Milestones

By Kathleen Adams, Harriet Barovick, M.M. Buechner, Tam Gray, Daniel Levy and Joel Stein

HOSPITALIZED. STEPHEN AMBROSE, 62, American historian; in fair condition from an as yet undetermined illness; in Madison, Wis. Two days after receiving a National Humanities Medal at the White House, the best-selling author, based in Helena, Mont., collapsed during an evening out.

HOSPITALIZED. RICK JAMES, 50, funk master; from a stroke; in Los Angeles. After popping a blood vessel in his neck during a performance, the "Super Freak" singer felt numb on his right side. Doctors expect a full recovery from the ailment, brought on, said James' spokesman, by "rock-'n'-roll neck--the rhythmic whiplash motion of the head and neck."

INDICTED. WEBSTER HUBBELL, 50, much pursued friend of President Clinton's; on 15 felony counts, including fraud and lying to Whitewater investigators; by a federal grand jury; in Washington.

DIED. JEAN MARAIS, 84, swashbuckling French screen idol of the '40s and '50s; in Cannes, France. Marais got his break as the beast in the 1946 film Beauty and the Beast, co-directed by his longtime lover, the artist Jean Cocteau. A wildly popular pinup for women and men alike, the actor starred in 70 movies.

DIED. LORD HUNT, 88, old-school British soldier and explorer, and the brains behind the first trek to the summit of Mount Everest; in Henley, England. Then known as Colonel John Hunt, he engineered the historic ascent by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953. Hunt's oxygen bottle froze on the way up, and he never reached the peak.

DIED. RUMER GODDEN, 90, exquisitely lyrical British novelist, playwright and poet; in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Godden set much of her work in India, where she grew up. Although she wrote a total of 70 books and collections, she was best known for the 1939 novel Black Narcissus, in which nuns fight to establish a school and hospital on a Himalayan mountain. Of the 1946 film version, the prickly Godden observed, "I hate it...Everything about it was phony."