Milestones

DIED Some nights he was Frank Sinatra, other nights he was Anita Baker, but Danny Gans, 52, a Las Vegas Strip impressionist and singer, always entertained his adoring fans. Five nights a week, 46 weeks a year, Gans crooned comedic songs to Sin City visitors.

• Mel Brooks recognized his comedic talent and rewarded Dom DeLuise, 75, with roles in several Brooks movies, including Blazing Saddles and History of the World, Part I. The burly actor and chef also often appeared alongside Burt Reynolds in films like The Cannonball Run.

• In the 1960s, Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal, 78, formed the Theatre of the Oppressed, in which “spect-actors” interact with performers to change a story’s outcome and its characters’ fates.

• After resigning her position as English-department head at a London college, U.A. Fanthorpe, 79, an acclaimed British poet, took a receptionist job at a neurological hospital, where she witnessed tragic stories that incited her to start writing verse.

• Jewish boxer Salamo Arouch, 86, fought his way to survival as a prisoner at the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz by winning fight after fight against other captives–keeping prison guards enthralled. He was the subject of the 1989 film Triumph of the Spirit, starring Willem Dafoe.

ELECTED NBA legend Dave Bing, 65, won Detroit’s mayoral race, unseating scandal-ridden Kwame Kilpatrick’s interim replacement, Ken Cockrel Jr.

APPROVED On May 6, Maine became the fifth state to legalize gay marriage, while Washington, D.C., agreed to recognize same-sex unions performed elsewhere.