Murray Bowen, 77, a psychiatrist who was a leader in the us of family therapy to treat mental illness, died of lung cancer Tuesday at his home in Chevy Chase. Dr. Bowen developed the theory that the family as an emotional unit governed individual development and behavior. He integrated the concept into his treatment of schizophrenic patients and their parents while at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1954 to 1959. In 1959, he joined the Georgetown University Medical Center as a professor of clinical psychiatry and director of family programs. He organized the American Family Therapy Association and was the author of "Family Therapy in Clinical Practice."
Robert L. White, president of Kent State University when National Guardsmen killed four students during an anti-war protest there in 1970, died Wednesday in Ravenna, Ohio, at age 81. President of Kent State from 1963 to 1971, he was a teacher or administrator there for 44 years until his retirement in 1975. He named a 28-member campus panel to review the shootings and to recommend ways to avoid more violence, and he urged President Nixon to appoint a national panel to look into the causes of unrest at Kent State and other colleges, which the president did a month later.
Walter Ames Compton, 79, a former chairman of Miles Inc. whose research into nutrition led to the introduction of One-A-Day vitamin supplements and chewable children's vitamins, died Thursday at his home in Elkhart, Ind. His career at the Elkhart-based company, formerly known as Miles Laboratories, spanned more than 45 years and culminated in his appointment as president in 1964 and chairman in 1973. He retired in 1981.
Anatole Broyard, 70, a literary critic and former editor of The New York Times Book Review, died of cancer Thursday at a Boston hospital. Mr. Broyard, who lived in Cambridge, Mass., was a daily book critic for nearly 15 years before serving three years as an editor of the book review. After retiring in 1989, he continued to write a monthly essay, "About Books," and compiled a weekly, unsigned column of excerpts from books entitled "Noted With Pleasure" for the book review.
Barbara Boggs Sigmund, 51, the mayor of Princeton, N.J., and a member of one of the nation's best-known political families, died of cancer Wednesday at her Princeton home. Mrs. Sigmund finished second last year in the Democratic primary for governor of New Jersey. In 1972, the plane carrying her father, Hale Boggs, then the House majority leader, was lost over Alaska, and her mother, Corinne Lindy Claiborne Boggs, succeeded him in Congress. Mrs. Sigmund's mother's family, the Claibornes, traced its roots to Colonial Jamestown in Virginia and is said to have included more members of Congress than any other U.S. family. Her brother, Thomas Hale Boggs, is a prominent lawyer in Washington, and her sister, Cokie Roberts of Bethesda, is a correspondent for National Public Radio and for ABC News on television and radio.
Irene Mayer Selznick, 83, who produced Broadway plays that included the 1947 hit "A Streetcar Named Desire," died in her sleep Wednesday at New York's Pierre Hotel where she lived. She was the daughter of Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who for years was widely regarded as Hollywood's king. She was the first wife of David O. Selznick, who produced "Gone With the Wind" and other major films. Notable plays she brought to the stage included "Bell, Book and Candle" (1950), "The Chalk Garden" (1955) and "The Complaisant Lover" (1961).
Myron "Grim" Natwick, 100, the creator of the popular 60-year-old cartoon heroine Betty Boop, died Oct. 7 in Santa Monica, Calif. Of Betty Boop's enduring popularity, he said in a Los Angeles Times interview earlier this year, "Although she was never vulgar or obscene, Betty was a suggestion you could spell in three letters: s-e-x. She was all girl."
Richard Murdoch, 83, one of Britain's best-loved radio comedians in the 1930s and 1940s who went on to delight movie, theater and TV audiences into the 1980s, died Tuesday after collapsing earlier in the day while playing golf near London. He was a tall, droll, elegant Cambridge-educated man, who once said in an interview: "I've never been in a show where I had to be anyone else but me."