. He presided over FORTUNE's switch from a monthly to a biweekly, the rebirth of LIFE as a monthly in 1978 and the launchings of PEOPLE (1974) and DISCOVER (1980).

DIED. Robert Herridge, 67, writer and producer of literate, well-crafted television programs for Studio One, Camera Three and The Robert Herridge Theatre, whom Variety dubbed "the literary conscience of the medium"; of a heart attack; in Woodstock, N.Y.

DIED. Humphrey Waldock, 77, British president of the United Nations International Court of Justice; of a heart attack; in The Hague. A former Oxford professor and president of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Ceylon-born Waldock presided over the U.N. court's May 1980 decision calling for the release of the U.S. hostages from Iran.

DIED. Samuel Meek, 85, who as overseas manager of the J. Walter Thompson Co. helped build it into the world's largest advertising agency; in Greenwich, Conn. A former managing editor of the Yale Daily News, Meek was instrumental in helping two of his ex-staffers, Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, to obtain the financing to launch TIME magazine in 1923. Meek, who served on the Time Inc. board of directors for 48 years, joined Thompson in 1925 and expanded its fledgling international operations to 35 offices on six continents before retiring as vice chairman in 1964.

DIED. Robert Russell Bennett, 87, composer and conductor best known for his orchestrations of some 300 Broadway musicals, including Show Boat, Oklahoma!, South Pacific and The Sound of Music, as well as for his scores for movies (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and TV series (Victory at Sea); in New York City. Astonishingly speedy and fluent, Bennett could orchestrate a musical number from memory after seeing it rehearsed only two or three times. "The orchestrator's value is in his sensitiveness to melody," he once said. "If the melody has nothing to say, he is powerless."

DIED. Anita Loos, 88, pert, witty screenwriter, playwright and novelist who became an international celebrity after the publication of her 1925 spoof of sex and materialism, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; in New York City. A former child actress, Loos sold her first film scenario to D.W. Griffith in 1912, thus beginning a four-decade Hollywood career that ranged from devising captions for silent films (a form she invented) to creating sparkling dialogue for such movies as San Francisco (1936) and The Women (1939). A diminutive (4 ft. 11 in.), tirelessly convivial figure who considered boredom "a more acute pain than a galloping toothache," she later turned her hand to Broadway plays (The Whole Town's Talking), novels (A Mouse Is Born) and memoirs of Hollywood (A Girl Like I). Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which formed the basis of two movies and two theatrical productions--notably the 1949 musical starring Carol Channing--was written as a lark during a transcontinental train ride with H.L. Mencken. Said Loos: "My only purpose was to make Henry Mencken laugh, which it did."

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