Milestones

By Elizabeth L. Bland; Barbara Kiviat; Sora Song Sunday, May 16, 2004
    • BORN. APPLE BLYTHE ALISON MARTIN , 9 lbs. 11 oz., first child to actress GWYNETH PALTROW, 31, and rocker husband CHRIS MARTIN, 26; in London.

    MARRIED. Australian MARY DONALDSON, 32, to Denmark's CROWN PRINCE FREDERIK, 35; in Copenhagen. The couple met in a bar during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Now the onetime real estate agent is in line to be queen.


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    RUNNING. JOHN RAMSEY, 60, father of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, victim of a still unsolved 1996 murder in Boulder, Colo.; for the House of Representatives in Michigan, where the family now lives. Ramsey has vowed not to let lingering speculation about his family's role in the murder keep him from serving the public.

    GUILTY. Plea entered by JAMES J. SMITH, 60, retired FBI agent, to charges of lying about an affair with Katrina Leung, a suspected double agent; in Washington. Smith, a married counterintelligence official who focused on China, will probably avoid prison time. He has admitted to a 20-year affair with Leung, a married Chinese-American businesswoman and FBI informant. Leung faces five criminal charges that could result in significant prison time. Smith will cooperate in her prosecution.

    DIED. DAVID REIMER, 38, who was a boy reared as a girl in an experiment known as the John/Joan case; of suicide; in Winnipeg, Canada. After his circumcision was botched in infancy, Reimer's parents took the advice of a researcher, named their son Brenda, and had him castrated and put on a regimen of hormones that they hoped would turn him into a girl. The case was hailed as proof that behavioral differences between the sexes are learned. After Reimer discovered the truth of his gender at 14, he stopped taking hormones and adopted the name David. He eventually married and tried to live a conventional life. Reimer had been depressed since the suicide in 2002 of his identical twin brother.

    DIED. BRENDA FASSIE, 39, South Africa's first globally renowned black pop star; of complications from an asthma attack; in Johannesburg. Called the Madonna of the Townships, the tiny diva was known as much for her hot temper, lesbian affairs and drug abuse as for her music — a pulsating blend of hip-hop, reggae and African rhythms known as kwaito that emerged from South Africa's grim shantytowns in the 1990s.

    DIED. JOHN WHITEHEAD, 55, R.-and-B. artist best known for his 1979 hit, Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now, which has become the unofficial anthem of Philadelphia's professional sports teams; of a gunshot wound; in Philadelphia. The singer-songwriter who, with his partner Gene McFadden, wrote a string of R.-and-B. hits in the 1970s, was shot in the neck as he and a nephew worked on a car. Police say the nephew may have been the intended target.

    DIED. SYD HOFF, 91, cartoonist and author of such children's books as Danny and the Dinosaur; in Miami Beach, Fla. Hoff originally wanted to be a painter, but his art-school teachers told him to "try something else." He did — and went on to contribute 571 cartoons to the New Yorker.

    DIED. ROBERT E. FULTON JR., 95, adventurer and inventor, best known for circling the world on a motor-cycle in 1932; in Newton, Conn. With the encouragement of his wealthy father, who owned Mack Trucks, the young Fulton took his 18-month trip home after completing school in Vienna. He later embarked on an inspired if eccentric career as an inventor. In 1950, he built a flying car called the Airphibian, a high-wing monoplane, which on one occasion flew from Maine to California. One of his inventions was a precursor to the modern flight simulator; another, the Fulton Skyhook, designed to extract spies from enemy territory, was featured in the 1965 James Bond movie Thunderball.