1960s Timeline

June 19, 1962 - Frank Borzage (pictured with Marlene Dietrich in 1936), Academy Award-winning motion-picture director, died today after a long illness. He was 69 years old. Mr. Borzage won the first director’s Oscar in 1927 for “Seventh Heaven,” which starred Janet Gaynor (right), and another in 1931 for “Bad Girl,” with Sally Eilers and James Dunn. Last February, he received the D.W. Griffith Award of the Director’s Guild of America, that group’s highest honor. A former prop

May 14, 1962 - Franz Kline, of 242 West 14th Street, a leader in the abstract expressionist school of painting in New York and of the branch called action painting, died of a heart ailment Sunday in New York Hospital. He would have been 52 years old on May 23. Mr. Kline’s illness prevented him from attending the White House dinner on Friday for the French Minister of Culture, André Malraux. Mr. Kline was one of three American painters invited; the others were Andrew Wyeth and

May 3, 1962 - Mrs. Helen Dortch Longstreet (pictured right in 1900), widow of James Longstreet (left), the controversial Confederate General, died at Milledgeville State Hospital in Georgia this morning of a heart attack. She was 99 years old. General Longstreet was 76 and his bride was in her thirties when they were married in Atlanta on Sept. 8, 1897. The general, a blunt and pugnacious military leader, had been at the center of one of the Civil War’s most acrimonious confl

Apr. 11, 1962 - Michael Curtiz, Academy-award-winning motion picture director, died of cancer last night. He was 72 years old. Mr. Curtiz, who won an Oscar for directing “Casablanca” in 1943, had been a distinguished director in Europe before he came to this country in 1927. He was with Warner Brothers studio for more than 20 years, directing 74 pictures for that studio alone. Mr. Curtiz was one of Hollywood’s most successful directors, a perfectionist who was familiar with e

Apr. 10, 1962 - Lieut. Gen. Manton S. Eddy (pictured without helmet in 1944 between General Omar Bradley and General George S. Patton), retired, famed commander of the Ninth Infantry Division during World War II and commander of the U.S. Army in Europe after the war, died in Fort Benning, Ga., today at Martin Army Hospital. His age was 69. He had suffered a heart attack on Saturday. General Eddy won the respect of officers and enlisted men alike both in war and peace. In Fran

Mar. 29, 1962 - Otto Miller, a catcher with the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1910 to 1923, fell or jumped to his death today from a fourth-floor window at the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital. He was 72 years old and recuperating after a cataract operation performed on his left eye Tuesday. Mr. Miller, who was born in Nebraska on June 1, 1889, entered professional baseball before he reached his 19th year. As a Dodger, he was one of the top catchers in the game, although his lifetime ba

Mar. 25, 1962 - Professor Auguste Piccard (pictured in 1931), the pioneer Swiss explorer of the stratosphere and ocean depths, died of a heart attack last night at his home in Lausanne. He was 78 years old. The physicist captured the imagination of millions when, in the early 1930s, he and an assistant boarded the gondola of a balloon of his own design and ascended to a record height into the stratosphere. Fifteen years later, he and his son, Jacques, went to ocean depths nev

Feb. 20, 1962 - A funeral service was held in Beverly Hills, Calif., today for Bruno Walter (pictured in 1935), the noted conductor who died Saturday at the age of 85. Among the two dozen wreaths that flanked the rose-covered coffin were floral tributes from Chancellor Adenauer of West Germany and Willy Brandt, Mayor of West Berlin. Mr. Walter, a native of Berlin who was born Jewish but later converted to Christianity, went into exile after Hitler’s rise to power. The service

Jan. 13, 1962 - Ernie Kovacs, comedian of the theatre, screen, and television, was killed today in a traffic accident. He would have been 43 on Jan. 23. The police in Los Angeles said Mr. Kovacs was killed when his station wagon skidded across wet pavement a half block from the Beverly Hilton Hotel and smashed into a power pole. The crash occurred shortly before 2 a.m. on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles. Mr. Kovacs had attended a baby shower in honor of the wife of

Dec. 18, 1961 - Ping Bodie (pictured left in 1920), the slugging outfielder who was a former roommate of Babe Ruth (right), died of cancer today in San Francisco. He was 74. In 1910, playing with the San Francisco Seals, he hit the then-fantastic total of 30 home runs, and quickly broke into the big leagues with the White Sox in 1911. Though he was Babe Ruth’s roommate after he became a Yankee, he always denied it. “It isn’t so,” he would say. “I room with his suitcase.” His

Oct. 13, 1961 - Eugene Bullard, a Negro flier who was honored by France for his service in World War I, died today in New York City. His age was 67. Mr. Bullard, born in Georgia, ran away from home as a boy and went to Scotland as a stowaway. He became a welterweight prizefighter and boxed in England, France, and North Africa. When World War I began, Mr. Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He suffered the first of four war wounds at Verdun. While convalescing, he t

July 6, 1961 - Ernest Hemingway (pictured in 1939) was buried today in the soil of the Western mountains he loved near the home where he wrote much of his prize-winning literature. The novelist, short-story writer, and war correspondent, dead at 61 of a self-inflicted shotgun wound, was buried under a blanket of red roses alongside the grave of one of his closest friends, Taylor Williams. The cemetery in which Mr. Hemingway was buried is surrounded by the Saw Tooth Mountains.

July 5, 1961 - The family of Ernest Hemingway (pictured with his father in 1928) was reunited today for the author's funeral tomorrow. Mr. Hemingway will be buried in the cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho. Patrick Hemingway, one of the author's three sons, arrived today from Africa. Two other sons, a brother, and three sisters arrived earlier. Mr. Hemingway's fourth wife, Mary, was at home with him when he killed himself Sunday with a shotgun. The writer's sister, Mrs. Sterlin

July 4, 1961 - Antonio Ordóñez (pictured left in 1959 with Ernest Hemingway) killed two bulls in Jerez De La Frontera, Spain, today in memory of the famed author. Before the fight, the bullfighter walked to the the middle of the ring and, with the crowd, stood silent for one minute in honor of Mr. Hemingway. The matador wept openly over the death of "Ernesto." He said that his tears were justified "because I am sure that Papa Hemingway would have liked this form of pray

July 4, 1961 - Louis-Ferdinand Céline (pictured in 1932), French novelist, whose final years were clouded by wartime collaboration and his violent anti-Semitism, died Saturday. He was 67 years old. Mr. Céline's most widely known books were "Journey to the End of the Night" and "Death on the Installment Plan." Both enjoyed critical and popular success in the U.S. when they were published in English, the former in 1934 and the latter in 1938. When the Nazis occupied Paris