John Anderson, 69, the actor who was a snooping used-car salesman in Alfred Hitchcock`s ”Psycho” and who appeared on Broadway and television; he began his acting career on the Mississippi River showboat Goldenrod; after a year at the Cleveland Playhouse, he moved to New York, where he appeared in many stage productions, including the Broadway show ”Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”; at the time of his death he was preparing for the Broadway production of ”In the Sweet By and By”; he was perhaps best known for his work in TV, having appeared in more than 500 small-screen roles, including frequent 1960s appearances on ”The Twilight Zone”; more recently his credits included a recurring role as the father of television`s ”MacGyver”; in addition to
”Psycho,” he appeared in such movies as ”Smokey and the Bandit II,”
”Ride the High Country” and ”Cotton Comes to Harlem”; his work in television and movie Westerns won him the National Cowboy Hall of Fame`s Western Heritage Award in 1967; Aug. 7, of a heart attack at his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home.
Abul Qassim al-Khoei, 93, the grand ayatollah and supreme spiritual leader for the world`s 200 million Shiite Muslims; the ayatollah has been compared in prominence with the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but he remained publicly apolitical; the religious leader was detained for several days by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the failed Shiite uprising following the Persian Gulf war; Hussein and his ruling circle are from Iraq`s Sunni Muslim minority; the al-Khoei Foundation, run by exiled members of the cleric`s family opposed to the Iraqi government, said from London that the ayatollah spent the last year virtually under house arrest; Aug. 8, in Baghdad, Iraq.
Simon Agranat, 66, an American-born Israeli who headed Israel`s Supreme Court and forced the resignations of generals who failed to prepare for the 1973 Yom Kippur War; he was born in Louisville became one of the world`s youngest Supreme Court justices when he was appointed to the Israeli bench at age 42, shortly after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948; he was named court president in 1965, serving in that post until his retirement in 1977; he then taught at Jerusalem`s Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University; Justice Agranat immigrated to British-ruled Palestine in the 1920s but returned to the United States to study law; he returned after graduation from the University of Chicago in 1929; he is best remembered for the controversial findings of a commission he headed that studied why Israel was caught off guard when Syria and Egypt attacked on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in October 1973; Aug. 10, in Jerusalem.
Gertrude Bugler, 95, a farmer`s wife and amateur actress who was Thomas Hardy`s choice to portray Tess of the d`Urbervilles on stage; it was the first and last London venture for her, and she happily returned to farm life in the Dorset countryside where Hardy set all of his novels; she joined the Hardy Players, an amateur dramatic group in Dorchester where Hardy lived, in 1913;
in 1921, she created the stage role of Eustacia Vye in ”The Return of the Native”; when Hardy presented the players his staging of ”Tess,” he asked that she play the part, and, with her baby in her arms, she traveled 18 miles twice a week to rehearsals; Aug. 6, in London.
Gladys O`Rourke Blackwood, 90, a Freeport, Ill., book illustrator and designer of greeting cards, who is credited with being the first person to create children`s books with paper dolls and clothes that could be cut out;
she had the use of only one hand since birth; she was noted for her pastel artwork, creating a soft glow on the skin of children she drew; her 1930s and 1940s cutout dolls and their clothes now are considered collectors` items;
Aug. 3, in Freeport Hospital.
John Cage, the American avant-garde composer, infuriated audiences with convention-defying music but his esthetic ideas had a profound impact on world music of the 20th Century; over more than half a century as musician, philosopher, teacher, writer and iconoclastic wit, he liberated the imaginations of countless musicians and non-musicians, making anarchy somehow respectable in musical performance; nearly every significant development of the postwar avant-garde could be traced to his ideas or his benignly paternal presence; he also wrote poetry, essays and lectures, painted and etched, and was a mycologist, a published expert on mushrooms; his earliest compositions in the 1930s were based on the principles of serialism as formulated by his teacher, Arnold Schoenberg; Aug. 12, after a stroke, in New York.
William W. Watson, 92, a former chairman of the physics department at Yale University who helped develope the atomic bomb; during World War II, he took a leave from Yale after he was appointed by the secretary of war to be division director of the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, where scientists were developing the atomic bomb; a year later, he became the American representative to the Canadian-British atomic energy research project in Montreal, where atomic bomb research would have moved if the war had continued; in the early 1950s, he was one of the first scientists publicly to discuss harnessing nuclear energy for projects such as nuclear-powered aircraft and space satellites; Aug. 3, of unknown causes, at home in Hamden, Conn.
Dr. Phyllis Rue Santullano, 69, former Highland Park City Council member who as a young adult was a vigorous advocate for the poor in Mexico; she contracted polio in 1943 and used a walker and later a wheelchair; attended the University of Wisconsin and got a medical degree in 1957 from the University of Mexico; afterward, she and her husband, Dr. Michael Santullano, started a medical clinic for the poor in Mexico City; in 1961, they moved to Highland Park, where she helped found the North Suburban Self Help Center, an organization that works primarily with Latinos; served 11 years on the Highland Park City Council and on the city`s housing commission; she was a leader in the effort to make Highland Park the only North Shore community with public housing; Aug. 11, in her Highland Park home.
Arthur Lang, 115, former boxer and former longtime proprietor of Lang`s Bar B Que restaurant at 4728 S. Prairie Ave.; born May 4, 1877, on a farm outside Van Wert, Ohio; the youngest of seven children whose parents were former slaves; in 1987, the town of Van Wert celebrated his visit when he was 110 with a place of honor in its Fourth of July Parade and a front-page story in the local newspaper; formerly operated a pool hall and tavern on South State Street; ran his barbecue restaurant in Chicago from 1933 until the late 1970s; first registered to vote in February 1990, when he was 112; Aug. 8, of kidney failure and osteoporosis, at Chicago Osteopathic Hospital.
John Merlo, 79, an Illinois senator and 44th Ward Democratic committeeman for 23 years; his political career began in 1963 and included seven terms as a state representative, three years as a state senator and two years as a Chicago alderman; before entering politics, he worked 44 years for the Chicago Park District; author of condominium reform legislation; resident of Lakeview since 1922; Aug. 9, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Adrienne J. Smith, 58, a psychologist, lesbian author and woman`s activist; a North Shore native, she was one of the first openly lesbian psychologists in the American Psychological Association and pressured the group to stop treating homosexual behavior as an illness; first disclosed she was a lesbian in 1973 on David Susskind`s TV show; she was elected in 1991 to Chicago`s Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame; author of several articles and books, including ”Lesbians at Mid-Life, the Creative Transition; and ”Reflections of a Jewish Lesbian Feminist Activist Therapist;” founder of the Feminist Therapy Institute; former president of the American Psychological
Association`s Division 44 on gay and lesbian issues; Aug. 10, in Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
Dennis Gilliam, 46, a teacher at Glenbrook North High School who was twice singled out as one of the nation`s top German instructors; named Outstanding German Educator by the American Association of Teachers of German this spring; in 1988 he received a similar award from Cornell University;
graduated from Indiana University with two degrees in German literature;
served in Vietnam and then joined the Glenbrook North faculty; named chairman of the school`s foreign language department in 1976; Aug. 12, at home.
Llewellyn L. ”Pete” Callaway Jr., 84, former publisher of Newsweek magazine; started in 1932 in the classified advertising department of Conde Nast; in 1963, he became publisher of Newsweek; he retired in 1972; Aug. 10, in his home in Napa, Calif.
