Obituaries of note

BILLY MAY, 87, a prolific arranger best known for his work with Frank Sinatra, died Jan. 22 in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Sinatra's 1957 album Come Fly With Me, reached No.1 on the Billboard chart and established Mr. May as one of the leading arrangers on the West Coast. In 1938, Mr. May had joined Charlie Barnet's big band as a trumpeter and arranger. Within a year Barnet had recorded his arrangement of Cherokee, which went on to become his biggest hit.

GEORGE WOODBRIDGE, 73, an illustrator for Mad magazine for nearly 50 years whose detailed pen-and-ink drawings were featured in nearly every issue, died Jan. 20 in New York City. His delicate cross-hatched illustrations were the result of careful research, particularly in rendering historical scenes. He had a second career as an illustrator of military history books, including the three-volume American Military Equipage, 1851-1872.

ERNEST HENDON, 96, the last surviving participant in the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study, died Jan. 16 in Opelika, Ala. He was one of 623 men who unwittingly participated in the experiment to examine the effects of untreated syphilis on a group of black men from 1932 to 1972. He was in the control group that did not have syphilis. The men filed suit in 1972. The government agreed to provide free medical care and $9-million in payments to the victims and their families.

EDWARD A. LANE, 96, an Army photographer who took pictures of atomic bomb tests on Bikini Atoll for the U.S. military in 1946, died Jan. 9 in Denver. While stationed in the Marshall Islands, he was one of the photographers to document two atomic bomb tests, taking pictures from an airplane. He brought the film back to the United States in a case handcuffed to his wrist, said his daughter, Barbara Volpe.

DR. JEFFREY TOWLES, 74, a surgeon who helped save the life of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan when he was shot by a sniper in 1980, died Saturday in Fort Wayne, Ind. Jordan, then president of the Urban League, was shot in the back and critically wounded in a Fort Wayne hotel parking lot. A convicted serial killer was acquitted of the attack on Jordan, but later confessed. Joseph Paul Franklin has admitted killing 21 people in a cross-country rampage from 1977 to 1980.

RONALD FREDIANELLI, 73, a co-founder of the Gaylords, a 1950s pop vocal group, died Sunday in Las Vegas. Their debut song, Tell Me You're Mine, was a Top 10 hit in 1953. Other hits included From the Vine Came the Grape and The Little Shoemaker.

THE REV. LATON EARLE HOLMGREN, 88, a former general secretary of the American Bible Society, who oversaw the distribution of millions of Bibles around the world, died Jan. 18 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

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