DIED. Alvin Childress, 78, who became one of TV's first black stars when he played the philosophical cabby Amos in the 1951-53 video version of Amos and Andy, the 1929-54 radio institution; of pneumonia and other ailments; in Inglewood, Calif. The show succumbed to complaints that its good-natured parody perpetuated racial stereotypes, but it remained popular into the 1960s in syndication.
DIED. Mircea Eliade, 79, Rumanian-born historian of religions, authority on spiritual myths and symbols and longtime (1957-85) professor at the University of Chicago, whose works of encyclopedic research and interpretation, including The Myth of the Eternal Return (1949), The Sacred...