Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Kathleen Kingsbury, Clayton Neuman, Nina Vizcarrondo

SENTENCED. Mel Gibson, 50, controversy-generating movie star who was arrested last month after driving while intoxicated and showering the police officers who apprehended him with anti-Semitic epithets--for which he has since apologized; to three years of probation, $1,600 in fines and one year in a 12-step program for alcoholism; after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor count of drunk driving; in Malibu, Calif.

DIED. Miguel (Anga) Diaz, 45, considered the finest conga virtuoso of his generation, who energized genres from jazz to traditional Cuban standards with his battering five-drum technique; of a heart attack; in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia, Spain. A player on the 1997 trilogy of albums of Cuban maestros that launched the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon, Diaz became a force on the British label World Circuit, which last year released his album Echu Mingua, an electrifying melange of West African music, hip-hop and riffs on jazz classics.

DIED. Bruno Kirby, 57, piquant, high-pitched actor who infused his many supporting roles--often as best friend, often to Billy Crystal--with intensity and humor over his 35-year career; of leukemia; in Los Angeles. Kirby's most notable performances included a turn as a humorless lieutenant in Good Morning, Vietnam and as a journalist pal to Crystal's Harry in When Harry Met Sally. Kirby's character marries--above, at center--then eggs on his comrade to follow him into domestic bliss.

DIED. Johnny Duncan, 67, hunky, Texas-born country baritone who moved to Nashville, wrote songs for Charley Pride and Conway Twitty, and in the 1970s became popular for such hits as She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed Anytime and It Couldn't Have Been Any Better; of a heart attack; in Fort Worth, Texas.

DIED. Rudi Stern, 69, artist who specialized in what he called "painting stories with light"; of lung cancer; in Cadiz, Spain. In the 1960s, Stern designed projections for concerts by classical musicians and rock acts like the Doors and for psychedelic fetes put on by LSD promoter Timothy Leary. He later revived a dormant medium by establishing the aptly named New York City gallery Let There Be Neon, creating installations for performance artist Laurie Anderson and emblazoning the fac,ade of a 78-story Hong Kong building.

DIED. Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, 75, regal and charismatic Queen of New Zealand's indigenous Maori, a royal position established in 1858 in response to Britain's colonization of the Southwest Pacific archipelago; in Ngaruawahia, New Zealand. Although her post was ceremonial, Te Ata, the sixth Maori ruler, worked to raise the profile of Maori abroad, attending the coronations of foreign sovereigns and meeting with world leaders like President Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth II and Nelson Mandela.

DIED. Mary Harper, 86, expert on the mental health of seniors and the last surviving member of the team that carried out the U.S. government's infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study; in Columbus, Ga. In her two decades with the Federal Government, the social worker educated health professionals, campaigned for improvements in the treatment of mental illness, and established a national research center for the mental health of minorities. After the 1972 exposure of the shady methods used in the 40-year Tuskegee study--in which researchers tracked older black male subjects who had syphilis but did not tell the men they had the disease--Harper educated minorities about research projects and became, in her words, a "stickler for informed consent."

DIED. Alfredo Stroessner, 93, canny and cruel dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to '89 who brought relative stability and economic growth to the South American country--which had seen six Presidents toppled from 1948 to '54--before being ousted in a coup and exiled; in Brasilia. The macho general, who flashed his name in neon across the country and famously sheltered Nazis, including Josef Mengele, solidified and maintained his control over Paraguay by rigging elections, torturing and murdering perceived enemies, and turning his country into a smuggling capital (the "price of peace," he once said). By the 1980s, as his power waned, the U.S., a onetime supporter because of Stroessner's staunch anticommunist stance, labeled his regime a dictatorship.

With reporting by Elisabeth Salemme