Milestones

By Melissa August; Elizabeth L. Bland; William Han; Unmesh Kher; Jonathan Rick; Elizabeth Sampson

FILED. A civil lawsuit against NBA star KOBE BRYANT, 25; by the unnamed woman who claims he raped her in a Vail, Colo., hotel room; in Denver. Her suit seeks compensatory damages of at least $75,000 and unspecified punitive damages. Prosecutors in Bryant's criminal trial for rape later sought a delay in that trial's Aug. 27 start date, claiming courthouse gaffes have made it impossible to obtain a fair jury. The judge denied the request.

VOIDED. Nearly 4,000 SAME-SEX MARRIAGES sanctioned in San Francisco last February and March; by the California Supreme Court; in San Francisco. The court ruled unanimously that Mayor Gavin Newsom overstepped his authority by issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples in violation of a 1977 state law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

DIED. LEON GOLUB, 82, U.S. artist who painted monumental, brutal figures symbolizing the destructive nature of human ambition and who was hailed as a pioneer during the Neo-Expressionist era of the 1980s; in New York City. When he began his career in the 1950s, his subjects were largely mythological, but by the 1970s, he had moved into politics with the anti--Vietnam War series Assassins, and he continued in that vein in the 1980s with images of global military violence called Mercenaries.

DIED. GYPSY BOOTS, 89, self-styled crown prince of health who sold organic food to celebrities and used his zealous eccentricity to push a philosophy of Spartan living, exercise and a positive attitude; in Camarillo, Calif. Born Robert Bootzin, he was a regular on Steve Allen's talk show in the 1960s and a fixture at football games for years afterward, ringing his signature cowbell.

DIED. PAUL (RED) ADAIR, 89, legendary oil-field fire fighter who put out an estimated 2,000 blazes around the world with his usual concoction of water and dynamite, including 119 fires in Kuwaiti wells torched by Iraq in 1991; in Houston. After World War II, the native Texan returned home from a two-year stint in the Army's bomb demolition unit to take a job with Myron Kinley, a pioneer of well-fire and blowout control. Adair later started his own business, and his exploits (an explosion in South Texas once propelled him 50 ft. in the air, and he emerged unscathed) inspired the 1968 John Wayne film Hellfighters.

DIED. JULIA CHILD, 91, trilling cookbook author who on TV's The French Chef introduced fine French cuisine to American homes. (See page 64.)

DIED. DAVID RAKSIN, 92, composer of scores for more than 100 Hollywood films and 300 TV shows who was best known for the haunting theme song of the 1944 film noir Laura; in Van Nuys, Calif.

DIED. CZESLAW MILOSZ, 93, Polish poet and essayist whose politically charged writing in the shadow of communism earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980; in Krakow, Poland. Born in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, he spent World War II writing for the anti-Nazi underground in Warsaw. Later, after a stint as a diplomat, he broke from the Polish government and wrote about the plight of intellectuals under communism in his 1953 essay collection, The Captive Mind. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1960, he taught Slavic literature at Berkeley for more than 20 years.

DIED. FAY WRAY, 96, shriektacular heroine of the original King Kong and other thrillers of the early talkie era; in New York City. Still in her teens when she started in silent films, she developed the scream she would make famous in later films like Mystery of the Wax Museum and Doctor X. She had to fight off all kinds of movie beasts, getting pawed by Erich von Stroheim in The Wedding March and Wallace Beery in Viva Villa! But the great ape was her strangest, strongest suitor, in a horror film that was also a poignant love story.