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Obituaries in the News
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Donald Lopez
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Donald Lopez, the deputy director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and a veteran World War II fighter pilot, died Monday of a heart attack, museum director Jack Dailey said. He was 84.
Lopez joined the Smithsonian in 1972 and was part of the team, led by Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, responsible for planning and opening the air and space museum in 1976. Museum curators and administrators said he provided much of the institutional and aviation knowledge that guided the museum for decades.
Before his career at the museum, Lopez was an aviation legend in his own right as a fighter pilot in the 23rd Fighter Group of the 14th Air Force in China. He had enlisted at age 19 and flew Curtiss P-40s and North American P-51 Mustangs. Lopez flew 101 missions and tallied five victories to become a World War II "ace." His skills as a combat pilot later qualified him to become an Air Force test pilot.
Lopez served an assignment at the Pentagon before earning a bachelor's degree at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a master's degree in aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology.
He also served as an associate professor of aeronautics at the U.S. Air Force Academy for five years and retired from the Air Force in 1964. He then worked on the Apollo-Saturn V launch vehicle and the Skylab project for NASA as a systems engineer at Bellcomm, Inc.
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Leonard Rosenman
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Leonard Rosenman, a film and television composer who won two Oscars and two Emmys during his 50-year Hollywood career, died Tuesday. He was 83.
Rosenman died of a heart attack at his home at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital, said family friend Jon Burlingame.
A New York native, Rosenman was a concert composer when his friend James Dean introduced him to director Elia Kazan. Kazan asked the composer to write the score for "East of Eden," thus beginning Rosenman's film career. He went on to score dozens of films and television shows.
