Milestones, Jul. 26, 1954

• Share

Born. To Mary Churchill Soames, 31, Sir Winston's youngest daughter, and Christopher Soames, 33, M.P. and the Prime Minister's parliamentary private secretary: their fourth child, second daughter (Churchill's ninth grandchild). Weight: 7 lbs. 2 oz.

Married. Martine Carol, 29, whose bosomy pictures have made her the hottest film property in France (Caroline Chérie); and Christian-Jaque (real name: Christian Maudet), 41, her director; both for the second time; in Grasse, France.

Married. Groucho Marx, 58, waspish clown of cinema (A Night at the Opera) and television (You Bet Your Life); and Eden Hartford, 24, Beverly Hills model; he for the third time, she for the second; in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Divorced. By Jane Withers, 28, onetime queenpin cinemoppet: William P. Moss Jr., 33, Texas oil-and-cattle baron; after almost seven years of marriage, three children; in Santa Monica, Calif.

Died. George R. ("Machine Gun") Kelly, 59, onetime minor-league bootlegger who hit the big time in 1933 with the kidnaping and $200,000 ransoming of Oklahoma Oilman Charles F. Urschel; of a heart ailment; in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kans.

Died. Irving Pichel, 63, longtime stage and cinemactor (Cleopatra), more recently a topnotch director (Martin Luther); of a heart ailment; in La Canada, Calif. After the success of Luther, Pichel went on to a more difficult subject, a week before his death completed Day of Triumph, the first full-length film on the life of Christ since Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 King of Kings.

Died. Bennett Champ Clark, 64, onetime (1933-45) U.S. Senator from Missouri, son of the famed (1911-19) Speaker of the House Champ Clark; of a heart ailment; in Gloucester, Mass. As aide and understudy to his father, Bennett Clark, at 22, maneuvered desperately behind the scenes in the Democratic Convention of 1912 to help his father wrest the presidential nomination away from Woodrow Wilson. During his twelve years in the Senate, Clark alternately fought and supported the New Deal, in 1945 accepted an appointment to a U.S. circuit judgeship from Good Friend and Fellow Missourian Harry S. Truman, best man at Clark's second marriage in 1945.

Died. Grantland Rice, 73, dean of U.S. sportswriters; of a heart attack; in Manhattan (see PRESS).

Died. Jacinto Benavente y Martínez, 88, playwright (La Malquerida) and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1922; of a heart ailment; in Madrid.