Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Tam Gray, Lina Lofaro, Michele Orecklin, David Spitz, Joel Stein, Flora Tartakovsky and Chris Taylor

AILING. LARRY FORTENSKY, 46, most recent ex-husband of Elizabeth Taylor; after falling down a flight of stairs in his home; in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Fortensky was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition.

DIED. EAMON COLLINS, 45, former I.R.A. intelligence officer and author of the 1997 I.R.A. expose Killing Rage; after being savagely beaten; in Newry, Northern Ireland. Collins, who grew disgusted with the organization, wrote that its violent tactics "isolated us from the people with whom we have most in common."

DIED. CHARLES LUCKMAN, 89, entrepreneur and architect who designed Madison Square Garden and Florida's Kennedy Space Center; in Los Angeles. Trained in architecture, Luckman first made his name (and the cover of TIME) selling soap as a sales manager at Pepsodent, and then returned to his first love after commissioning Lever House, one of Manhattan's first glass skyscrapers. In the late 1960s, he inadvertently fueled a national campaign for historic preservation with his design for the Garden, a monstrosity that replaced McKim, Mead and White's steel and glass-canopied gem, Penn Station.

DIED. ROBERT SHAW, 82, longtime music director of the Atlanta Symphony and dean of American choral conducting; in New Haven, Conn. In 1948, just two years after his conducting debut, Shaw founded the popular, internationally traveled Robert Shaw Chorale. He especially loved working with amateur singers, whom he cultivated with a methodical, humorous style. "Singing, like sex, is far too important to leave to the professionals," he said.

DIED. SADIE DELANY, 109, pioneer educator and co-author, with her late sister Bessie, of the best seller turned Broadway hit Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years; in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Daughter of a slave, she got her master's degree in education at Columbia and became the first black woman to teach home economics in New York City's public schools. "I never let prejudice stop me from what I wanted to do in this life," she said. "Life is short; it's up to you to make it sweet."