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Died. Edward Johnson, 77, Canadian tenor who became general manager of the Metropolitan Opera (1935-50), shepherded the Met successfully out of the Depression and through World War II, greatly improved its financial position, presented several Met firsts (e.g., Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio), and brought down from the attic such locally forgotten masterworks as The Marriage of Figaro, Boris Godunov, Otello and Falstaff, was particularly proud of his reputation as the man who parted the golden curtain for young American singers (e.g., Eleanor Steber, Helen Traubel, Blanche Thebom, Risë Stevens, Leonard Warren, Dorothy Kirsten, Richard Tucker, Jan Peerce and Robert Merrill); in Guelph, Ont. Asked when he had begun to sing, easygoing Tenor Johnson once said: "I started as a soprano, so I suppose my answer should be ever since I was a little girl." He made his debut as Edoardo di Giovanni in Padua in 1912, sang two years later at Milan's La Scala in the first Italian Parsifal. An American citizen since 1922, he returned to Canada in retirement, became board chairman of the University of Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music.
Died. Edith, Dowager Marchioness of Londonderry, 79, hostess famed for her sparkling. 2,000-guest receptions on the eve of Parliament openings, first woman to be named Dame Commander of the British Empire, who—on her honeymoon in 1899—had her legs tattooed in pink and blue, featuring on the left a snake, a star and a heraldic crest, on the right a lion rampant against the Londonderry coat of arms; in Newtonards, Northern Ireland. Two years ago, when her grandson, the present marquess, grumbled in print that Queen Elizabeth II has an easy life, the marchioness disagreed strongly with the Londonderry heir. "The Queen," she retorted, "works a jolly sight harder than you do."