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James Browning Jr., lead prosecutor in Patty Hearst trial, dies at 83

 
James Browning holds a bank photo that the FBI said looked like an armed Patty Hearst.
James Browning holds a bank photo that the FBI said looked like an armed Patty Hearst.
Published Jan. 16, 2016

James Browning Jr., 83, the lead prosecutor in the case that sent newspaper heiress Patty Hearst to prison in what was then one of the most sensational trials in U.S. history, died Tuesday in suburban Tucson, Ariz., after a fall. He helped secure her conviction on bank robbery charges in 1976, squaring off with noted defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey. Hearst was 19 when she was kidnapped in 1974 by a radical group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army, then joined their cause.

Giorgio Gomelsky, 81, a rock impresario and record producer who gave the Rolling Stones their first exposure, managed the Yardbirds and went on to champion an eclectic batch of progressive rock groups in the United States, died of colon cancer Wednesday in New York. As the operator of Crawdaddy, a club in the London suburb of Richmond, he booked the Rolling Stones for their first paid appearances in 1963, managed and produced the Yardbirds in their prime, and introduced the Animals to London.

Ann Caracristi, 94, who became one of the highest ranking and most honored women at the code-breaking National Security Agency after a career extending from World War II through much of the Cold War, died of dementia Jan. 10 in Washington. She retired in 1982, after becoming the sixth deputy director of the NSA, the secret agency that collects and deciphers covert communications from all over the world. She was the first woman to serve as deputy director.

Brian Bedford, 80, the British-born actor, reared in working-class misery, who became a stellar portrayer of the princes, kings and faded aristocrats of Shakespeare, Moliere and Chekhov, died of cancer Wednesday in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was in 18 Broadway productions and in 1971 won a Tony Award for playing Arnolphe, the jealous and insecure spouse-seeker in Moliere's School for Wives.

C.D. Wright, 67, an award-winning poet renowned for her forceful and eclectic style, her fusion of lyricism and reportage, and her passion for writing, died Tuesday in Barrington, R.I. She was a winner of the National Book Critics Circle prize for her 2010 collection, One With Others, a full-length work of prose and poetry.

Sylvan Barnet, 89, a scholar who starting in the 1960s introduced generations of college students to Shakespeare through the Signet Classic Shakespeare series, for which he was the general editor, died of cancer Monday in Cambridge, Mass.

Ellen Stovall, 69, a three-time cancer survivor and, as president of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, a prominent advocate for patients dealing with a host of problems during and after cancer treatment, died of cardiac disease Jan. 5 in Rockville, Md.

Billie Allen, 90, an actor who appeared on and off Broadway when New York theater was not especially welcoming to black performers, and who helped integrate network television, making frequent appearances on The Phil Silvers Show in the 1950s and in commercials in the 1960s, died Dec. 29 in New York.

Richard Hendrickson, 103, a chicken and dairy farmer on Long Island, N.Y., who reported climate conditions to the National Weather Service for a record 85 years, died Jan. 9. He stopped his reporting last year.