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Died. Slip Madigan, 70, oldtime football coach, a star lineman for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame who took over at tiny St. Mary's College in Oakland, Calif., in 1921, just after a 127-0 debacle at the hands of California, quickly recruited some bruisers into the 60-man student body, taught them Notre Dame plays plus some tricks of his own (notably the "forward fumble"), and by 1926 had an undefeated team (among the victims: Army, California, College of the Pacific), which remained one of the best in the nation until 1940, when he quit football after a financial row with his trustees; of a heart attack; in Oakland.
Died. Clifton Webb, 74, stage and screen performer; of a heart attack; in Beverly Hills. Born in Indianapolis to a stage-crazy Mom (his real name: Webb Parmelee Hollenbeck), he was acting at eight (Oliver Twist), singing opera at 16, then became a Broadway dancing star (he partnered Marilyn Miller in Sunny) and actor (Blithe Spirit). In 1944 he went to Hollywood ("The land of endowed vacations," he called it) to make Laura, among other films, but was always best remembered as Mr. Belvedere, the implausible male governess in Sitting Pretty (1948), who succinctly enjoined a gurgling nine-month-old to "chew every mouthful 27 times."
Died. Roger Sherman Loomis, 78, Arthurian scholar, a Columbia English professor who spent a lifetime tracing the origins of the King Arthur legends, seeking to prove that they originated among the Celts in Wales and Ireland, rather than in France, and were spread to the Continent by Breton storytellers; of a heart attack; in Waterford, Conn. Loomis expounded his views in ten books, including Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes, which were not only erudite but Charmingly written: "We find ourselves traversing the vast wilderness of Celtic romance, like knights of old who rode all day endlong and overthwart a great forest."