MILESTONES

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, DANIEL EISENBERG, TAM GRAY, ANITA HAMILTON, JANICE HOROWITZ, NADYA LABI, JAMIE MALANOWSKI, ALAIN SANDERS AND JOEL STEIN

DIED. JOHN DENVER, 53, earnest singer-songwriter who composed sunny anthems to human goodness and nature's wonders; after crashing his homemade fiber-glass plane into Monterey Bay, Calif. Denver's road trips with the Chad Mitchell Trio inspired him to compose Leaving on a Jet Plane, a No. 1 hit for Peter, Paul and Mary in 1969. He went solo with equal success, charming audiences with his lyrical tenor and country-boy appeal. As he crooned Take Me Home, Country Roads and Sunshine on My Shoulders, he seemed to embody the peace-loving ethos of the 1970s. Offstage he was devoted to nature conservation. His squeaky-clean image was sullied by two arrests for drunk driving in the 1990s, but his melodies remained sweet and pristine.

DIED. NANCY DICKERSON WHITEHEAD, 70, pioneering television reporter; of complications following a stroke; in New York City. Dickerson was the first woman news correspondent at cbs, and her landmark specials ranged from J.F.K. to the Middle East to Watergate.

DIED. HAROLD ROBBINS, 81, narcissistic novelist whose smutty potboilers mirrored his rags-to-riches life; in Palm Springs, Calif. On a wager, Robbins wrote Never Love a Stranger (1948), the first of 23 books that sold 750 million copies worldwide. (See Eulogy below.)

DIED. JAMES MICHENER, 90, prolific and peripatetic author who embarked on a lifelong literary tour of the globe; after taking himself off dialysis; in Austin, Texas. While a Navy lieutenant during World War II, Michener began writing Tales of the South Pacific, a collection of stories that won him the Pulitzer Prize and Rodgers and Hammerstein's attention. Location, location, location was Michener's mantra: Hawaii, Alaska, Poland and, yes, even Space are a few of his titles. Michener rarely wavered from the formula that sold 75 million copies of his 40-odd books: he traveled to a chosen place, researched it exhaustively, then wrote workmanlike tomes peopled with real and imaginary characters. "There are a whole lot of things I'm not good at," he said. "I'm not hard in dialogue...But what I can do is put a good narrative together and hold the reader's interest."