Milestones Nov. 28, 2005

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DIED. RALPH EDWARDS, 92, radio and TV pioneer dubbed the "godfather" of reality programming; in Los Angeles. As a staff announcer for CBS radio, he pitched a show around a childhood game that in 1940 gave rise to the decades-long hit Truth or Consequences. But he was most famous for another radio show he brought to TV, in 1952. On This Is Your Life, each program surprised a guest with live reminiscences from loved ones and shrewdly capitalized on the new medium's capacity for intimacy, chronicling riveting, often weepy stories of the famous (Buster Keaton, Bob Hope, Marilyn Monroe) and sometimes the less famous (Holocaust survivor Hanna Bloch Kohner). More recently, he developed such shows as Name That Tune and The People's Court, the pop-culture phenomenon that in 1981 made California judge Joseph Wapner a household name.

DIED. WILLIAM BRYANT, 94, trailblazing D.C. lawyer who became the first black chief judge of a U.S. federal district court; in Washington. One of the first black Assistant U.S. Attorneys, he was appointed to the federal bench by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. Strikingly gracious despite having endured virulent racism early in his career, he was modest, averse to media attention and passionate about the ability of lawyers to achieve justice. If not for lawyers, he once said, "I'd still be three-fifths of a man."