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Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston (C45), 84, Beverly Hills, Calif., April 5. A Hollywood icon, Mr. Heston portrayed some of history's leading men in a prolific acting career that spanned more than half a century.
His roles included Moses in The Ten Commandments, John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy and Buffalo Bill Cody in Pony Express. Mr. Heston won the Oscar for best actor in 1959 for his role in Ben-Hur. His other hits included El Cid and Planet of the Apes.
Mr. Heston served as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1965 to 1971. In addition to his more than 50 movie roles, he also directed films and acted for TV.
Mr. Heston will be remembered as much for his politics as his entertainment career. In the 1960s he supported the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and participated in the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, D.C. Over the years he grew more conservative, often campaigning for Republican presidential and congressional candidates.
A staunch gun-rights advocate, Mr. Heston served as president of the National Rifle Association from 1998 until 2003. He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2003.
Born in Evanston and raised in nearby Wilmette, Mr. Heston acted in University theater productions and made his movie debut in classmate David Bradley's (C50) Peer Gynt in 1942. Mr. Heston left Northwestern in 1943 to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force.
He received an Alumni Medal from the Northwestern Alumni Association in 1979 and a Merit Award in 1957. Mr. Heston and his wife, Lydia Clarke Heston (C45), occasionally returned to campus and hosted alumni events in their home. They performed A.R. Gurney's Love Letters at a gala benefit for the Theatre and Interpretation Center during a five-day visit to campus in March 1993. During that visit they also visited his sister, Lilla A. Heston (C49, GC58, G65), chair of Northwestern's Department of Speech and Interpretation from 1979 until her death in 1984. The Hestons returned to campus as recently as 2001 and hosted a luncheon in their Beverly Hills home in 2002.
Mr. Heston is survived by his wife; a son, Fraser; a daughter, Holly Ann; and three grandchildren.
William Ihlanfeldt
William Ihlanfeldt (GSESP63, G70), 71, Scottsdale, Ariz., March 21. In his roles as an admission director and a governmental liaison for Northwestern, Mr. Ihlanfeldt revamped the University's student admission process and helped spur redevelopment in downtown Evanston (see "Land Swap Clears Path for Evanston Project," News on Campus, spring 1999).
In the late 1980s Mr. Ihlanfeldt reached out to the city of Evanston on the Northwestern University/Evanston Research Park, a 22-acre, $400 million project created to help speed the University's technology ideas to the marketplace in a mixed-use development that also included residential and retail. The project sparked redevelopment of the west side of downtown Evanston.
Earlier in his career at Northwestern, first as director of undergraduate admission and financial aid and then as dean of admission and financial aid, he radically changed the University's approach to student recruitment and admissions. Mr. Ihlanfeldt dismissed the notion that Chicago-area students should not be allowed to live on campus. He also pushed for need-blind admission, which separates students' academic achievement from their ability to pay, and encouraged the University to diversify its student body.
In the late 1960s Mr. Ihlanfeldt worked to increase the number of minority students at Northwestern and actively recruited students from high schools near the Chicago housing projects.
Mr. Ihlanfeldt later created the Office of Institutional Relations (now Government Relations) in 1977 and led the department as a vice president from 1978 to 1997.
Mr. Ihlanfeldt is survived by his wife, Jeannine; a son, Troy Ihlanfeldt (C92, KSM97); daughters Kimberly Ihlanfeldt (C02) and Holly Ihlanfeldt (WCAS03); a brother, Keith, and two grandchildren.
Phillip Figa
Phillip Figa (WCAS73), 56, Greenwood Village, Colo., Jan 5. Known for being tough and fair, Mr. Figa served as a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Colorado.
Prior to his appointment in 2003 he worked as a civil lawyer with the firm that he co-founded, Burns, Figa and Will. Mr. Figa also served as regional board chair of the Mountain States region of the Anti-Defamation League. The son of two Holocaust survivors from Poland, he worked to raise awareness of the atrocities.
He attended Northwestern as an Evans Scholar.
Mr. Figa is survived by his wife, Candace Cole Figa (SESP73); a son, Benjamin Figa (WCAS04); a daughter, Elizabeth Figa (WCAS06); his parents, Leon and Sarah; and a brother, Stewart.
Kermit E. Krantz
Kermit E. Krantz (WCAS45, FSM47, 48), 84, Prairie Village, Kan., July 30. A pioneer in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, Dr. Krantz co-developed the Marshall-Marchetti-Krantz procedure, a surgery to eliminate incontinence, which he performed more than 5,000 times.
Dr. Krantz served as chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Kansas Medical Center for 31 years.
In 2004 the Feinberg School of Medicine named the Arey-Krantz Collection in recognition of his contributions as a student when he helped assemble the collection of anatomical specimens.
Dr. Krantz is survived by his wife, Doris; a brother, Andrew Krantz (EB37); daughters Pamela and Sarah; a son, Kermit; and six grandchildren.
Madeline Stratton Morris
Madeline Morgan Stratton Morris (SESP36, GSESP41), 101, Chicago, Dec. 26. A lifelong educator and observer of race, Ms. Stratton Morris introduced African American studies into the curriculum in Chicago public schools in 1941. She taught her pupils African American history with the hope of building their self-confidence. She taught in Chicago schools for more than three decades, worked in curriculum development and consulted at local universities.
She also served as president of the Chicago chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, worked on the Mayor's Commission on Human Relations and attended the 1980 Democratic National Convention as a delegate.
Ms. Stratton Morris is survived by a sister, Edythe Franklin, a nephew and four nieces.
Mary Evans Myers
Mary Evans Myers (J57), 71, Cincinnati, Feb. 15. Educated in a one-room schoolhouse in Waukesha, Wis., this farmer's daughter became a trailblazing editor and tough, independent-minded businesswoman.
At a time when female business editors were a rarity, Ms. Myers became deputy financial editor at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1978, a post she held until 1984.
After her tenure with the public relations firm Hill and Knowlton in Chicago, Ms. Myers became national business editor for the Washington Post in the late 1980s. After returning to Chicago, she worked again for Hill and Knowlton and later Burson-Marsteller.
Ms. Myers is survived by her daughter, Marsha, and three grandchildren.
Gerhard Neubeck
Gerhard "Gerry" Neubeck (G46), 89, St. Paul, Jan. 28. A longtime University of Minnesota professor, Mr. Neubeck pioneered the fields of human sexuality and marriage and family therapy.
Mr. Neubeck taught one of the nation's first college courses on human sexuality and later wrote one of the first books on extramarital affairs.
Born in Germany, Mr. Neubeck emerged as a star distance runner and would have competed in the Olympics, but the Nazis barred Jewish athletes from the 1936 Games in Berlin. His shoes and jersey are now on display at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Mr. Neubeck fled Germany with his family in 1938.
He is survived by his wife, Ruth; a daughter, Eva; a son, Peter; and seven grandchildren.
Alice Welsh Skilling
Alice Welsh Skilling (WCAS63), 67, Chicago, Feb. 9. An artist and educator, Ms. Skilling believed in the power of art and brought that message to children throughout Chicagoland.
Ms. Skilling, a former art teacher who ran her own interior design firm, volunteered as a board member with Art Resources in Training, a nonprofit organization that encourages art education in Chicago schools.
She is survived by her husband, Raymond; a brother, Robert; her sisters, Marlene and Shirley Welsh Ryan (WCAS61); a brother-in-law, Patrick G. Ryan (EB59); nieces Carolyn Phillips (KSM82), Mary Phillips Ainsley (C83, KSM92) and Alice Phillips Topping (KSM87); and nephews Patrick G. Ryan Jr. (L97, KSM97) and Robert J.W. Ryan (L00, KSM00).
Marvin Wachman
Marvin Wachman (WCAS39, G40), 90, Philadelphia, Dec. 23. A history professor, Mr. Wachman transformed his interest in the intellectual life into presidencies at two U.S. universities.
In 1961 Thurgood Marshall persuaded Mr. Wachman to accept the presidency at Lincoln University, the nation's oldest college for African American students. Mr. Wachman guided the institution in southeastern Pennsylvania for 8½ years. He also spent 10 years as president of Temple University.
Mr. Wachman, who attended Northwestern on a tennis scholarship, received a Northwestern Alumni Association Merit Award in 1984.
Mr. Wachman is survived by his wife, Adeline, and two daughters, Katie and Lynn.
Benton Wood
Benton Wood (SESP51), 80, Parrish, Fla., Dec. 8. An alumni leader for Northwestern, Rev. Wood served as president of the NU Club of Greater Sarasota in the early 1980s. Later, as secretary, he edited the club's alumni newsletter, Willy Sez. He received the club's Alumni of the Year Award in 2002.
An Episcopal priest, Rev. Wood spent 22 years in elementary and secondary education as a teacher, chaplain and school administrator in New York and Florida.
Rev. Wood was also an avid stamp collector and served as chaplain for the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts.
Rev. Wood is survived by his wife, Joan Spodnyak Wood (WCAS54); a son, John; a daughter-in-law, Theresa; a granddaughter, Diana; and a sister, Nancy.