Died. David Earl ("Swede") Savage, 26, the second driver to die from injuries received in this year's Indianapolis 500 auto race and the 61st fatality in Indy's 58-year history; in Indianapolis. Savage had driven 59 laps when his red STP Eagle-Offenhauser, going 170 m.p.h., spun out of control and smacked head-on into a retaining wall.
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Died. Veronica Lake (born Constance Ockelman), 53, the sultry siren with the peekaboo hairstyle, star of such movie hits of the '40s as So Proudly We Hail and This Gun for Hire; of acute hepatitis; in Burlington, Vt.
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Died. Betty Grable, 56, curvaceous, ice-blonde World War II pinup queen; of lung cancer; in Santa Monica, Calif. Ruth Elizabeth Grable was 13 when she danced across the screen for the first time in the chorus line of Happy Days (1929). By World War II, her million-dollar legs had carried her to stardom, and there was one cheesecake photo of Grable for every twelve men in uniform. Her movies for 20th Century-Fox−fluffy flicks like Tin Pan Alley, How to Marry a Millionaire and My Blue Heaven−grossed more than $100 million and, from 1946 to 1948, about $250,000 a year for herself, making her the highest-paid woman in the U.S. She was married for two years to Jackie Coogan, the former child star, and for 22 years to Bandleader-Trumpeter Harry James, with whom she raised horses and ran two ranches. After their divorce in 1965 she tried, with only moderate success, to make a comeback in show biz as a still trim and pretty grandmother.
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Died. Nancy Mitford, 68, novelist, biographer, and witty observer of British mores; in Versailles, France. Born in London, the eldest of Lord Redesdale's seven children, Mitford and her five sisters−Jessica also became a writer (The American Way of Death)−received an insular, almost gothic upbringing, with no formal education. Nancy wrote her first novel, Highland Fling, when she was 17. She wrote more than half a dozen novels (Pursuit of Love, The Blessing) and several biographies (Madame de Pompadour, The Sun King), but was best known for her scalding portrait of British society and its linguistic divisions, "U" (upper class) and "non-U." "Dentures," she wrote in a 1955 essay, are "non-U for false teeth ... Britain: non-U for England." -
Died. Elmer Layden, 70, one of the fabled "Four Horsemen" who played for Knute Rockne at Notre Dame in the 1920s; in Chicago. A 160-lb. fullback, Layden was known as "the Thin Man"−but his blinding speed and low-to-the-ground running style made up for his size, and he could punt the fat ball of his day more than 60 yards. In the greatest game of his career−the 1925 Rose Bowl against Stanford−he scored three touchdowns, two of them on intercepted passes. Layden returned to
South Bend in 1934 for seven seasons as head football coach and athletic director. He was elected the first commissioner of the National Football League in 1941, and after serving for five years became a business executive in Chicago. Only two members of history's most famous backfield are still alive−Halfbacks Jim Crowley and Don Miller. Harry Stuhldreher, the quarterback, died in 1965.
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