Divorced. Harry James, 54, ace trumpeter and bandleader in the '40s and early '50s, who still blows a hot horn on the Las Vegas nightclub scene; by Joan Boyd James, 30, former Vegas showgirl; on grounds of incompatibility; after two years of marriage, one child; in Las Vegas.
Died. Charles A. Wellman, 54, president of the $1 billion LFC Financial Corp., and one of the country's foremost doctors of ailing companies; in Los Angeles. When Wellman took over from Bart Lytton in 1968, the huge ($685 million assets) but debt-ridden Lytton Financial Corp. was on the verge of bankruptcy. The new president refinanced and borrowed $50 million, largely on the strength of his reputation, then audaciously merged with two smaller savings and loan firms, thereby increasing assets by an additional $370 million. Said an admiring competitor at the time: "Wellman is converting three alley cats into a pedigreed lion."
Died. Arthur Adamov, 61, Russian-born playwright of the absurd; by his own hand (an overdose of barbiturates); in Paris. As a young author, writing to expose his "anguish, masochism, perversions and preoccupations," Adamov turned out plays (La Parodie, 1947; L'Invasion, 1949) that earned him ranking with Beckett and lonesco as a founder of the theater of the absurd. His best-known work was 1955's Le Ping-Pong, an angry indictment of man's dehumanization by machines. "Life is not absurd," he finally admitted. "It is difficult, just very difficult."
Died. Dr. Frederick Perls, 76, German-born psychiatrist who helped found Gestalt therapy; following abdominal surgery; in Chicago. A onetime Freudian, Perls developed a psychotherapeutic technique that focused attention on the "here and now" in the patient's consciousness rather than a Freudian interpretation of the past. Perls introduced his theories to the U.S. in 1946, wrote about them in such books as Gestalt Therapy (1951) and Gestalt Therapy Verbatim (1969), and saw them become a major influence in encounter-group therapy.
Died. R.C. Clothier, 85, president of New Jersey's Rutgers University from 1932 to 1951; in Bryn Mawr, Pa. Rutgers' 14th president, Clothier led the university through an unparalleled growth period, during which it increased from six to 17 divisions throughout the state, added two research bureaus and an institute of management and labor relations, and took over Newark University. When he retired, enrollment was up from 2,900 to 21,000 and Rutgers ranked among the country's leading universities.