Milestones

DIED. ALAN BATES, 69, bluff, beguiling English actor; in London. A modest giant bestriding nearly a half-century of excellence, the Derbyshire lad co-starred at age 22 in the original London stage production of Look Back in Anger. But the Angry Young Man tag never quite fit Bates' protean gifts. As a charming killer in Nothing but the Best or a Jewish prisoner in The Fixer, wrestling nude in Women in Love or incarnating the lonely spy Guy Burgess in An Englishman Abroad, he brought strength, delicacy, wit and humanity to each role. In films, he often chaperoned showier stars (Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek; Lynn Redgrave in Georgy Girl; Bette Midler in The Rose) to Oscar nominations; he was the solid ground they danced on. The stage allowed him to dominate. He radiated silky malevolence in Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, a tonic cynicism in Simon Gray's Butley, a charming naiveté in Ivan Turgenev's Fortune's Fool. Bates' brilliance was too often taken for granted. His absence leaves a profound hole, an ache, in our theater and film life.
—By Richard Corliss

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DIED. JOHN GREGORY DUNNE, 71, novelist, essayist and (in collaboration with his wife Joan Didion) screenwriter; in New York City. His novels (Dutch Shea, Jr.; True Confessions) were full of Irishry—tough and compassionate, knowing without being cynical, true expressions of a complicated, cranky, lovable man whose hatred of hypocrisy was legendary. But his best subject was Hollywood, which he anatomized in two books (Monster; The Studio) and many articles. These were inside jobs—but without the malevolence and condescension many writers bring to their true tales of movie work. Dunne generally preferred (for their passion and honesty) the "bullies"—the screamers and shouters—to the "smoothies," smiling as they measure your rib cage for a shiv. He often found, of all things, civility and honor in the movie game. And his portraits of it are unsurpassed in their dry wit, understated truthfulness and lasting, corrective value.
—By Richard Schickel

DIED. EARL HINDMAN, 61, actor best known for his intentionally obscured role as Wilson, a neighbor who offered backyard counsel to handyman Tim Taylor in the sitcom Home Improvement but whose face was forever hidden behind a fence; in Stamford, Connecticut.

DIED. ANITA MUI, 40, flamboyant actress and Canto-pop diva, known as the Asian Madonna; of lung dysfunction caused by cervical cancer; in Hong Kong. (See Appreciation, page 48.)

DIED. ERSA SIREGAR, 52, Indonesian television reporter who was caught in the cross fire in a shoot-out between Indonesian troops and members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), who were holding him; in East Aceh, Indonesia. The head of the International Federation of Journalists said the rebels had earlier agreed to free Siregar and his cameraman, but closing the deal fell apart because the military wouldn't allow human-rights organizations in to arrange the release. The military placed the blame on GAM and accused the rebels of using Siregar as a human shield.

DIED. KRIANGSAK CHOMANAN, 86, Thai general and Prime Minister from 1977-80 who set up a timetable for democratization, including 1979 parliamentary elections, but fell from grace after being linked to a 1985 coup attempt; in Bangkok. Kriangsak offered amnesty to students and intellectuals who went into hiding during earlier crackdowns on a communist insurgency, and his more tolerant approach is credited with healing divisions in Thai society.

SENTENCED. NGUYEN VU BINH, 35, a former journalist with Vietnam's state-run press who published online articles criticizing the country's border agreement with China; to seven years in prison on espionage charges; in Hanoi. Washington condemned Binh's sentencing, which came after a three-hour closed-door trial that human-rights groups called deeply flawed. "No individual should be imprisoned for their peaceful expression of their views, and the sentencing of Mr. Binh clearly violates international standards for the protection of human rights," said U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

CAPTURED. A PYTHON reported to be 14.8 m long and weighing 447 kg, which would make it the largest snake ever discovered; in Curugsewu, Java, Indonesia. The dark-colored male reticulated python, which is capable of eating up to five dogs a month, would be almost 5 m longer than the previous record holder, a 10-m python shot on Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 1912.