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Died. Katharine Cornell, 81, empress of the American theater; of pneumonia; in Vineyard Haven, Mass. "Kit" Cornell grew up in Buffalo, where her father gave up a medical practice to manage a playhouse. She joined the Washington Square Players in New York in 1917, did stock parts in Buffalo and Detroit, and caught the notice of Guthrie McClintic, a young director. They married in 1921, the year Cornell first played on Broadway, starting one of the theater's most auspicious connubial collaborations. During the 40 years of their marriage, McClintic directed Cornell in almost all of her roles.
Dark, slinky, with a faintly Oriental mien and a marvelously adaptable mouth, Cornell was dubbed the American Duse. After indelibly establishing her star status as the sultry Iris March in Michael Arlen's The Green Hat, she later chose rich dramatic roles in the "Katharine Cornell Presents" company she founded with McClintic in 1931. Its first production, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, featured Cornell as the consumptive Elizabeth Barrett. In 1933 Cornell took the company on a landmark 21,000-mile road trip through the U.S., bringing The Barretts, Shaw's Candida and Romeo and Juliet to such places as Amarillo, Texas, and Portland, Me. Cornell's fine eye for casting led her to offer early breaks to such talents as Gregory Peck and Orson Welles. She continued her throaty-voiced performances until 1961, when McClintic died and she retired. "I couldn't do anything after that," she said. "He always gave me the security I needed."
Died. Eurico Caspar Dutra, 89, conservative, taciturn President of Brazil from 1946 to 1951; of a heart attack; in Rio de Janeiro. Pre-eminently a soldier, Dutra rose through military ranks to become war minister to Strongman Getulio Vargas in 1936, belatedly latched onto the Allied wartime cause after years of vocal admiration for the Nazi forces, and was swept into the presidency following Vargas' ouster in 1945. Among the highlights of his honest, non-dictatorial but uninspired administration were the outlawing of the Communist Party and of casino gambling, at the time Brazil's most lucrative industry. Dutra, who somewhat resembled a baby owl, lived an ascetic life in the presidential palace, retiring nightly at 8 and holding his first audiences at 5 a.m.