Virginia Graham,86, a pioneering radio and television talk-show host, died Tuesday in New York of complications from a heart attack suffered Dec. 11.
Miss Graham began her career in radio in the 1930s, replacing Margaret Truman as host of "Weekday," but was best known for two long-running, nationally syndicated television talk shows, "Girl Talk," which ran on ABC from 1963 to 1969, and "The Virginia Graham Show," which was broadcast from 1970 to 1972.
Miss Graham was a frequent substitute host on NBC shows such as "Strike It Rich," "The Big Payoff," "Today" and the "Jack Paar Show."
Miss Graham, who was 5 foot 8, once described herself as "a big blonde" -- an apt description of the elegant, larger-than-life television personality, who was known for her lacquered hair, red fingernails and no-nonsense attitude.
Born Virginia Komiss in Chicago in 1912, Miss Graham graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in anthropology at 18 and went on to get her master's degree in journalism at Northwestern University.
Miss Graham married theatrical costumer Harry Guttenberg.The two moved to New York, where Miss Graham became a script writer and radio voice of cooking specialist "Betty Baker," a subsidiary of Betty Crocker. He died at 80 in 1980.
In 1947, she and 13 other women started the Cerebral Palsy Foundation.
Aurora Aquino,88, the mother-in-law of former Philippine President Corazon C. Aquino, died yesterday in Manila, after a lingering illness.
Aurora Aquino became a prominent opposition figure after the assassination of her son, former Sen. Benigno S. Aquino in August 1983.
Mrs. Aquino, a devout Roman Catholic who once headed the Catholic Women's League, joined many protest rallies against the Marcos dictatorship until President Ferdinand E. Marcos was ousted in a revolt in February 1986.
She became less active in public after her daughter-in-law took power as president after the revolt.
Luther Francis Yancey Jr.,85, a war correspondent during World War II and an editorial artist for the Boston Globe, died Monday in Boston.
Although an artist, Mr. Yancey occasionally wrote for the Globe before retiring in 1978.
He was also a war correspondent for the Afro-American newspaper in Baltimore during World War II.
Dr. Patrick Leahy,81, Ireland's leading campaigner for euthanasia, who once publicly announced he would commit suicide, died Dec. 17 in Dublin, Ireland, of bladder cancer.
Dr. Leahy told Irish radio last year from Thailand that he had gone there to commit suicide to end his suffering. He backed down when he discovered euthanasia was just as illegal in Thailand as in Ireland.
Dr. Leahy first courted controversy in the 1970s while working in a Dublin health center when he admitted prescribing contraceptives for patients, an affront to Roman Catholic teachings. He was also a supporter of abortion rights.
Later he became Ireland's most prominent campaigner for euthanasia. Last year, he said he had helped about 50 people to die and had referred other terminally ill people to other pro-euthanasia doctors.
Anatoly Rybakov,87, a Russian novelist who was exiled for anti-Stalinist views and won widespread literary praise for his book "Children of the Arbat," died in the United States, Russian news organizations reported.
The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Mr. Rybakov's wife, Tatyana, as saying he died in his sleep from complications after a heart operation.
In a 1997 interview, he told Russian television network NTV that he was arrested Nov. 5, 1933, for "counterrevolutionary propaganda." He spent three years in exile and was then denied permission to live in large cities.
Pub Date: 12/25/98