Deaths last week.

Harriet Nelson, 85, who helped create TV's image of the...

October 09, 1994

Harriet Nelson, 85, who helped create TV's image of the prosperous postwar family as she raised her own children on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet"; the Nelson clan-mom, dad and sons, David and Ricky-portrayed on TV (1952-66) their version of an untainted middle-class life; born Peggy Sue Snyder in Des Moines, she was a band singer known as Harriet Hilliard in 1935 when she married bandleader Ozzie Nelson; her husband died in 1975, and her younger son, Rick, who became a popular singer, died in a plane crash on New Year's Eve 1985; Oct. 2, in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Arnold Schlossberg Jr., 57, retired Army major general and former president and chief executive officer of the Palos Hills-based National Insurance Crime Bureau; he had been deputy assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz (1988-89) and deputy assistant to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (1990-91); Oct. 4, in Palos Community Hospital in Palos Heights.

Eugenia Chapman, 71, former Democratic state representative (1964-83) from Arlingon Heights who had earlier been a schoolteacher in Skokie; she also was the first woman to hold an Illinois House leadership position when she was elected whip; she was known for her tireless struggle for such causes as education and social and women's issues; Sept. 30, in Northwest Community Continuing Care Center.

Dennis Wolfberg, 48, rubber-faced comedian who performed on "The Tonight Show" and played an eccentric scientist on the TV series "Quantum Leap"; he was known for spinning his domestic life into standup fare and for his outlandish expressions; after 12 years of teaching elementary school in New York City's South Bronx, he went to work as a comedian in 1979; Oct. 3, in Culver City, Calif., of cancer.

Lina Basquette, 87, who appeared in the silent films of Cecil B. DeMille ("The Godless Girl") and Frank Capra ("The Younger Generation") and who, at age 18, married Sam Warner, one of the founders of Warner Brothers; a bitter dispute with her in-laws brought her as much publicity as her film roles did; she and Warner married in 1925, and he died in 1927; they had a daughter, Lita, but, in a court battle with the Warner family, the 20-year-old widow lost her estate and custody of her child; her marriage to Warner was the first of nine (to seven different husbands); in the 1960s and '70s, she was one of the country's best-known breeders and handlers of champion Great Danes; Sept. 30, in Wheeling, W.Va.

Ron Gene Wikberg, 51, who became an award-winning journalist while serving a life sentence in the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola for murder; he served 23 years, during which he trained as a paralegal, and was released two years ago after undoing his life term through a legal loophole that he had discovered; in 1971, he began to write for The Angolite, an unusual prison magazine; he and the bimonthly won many awards for reporting, editing and publishing; Oct. 2, in Rohrersville, Md., of cancer.

Dub Taylor, 87, veteran character actor whose movie career included "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) and "Maverick" (1993); born Walter Clarence Taylor II in Georgia, he was a saxophonist and vaudevillian before getting his film break in Frank Capra's 1938 classic comedy "You Can't Take It With You"; in the 1940s, he played Cannonball, the sidekick in Bill Elliott Westerns, and was seen in dozens of films as stocky, cheerfully scruffy westerners or hillbillies; in "Bonnie and Clyde," he played the treacherous father of one of the Barrow gang members; Oct. 3, in Los Angeles.

Andre Lwoff, 92, pioneer in the field of molecular biology and a winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in medicine; he shared his Nobel with two French colleagues for the discovery that the genetic material of a virus can be assimilated by bacteria and passed on to succeeding generations; he held the chair in microbiology at the University of Paris' Faculty of Science; he was a visiting professor at numerous schools, including the University of Chicago; Sept. 30, in Paris.

Sister Michael Berry, 89, former president of Chicago's Mercy Hospital (1956-60) who worked with the city at that time to acquire land on the Near South Side that enabled the hospital to build a new facility and stay in the area; she was a member of the Sisters of Mercy for 73 years, having begun as a teacher at St. Mary's Training School in Des Plaines; she then taught at several Catholic schools in the Chicago area; Oct. 6, in Mercy Hospital Convent.

George Leland Bach, 79, founding dean, in 1946, of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh; he left in 1962 to teach at Stanford University and remained there until his retirement in 1983; his textbook, "Economics: An Introduction to Analysis and Policy," was first published in 1954 and has gone through 11 editions and been printed in four languages; Sept. 29, in Portola Valley, Calif.