Society: Sep. 21, 1992

Monday, Sept. 21, 1992

    • HOSPITALIZED. François Mitterrand, 75, President of France since 1981; for prostate surgery; in Paris.

    DIED. Larry Trapp, 43, a former Grand Dragon in the Ku Klux Klan; of complications from diabetes; in Lincoln, Nebraska. Trapp renounced his ties to the Klan a year ago, after a Jewish cantor, Michael Weisser, and his wife Julie responded to Trapp's threatening phone calls by befriending him. The Weissers moved Trapp, a blind double amputee, into their own home and cared for him.

    DIED. Anthony Perkins, 60, actor who starred as the motel keeper Norman Bates in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho ; of AIDS; in Hollywood.

    DIED. Henry Ephron, 81, screenwriter, playwright and producer; in Los Angeles. Ephron, in tandem with his wife Phoebe, wrote a number of popular screenplays for films such as Desk Set, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Their children include writer Nora Ephron.

    DIED. Fritz Leiber Jr., 81, seminal writer of science fiction and fantasy; in San Francisco. Leiber's science fiction included Coming Attraction , one of the earliest short stories to imagine a socially devastated post-nuclear war America, and the classic time-travel novel The Big Time.

    DIED. Quentin Burdick, 84, Democratic U.S. Senator from North Dakota for more than 30 years; in Fargo, North Dakota. Burdick, whose father was a Republican Congressman, was an unabashed advocate of pork-barrel projects for his state, earning him the sobriquet "the King of Pork."