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Obituaries of note

By Times Staff Writer
Published July 10, 2005

EVAN HUNTER, 78, who wrote the Ed McBain 87th Precinct detective series as well as novels including The Blackboard Jungle, died Wednesday in Weston, Conn., of cancer of the larynx, said his agent, Jane Gelfman. Writing as McBain, he pioneered the police procedural genre with his 87th Precinct series, which grew to more than 50 titles. He won the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement in 1986, and in 1999 became the first American to take the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association.

NAN KEMPNER, 74, a stalwart of the society pages and the Paris couture shows for decades, died July 3 in New York City. She was known as a hostess whose invitations were among the most coveted in New York and as an unapologetic clotheshorse particularly dedicated to designer Yves Saint Laurent. "The best part of a party is getting dressed to go," she often said.

JOEL GERSMANN, 62, longtime artistic director of the Broom Street Theater, an experimental company based in Madison, Wis., died June 24 at his Madison home of a heart attack, said Rod Clark, the company's acting chairman. Over the years, the theater touched on topics like the AIDS crisis, McCarthyism, pedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church and the student murders in Columbine, Colo.

ROBERT E. GALER, 91, a retired brigadier general and Marine Corps ace who received the Medal of Honor for aerial combat in the South Pacific during World War II, died June 27 in Dallas. In September 1942, while piloting a Grumman F4F Wildcat, he shot down 11 enemy bomber and fighter planes. The squadron under his command downed 27 Japanese planes, his Medal of Honor citation said.

[Last modified July 9, 2005, 23:35:17]