Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Gilbert Cruz, Elisabeth Salemme, Carolyn Sayre, Betwa Sharma, Tiffany Sharples, Alexandra Silver, Kate Stinchfield

Died The Monkees' Daydream Believer is one of pop's most recognizable hits. John Stewart, the former Kingston Trio member who wrote it, may not have been as well known, but he was a cult figure among peers. Stewart made 40 solo albums, traveled as a performer with Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign and wrote hits for Joan Baez, Rosanne Cash and others. His masterpiece, though, was a collection of narrative gems inspired by trips around the country with his father. Among the 200 best albums of all time, according to Rolling Stone, 1969's California Bloodlines helped define the country-folk-rock genre Americana. Stewart was 68 and died of a brain aneurysm.

o For many women of the 1970s, Suzanne Pleshette was more than an actress; she was an icon. As Emily Hartley, the wife of Bob Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show, the throaty Brooklynite upped the ante for sitcom spouses. Though Pleshette never became a blockbuster star, she often outshone weaker material in film (Jerry Lewis' 1958 Geisha Boy) and onstage (she met future husband Tom Poston in 1959's Golden Fleecing). Pleshette gained millions of fans on TV shows ranging from Dr. Kildare in the '60s to the more recent Will & Grace, where she had guest appearances. She said being a megastar was overrated: "I'm an actress; that's why I'm still here." She was 70 and had lung cancer.

o He was the man who dressed the King. As Elvis Presley's costumer in the late '60s and '70s, Bill Belew conceived the trademark belts and jumpsuits in which Elvis made his comeback. With names like Burning Love and the Peacock Suit, the ornate, tall-collared, bell-bottomed pieces--made after Elvis asked for a loose stage garment similar to the one he wore for karate--inspired similar ensembles for such acts as the Jackson Five and the Osmonds. Belew was 76.

o When she took over the Los Angeles Rams in 1979 after the death of her husband, many scoffed at the notion of a woman in charge. So at her first press conference, Georgia Frontiere, the NFL's first female team owner, lashed out at those who "feel there are two different types of people: human beings and women." The team went to the 1980 Super Bowl, losing to Pittsburgh. In 1995, Frontiere enraged fans in California, where the Rams had been based for 50 years, by moving them to her hometown of St. Louis, Mo. The team went on to win the 2000 Super Bowl. She was 80.

o They became best friends as teenagers, and when it came time to get a job, they didn't want to work for their dads. So in 1948, Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin founded Wham-O, named for the sound made by their first product, a slingshot. The pair (above, with Knerr at right) produced such iconic American toys turned fads as Silly String, the SuperBall, the hula hoop (25 million sold in four months) and the Frisbee. They created the last after they spotted an Air Force pilot flying his "Pluto Platter" on the beach and bought the rights. In 1982 they sold the company for $12 million. Knerr was 82.

o Growing up as a member of a prosperous family in Poland in the 1920s and '30s, Miles Lerman had no way of knowing he would end up making a mark on the other side of the Atlantic as an anti-Nazi warrior. After the Nazis seized his family's flour mills and he was imprisoned in a labor camp, he escaped to spend two years battling the SS in the forests of Poland. Lerman, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1947, helped plan and found the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington and became its chairman emeritus. He also met with Pope John Paul II and other leaders and spearheaded the effort to dedicate a memorial at the Belzec camp in Poland, where his mother died. He was 88.