MOST RECENT
Kenneth W. Wicks, 88, formerly of Media, an engineer and community activist, died of aortic stenosis Tuesday at his home in West Chester.
- Mila Schoen, 91, an Italian designer of elegant, impeccably tailored clothes, died yesterday at her country villa in northern Italy. She began her career in 1958 working in an high-fashion atelier in Milan. Eight years later she opened her own boutique, on Milan's Via Montenapoleone, one of the city's most chic shopping streets. Her designs were timeless expressions of quiet elegance and led to her being dubbed the "Signora of elegance." Her Milan fashion house described her vision of clothes as one of "luxury without glitter." Many of society's well-heeled women, in Italy and abroad, wore her creations, including Jacqueline Kennedy. Ms. Schoen's smart suits and dresses, with careful attention to color and line, were popular choices for cocktail gatherings and garden parties. Her designs were a favorite for La Scala opera-house gala premieres among Milanese women enjoying the boom years of Italy's economy in the 1960s. In the age of jet-setters, Ms. Schoen designed a sharp-looking uniform, complete with sober-looking hats, for flight attendants for Alitalia, Italy's flagship airline. As her career progressed, her creations grew more geometric, even futuristic looking, and were considered fashion-world examples of cubism. - AP
- Robert Giroux, 94, a noted figure in 20th-century publishing who guided and supported dozens of great writers from T.S. Eliot and Jack Kerouac to Bernard Malamud and Susan Sontag, died yesterday. Mr. Giroux, who helped create one of the most notable publishing houses - Farrar, Straus & Giroux - had been in failing health for a few months and died at an assisted-living facility in Tinton Falls, N.J. A native of New Jersey, Mr. Giroux was a star student at Columbia University, where his classmates included John Berryman, Herman Wouk and Thomas Merton. Known throughout the industry for his taste and discretion, he began in 1940 as an editor at Harcourt, Brace & Co. and had so great a reputation that when he left in 1955 to join what was then Farrar, Straus, more than a dozen writers joined him, including Flannery O'Connor, Malamud, and Eliot, a close friend. During Mr. Giroux's 60-year career, some of the world's most celebrated writers published works for FSG, including Nobel Prize winners Isaac Bashevis Singer, Derek Walcott, Nadine Gordimer and Seamus Heaney. In 1987, Mr. Giroux received a lifetime-achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle for his "distinguished contribution to the enhancement of American literary and critical standards." In 2002, he received an honorary prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. - AP
- The Rev. Sheldon Moody Smith, 82, of Wayne, retired rector of Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, died of an infection Sunday at Kindred Hospital in Havertown.
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- Thomas Joseph Lynch, 86, of Lower Gwynedd, retired community relations director for McNeil Pharmaceuticals, died of heart failure Tuesday at Abington Memorial Hospital.
- Philadelphia physician Frederick F. Samaha, 47, chief of cardiology at Philadelphia VA Medical Center since 1998, died of brain cancer Aug. 26 at his home in Villanova.
- Charles J. Lucker, 79, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, a retired business owner and cofounder of a social organization for singles, died of pulmonary fibrosis Sunday at Abington Memorial Hospital Hospice.
- Joseph Berchick, 84, a machinist, died of myocardial infarction Tuesday at Nazareth Hospital. He lived in the Somerton section of the city.
- Ronald W. Jackson Sr., 73, a supervisor at the former Atlantic Richfield refinery in Philadelphia, died of heart disease Saturday at Abington Memorial Hospital. He lived in the West Oak Lane section of the city.
- Charles M. Proud, 94, of Ardmore, a former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard executive, died of bone cancer Tuesday at Taylor Hospice in Ridley Park.
- Ike Pappas, 75, a longtime CBS reporter who covered the Pentagon and Congress as well as several wars, died Sunday in Arlington, Va., of heart disease.
- Jerry Reed, 71, a Grammy Award-winning singer who became a good-ol'-boy actor in car-chase movies like Smokey and the Bandit, died Monday in Nashville of complications from emphysema.
- Don LaFontaine, 68, the man who popularized the catchphrase "In a world where . . ." and lent his voice to thousands of movie trailers, commercials and television promos, died Monday in Los Angeles of complications from treatment of an illness.
- Raymond L. Danner Sr., 83, a businessman who helped build the restaurant chain Shoney's, died Saturday of cancer at his Nashville home.
- Bill Melendez, 91, the animator who gave life to Snoopy, Charlie Brown and other Peanuts characters in scores of movies and television specials, died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif.
- Former KYW-TV (Channel 3) general manager Pasquale "Pat" Polillo, 75, whose feisty editorials made him as recognizable to Philadelphia-area viewers as the on-air anchors, died of a brain tumor Tuesday at his home on Cape Cod.
- Darryl Anderson, 56, the warden at the Philadelphia House of Correction for the last four years, died of cancer on Friday at his Roxborough home.
- Richard A. Morrissey Jr., 71, a human-resources executive for several firms, died of heart failure Saturday at Montgomery Hospital in Norristown. He lived in Blue Bell.
- Philip Priestly Haines, 85, of Willistown, a dentist on the Main Line for more than 40 years, died Sunday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania of complications from surgery for a subdural hematoma.
- Charles F. Devine Jr., 60, of Chester Heights, a company vice president and church deacon, died Friday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania from brain trauma suffered during a fall.
- George M. Walish, 83, of Kimberton, president emeritus of the Pennsylvania State Council of Carpenters and a decorated World War II bombardier, died of Parkinson's disease Saturday at home.
- Arthur Berzon, 78, of Mount Laurel, a retired engineer who was active in the Boy Scouts for more than 65 years, died of leukemia Monday at Virtua Memorial Hospital Burlington County in Mount Holly.
- Sister Rose Veronica Leisner, 93, a retired educator and prison volunteer, died of heart failure Thursday at Assisi House, the retirement residence for the Sisters of St. Francis in Aston.
- Clare Bradshaw Ridgway, 48, of Drexel Hill, a former store manager and volunteer, died of ovarian cancer Aug. 27 at home.
- Charles C. Tyminski, 70, a former Philadelphia detective and Treasury Department agent, died of lung cancer Saturday at his Cherry Hill home.
- Edwin O. Guthman, 1919-2008Edwin O. Guthman, 89, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsman respected for his unwavering integrity and whose storied career included stints as a soldier, a public servant, an educator, and editor of The Inquirer's editorial pages, died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles.
- Elaine Garfinkel, 79, an expert in Southwest native American art and a docent at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology, died of multiple myeloma Sunday at her Center City home.
- Marianna S. Glass, 62, of Devon, an architectural illustrator, died of pneumonia July 19 at Bryn Mawr Hospital. In 1967, Mrs. Glass set up Marianna Shaw Illustration, which she operated out of her home until recently. Her husband, Stephen, said that from her studio she made "detailed watercolor perspectives for architects, builders and interior designers" across the nation.
- Amilcare Del Governatore, 89, of South Philadelphia, who as Al Governor was the band leader at the Hawaiian Cottage and the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill in the 1960s and '70s, died Thursday at Methodist Hospital.
- Ray W. Irwin, 81, of Havertown, a former immigration officer, died of kidney failure last Tuesday at Delaware County Memorial Hospital.
- Carolyn Merritt, 61, a former chairwoman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, has died.
- Pamela W. McKee, 55, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Labor in Philadelphia and Los Angeles who surrounded herself with lifelong friendships, died Friday of ovarian cancer in Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, Calif. Ms. McKee lived in Philadelphia before moving to La Cañada, Calif., in 2001.
- John Patrick Tobin, 43, of Malvern, a financial data analyst for the Vanguard Group and a whiz at sports statistics, died of colorectal cancer Thursday at home.
- Hazel Warp, 93, who was Vivien Leigh's stunt double in Gone With the Wind, died Tuesday in Livingston, Mont.
- Brook Jacobs, 60, a florist who started the "Good Neighbor" rose giveaway, now an annual nationwide event, died Thursday in Jackson, Miss. The circumstances were not made public.
- Wilson Hurley, 84, a noted American landscape painter, died Friday in Albuquerque, N.M.
- Richard Landon Kassebaum, 47, a filmmaker who documented his Republican family's political experiences, which included his grandfather Alf Landon's 1936 presidential bid, died Wednesday.
- Joseph Indriso, 70, formerly of Pennsauken, an educator in the Washington Township School District for 30 years, died of complications of Alzheimer's disease Aug. 9 at Grand Villa Assisted Living in Largo, Fla.
- Thomas B. Ryan, 85, of Worcester, owner of a firm that played a small part in building I-95 and the Blue Route, died from complications of pneumonia on Thursday at the Frederick Mennonite Community.
- Thomas Brinton Darlington, 84, formerly of New Lisbon, an engineer with a doctorate in clinical psychology and a "practical" environmentalist who operated his family's cranberry and blueberry business in the Pinelands for 55 years, died of heart failure Aug. 22.
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