DIED. ERIC WRIGHT, 31, rapper; of complications from AIDS; in Los Angeles. His steely, insistent tenor made “Eazy-E” one of the instantly identifiable elements of N.W.A., the rap group that took the genre to the harsher heights of “gangsta rap,” with profane language and violent imagery that kept the music off radio stations and marching out of stores. Following N.W.A.’s dissolution, Wright began a second career as solo artist, producer–and a truly offbeat dabbler in Republican politics.
DIED. HUGH EDWARD O’CONNOR, 33, TV actor; of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; in Los Angeles. The son of TV star Carroll O’Connor, Hugh O’Connor played a small-town Southern law officer opposite his father in the series In the Heat of the Night. Off-camera, Hugh struggled against drug abuse. Hours after his death, police arrested Harry Thomas Perzigian, who has been accused of supplying drugs to the actor. The accuser: Carroll O’Connor.
DIED. H.L. STEVENSON, 65, journalist; after a long illness; in Stamford, Connecticut. Stevenson’s combination of folksy wit, a strategically deployed Southern drawl and unbending standards made him a living legend at the UPI wire service where, over 31 years, he rose from reporter to editor in chief. Early assignments included the emerging civil rights movement; his tenure at the top coincided with the fall of Richard Nixon and the re-emergence of China, where Stevenson played a key role in the opening of Western news bureaus.
DIED. MARCEL RAVIDAT, 72, Sunday spelunker and mechanic; of a heart attack; in Montignac, France. During an outing in 1940, Ravidat eased down a hole in the ground and made a discovery that transformed humanity’s memory of itself-the Lascaux caves, with their remarkably preserved 18,000-year-old images of brilliantly colored creatures at full gallop. In later years, Ravidat served as a Lascaux guide.
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