Notable deaths last week: LPGA pioneer; ex-senator who ran with Reagan

• Louise Suggs, an LPGA founder and among the best women to ever play with 61 wins and 11 majors, has died at age 91.

Suggs was perhaps the most influential player in LPGA history. Along with being one of the 13 founders in 1950, she served as LPGA president three times and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and the LPGA Teach and Professional Hall of Fame.

"I feel like the LPGA lost a parent," Commissioner Mike Whan said. "But I'm extremely confident that her vision, her competitiveness, and most importantly her spirit, will be with this organization forever."

The LPGA Tour rookie of the year award is named after Suggs. She won every season of her professional career and was the first player to capture the career Grand Slam at the 1957 LPGA Championship.

She finished her career with $190,251 in earnings.

A steady presence at LPGA's biggest events, her support of women's golf never wavered and Suggs never lost her sharp tongue. She was at the LPGA awards dinner in 2007 where Angela Park won the Louise Suggs Rookie of the Year award by earning $983,922.

"I wish like hell I could have played for this kind of money," Suggs said. "But if not for me, they wouldn't be playing for it, either."

Her efficient, powerful swing marked her for greatness as a teenager in Georgia. She began to get national acclaim when she won the 1947 U.S. Women's Amateur, the 1948 Women's British Amateur and the 1949 U.S. Women's Open, beating fierce rival Babe Zaharias by 14 shots.

Ben Hogan once said after watching Suggs swing that her swing "combines all the desirable elements of efficiency, timing and coordination."

"It appears to be completely effortless," Hogan said. "Yet despite her slight build, she is consistently as long off the tee and through the fairway as any of her feminine contemporaries in competitive golf."

Bob Hope once nicknamed her "Miss Sluggs" for how far she could hit the ball.

Suggs retired in 1962 from competition, but not from the LPGA Tour.

"Golf is very much like a love affair," Suggs once said. "If you don't take it seriously, it's not fun. But if you do, it breaks your heart. Don't break your heart, but flirt with the possibility."

• Designer Arnold Scaasi, whose bright, flamboyant creations adorned first ladies from Mamie Eisenhower to Laura Bush and film stars from Elizabeth Taylor to Barbra Streisand, has died. He was 85.

Until he closed his dress business in 2010, Scaasi - his surname, Isaacs, spelled backward - specialized in made-to-order clothes, favoring ornate, brilliantly-hued fabrics and trimmings like beads and feathers.

"Fashion, it's really about feeling good," said in 2002, when the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology exhibited his works. "It should be fun to get dressed. I like exciting and pretty clothes that help women feel exciting and pretty."

While "less is more" was usually not his credo, perhaps Scaasi's best known outfit was a famously translucent pantsuit worn by Streisand in 1969 to accept the best-actress Oscar for "Funny Girl" (she won in a tie with Katharine Hepburn.) It featured bell-bottom pants and a matching top in spangly black lace, with white collar and cuffs.

Strategically placed patch pockets covered her breasts, but the effect of the thin fabric in bright light created the impression of nudity from some angles. Scaasi denied the intent was to shock, saying only that he told Streisand: "We have to do something very modern - really of today" - since to that point, moviegoers had seen her only in costumes from another era.

Scaasi's most important legacy will be that of "his profound individuality," Parker Ladd, the designer's husband since 2011 and his partner of 54 years, said. "Everyone who committed to his clothes will feel that way, and museums and history will remember him that way."

• Buddy Emmons, an innovative pedal steel guitarist who toured with the Everly Brothers, Ray Price and Ernest Tubb and was one of the first to bring the instrument into the jazz and rock genres, has died at 78.

Emmons - commonly known in Nashville as "the Big E" - was known for fast and flashy string work. Dazzling instrumentals such as "Raising the Dickens" (1955) (credited to the Country Boys) and "Four Wheel Drive" (1957) influenced a generation of pickers.

However, it was the lyricism that he brought to slow songs that made him a popular accompanist. He backed Faron Young on "Sweet Dreams" (1955), Ray Price on the bluesy "Night Life" (1963) and folk singer Judy Collins on "Someday Soon" (1969).

He also graced recordings by Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Linda Ronstadt, Rosemary Clooney and the Henry Mancini Orchestra.

Throughout his career, Emmons created new designs for the instrument, including his signature model, the Emmons Guitar in 1963, which he sold through his Emmons Guitar Co.

Buddie Gene Emmons was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, on Jan. 27, 1937. He was 11 when his father, a machinist, bought him a lap steel guitar and purchased lessons for him at the Hawaiian Conservatory of Music in South Bend. At 13, Emmons purchased his first pedaled model.

• Gen. Manuel Contreras, who headed the feared spy agency that kidnapped, tortured and killed thousands during Chile's military dictatorship, has died at a military hospital while serving a combined sentence of more than 500 years for crimes against humanity. He was 86.

Soon after the death was confirmed by the national prison service, a crowd of several dozen people gathered outside the Santiago hospital waving Chilean flags. They broke into chants of "Murderer!" and toasted with champagne in paper cups to celebrate his death.

After the 1973 military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet that ousted the socialist government of President Salvador Allende, Contreras formed and commanded the DINA spy agency and went on to become the second most powerful and feared figure of the regime after Pinochet himself.

According to an official report, 40,018 people were imprisoned, tortured or slain during the 1973-90 dictatorship. Chile's government estimates that of those, 3,095 were killed, including about 1,200 who were forcibly "disappeared."

Contreras supervised the apprehension of thousands of suspected leftists after the coup as Santiago's national soccer stadium was transformed into a detention center where hundreds were held and tortured. About 150 bodies, many of them weighed down by sections of railroad track, were thrown from helicopters into the ocean and lakes, the military has acknowledged.

In later years, he alleged that Pinochet used an army chemical plant to produce cocaine that was sold abroad and he said drugs and arms trafficking were the main source of the $27 million that the dictator held in secret bank accounts abroad. Pinochet denied the charges and called Contreras a liar.

• Dr. Russell Dohner, a physician who never charged more than $5 for an office visit during his 58 years practicing medicine in central Illinois, has died at age 90.

"Dr. Dohner stood for everything you wanted to see in a doctor. He was hardworking, compassionate, thoughtful, humble and involved with the community," said state Sen. John Sullivan. "He touched the lives of generations and was a truly remarkable man."

When Dohner began practicing medicine in Rushville in 1955, he charged $2, the going rate for an office visit. He later raised the rate to $5. He retired in 2013.

One of seven children, Dohner grew up on a farm north of Rushville. Instead of taking up farming as his father wished, Dohner decided to take up medicine.

"I remember waking up and seeing the doctor there and thinking, 'THAT is what I want to do,"' he told The Associated Press in 2013.

The World War II Army veteran attended Western Illinois University, paying for his education with funds provided by the G.I. bill. He later attended Northwestern University's medical school in Chicago.

Dohner said he had his sights set on becoming a cardiologist and thought about staying in the big city. But when a doctor in Rushville asked him to put off his heart specialist studies to practice medicine back at home, he agreed to do so, at least for a little while. Then that doctor left town.

"So I couldn't very well leave," Dohner said in the 2013 interview. "That's just the way it worked out."

• In the annals of modern medicine, it was a horror story of international scope: thousands of babies dead in the womb and at least 10,000 others in 46 countries born with severe deformities. Some of the children were missing limbs. Others had arms and legs that resembled a seal's flippers. In many cases, eyes, ears and other organs and tissues failed to develop properly.

The cause, scientists discovered by late 1961, was thalidomide, a drug that, during four years of commercial sales in countries from Germany to Australia, was marketed to pregnant women as a miracle cure for morning sickness and insomnia.

The tragedy was largely averted in the United States, with much credit due to Frances Oldham Kelsey, a medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, who raised concerns about thalidomide before its effects were conclusively known. For a critical 19-month period, she fastidiously blocked its approval while drug company officials maligned her as a bureaucratic nitpicker.

Kelsey, a physician and pharmacologist later lauded as a heroine of the federal workforce, died Aug. 7 at her daughter's home in London, Ontario. She was 101.

• John Rudometkin, the University of Southern California star center who played in the NBA for New York and San Francisco, has died. He was 75.

The school said Wednesday that Rudometkin died in Newcastle of chronic lung disease, the lingering effect of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in his chest that ended his NBA career.

Rudometkin left USC with career records for points with 1,484, scoring average at 18.8, and rebounds with 831, and is seventh now on the school's scoring chart and fourth in rebounding. He was inducted into the USC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001 and his No. 44 jersey was retired in 2010.

Rudometkin averaged 6.3 points and 3.1 assists in 131 regular-season games in four NBA seasons, three with the Knicks and one for the Warriors.

• Johanna Quandt, a major shareholder in automaker BMW and one of Germany's richest women has died. She was 89.

Quandt started working for industrialist Herbert Quandt in the 1950s and got married to him in 1960. After his death in 1982, she took over responsibilities on the board of one of the world's leading luxury car makers. Together with her children Stefan Quandt and Susanne Klatten, she inherited substantial stakes in the company. She passed on her responsibilities at BMW to her children in 1997.

• A convicted leader of a New Jersey crime family long believed to be the model for "The Sopranos" has died. John M. Riggi was 90.

Riggi was the longtime business agent for Local 394 of the Laborers International Union of North America. But law enforcement officials say he also was a leader of the DeCavalcante crime family for more than two decades. He served prison time for extortion, murder and other charges.

Prosecutors claimed that Riggi continued to hold sway over the family's affairs even while he was in prison, saying he ordered murders, received regular tribute payments and told associates how the family should wield its power over labor unions. But officials also noted that Riggi was known for supporting community groups and charities.

In September 2003, Riggi admitted his role in the 1989 murder of a Staten Island businessman that prosecutors said was supposedly carried out as a favor to John Gotti, the former head of the Gambino crime family. They said evidence at prior trials showed Riggi believed the slaying would improve the Decavalcante's position among mob families.

"Sopranos" creator David Chase has said he drew inspiration for the HBO show partly from crime families including the DeCavalcantes.

• British-born historian Robert Conquest, whose influential works on Soviet history shed light on the terror during the Stalin era, has died. He was 98.

Conquest was the author of 21 books on Soviet history, politics and international affairs. His "The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties," which documented the purges of dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s, remains one of the most influential studies of Soviet history.

Published in 1968, the book estimated that under Stalin, 20 million people died in labor camps, executions and famines. It has been translated into more than 20 languages.

"Robert Conquest set the gold standard for careful research, total integrity, and clarity of expression about the real Soviet Union," said George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state and Hoover Institution distinguished fellow.

A renowned historian of Soviet history, politics and foreign policy, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

• Benton Becker, who acted as the liaison between President Gerald Ford and his predecessor, Richard Nixon, during the delicate negotiations that led to Ford's pardon of Nixon in September 1974, has died at his home in Boynton Beach, Florida. He was 77.

A onetime federal prosecutor, Becker came to know Ford while working on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee in the late 1960s, when Ford was a congressman from Michigan. After Ford was named vice president in 1973, Becker became an unpaid adviser, working alongside White House counsel Philip Buchen. Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974, after Nixon's resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Soon afterward, Ford and Buchen asked Becker to investigate the constitutional authority of issuing a presidential pardon to the disgraced Nixon. Becker concluded that the president had such prerogative, even if Nixon had not been charged with a crime.

• "I was always the goody-two-shoes," actress Coleen Gray often said, "but I wanted to be a sex symbol." She had grown up on corn and dairy farms in the Midwest, and her doe-eyed beauty and unaffected style drew the notice of Hollywood directors.

She won featured roles in much-admired crime dramas of the late 1940s and 1950s, notably "Kiss of Death," "Nightmare Alley" and "The Killing" - but not, to her regret, as a femme fatale or hard-bitten dame.

Instead, film scholar Eddie Muller wrote in his book on the film noir genre "Dark City Dames," Gray's most frequent role was "the slumming angel of reason and redemption, ably wrestling straying men away from the precipice."

Gray was 92 when she died at her home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, said a friend, David Schecter.

Her last film of enduring regard was "The Killing" (1956), a masterly early showcase for director Stanley Kubrick. The drama focused on a meticulously planned racetrack heist and the gang members whose various weaknesses complicate the crime.

• Country record producer and songwriter Billy Sherrill, who helped create the smooth "countrypolitan" sound of the 1960s and 1970s, has died. He was 78.

Sherrill's production style incorporated over-dubbing, strings and background vocals into country music to encourage crossover success for artists like Tammy Wynette, George Jones and Charlie Rich. He produced hits such as "Stand By Your Man," which he co-wrote with Wynette, "The Most Beautiful Girl," "Behind Closed Doors," and "He Stopped Loving Her Today."

Born in Phil Campbell, Alabama, the son of an evangelical preacher, Sherrill played piano and sang starting in his childhood. He worked at Sun Records in Sam Philips' Nashville studio, and then joined the CBS record label in 1964. He won a Grammy Award for co-writing "Almost Persuaded," in 1966, which was a No. 1 hit for artist David Houston.

• A Pennsylvania philanthropist and political activist who helped propel moderate Republicans to state and national offices has died. Elsie Hillman was 89.

Hillman's billionaire industrialist husband of 70 years, Henry Hillman, and their four children announced her death Tuesday at a Pittsburgh hospital.

Elsie Hillman is a former Republican National Committeewoman who was credited with using her political acumen and money to help President George H.W. Bush get elected in 1988 and Pennsylvania congressman Tom Ridge get elected governor in 1994.

• Mel Farr, a former NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year who rushed for more than 3,000 yards in seven pro seasons with the Detroit Lions, has died. He was 70.

Farr, a running back, played college football at UCLA and finished seventh in the voting for the 1966 Heisman Trophy. He was drafted in 1967 in the first round by the Lions and ran for 860 yards in 13 games as a rookie. Farr spent his whole NFL career with Detroit, from 1967-73.

In 1970, Farr rushed for 717 yards, helping the Lions go 10-4 in the regular season and reach the playoffs for the first time since 1957.

He was named to play in the 1968 and 1971 NFL Pro Bowls.

Farr, along with then-teammate Lem Barney, sang backup in 1971 on Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." The song went gold. Farr and Barney were playing golf with the Motown legend when Gaye came up with the tune.

• Richard Schweiker, the former senator who helped reveal the U.S. intelligence community's shortcomings in the investigation of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, has died. He was 89.

The former congressman, who represented Pennsylvania for eight years in the House and 12 years in the Senate, became secretary of the Health and Human Services Department under President Ronald Reagan in 1981. A Republican with a moderate- to-liberal voting record, Schweiker was an anomaly in Reagan's conservative administration and belonged to a party wing that no longer exists.

As a senator, Schweiker had bucked his fellow Republicans by voting against President Richard Nixon's antiballistic missile system, rejecting two of Nixon's Supreme Court nominees, speaking out against the Vietnam War and being one of the first Republicans to call for Nixon to resign following the Watergate scandal.

After two years as Reagan's health secretary, he claimed that more money in the federal budget, in percentage terms, was dedicated to his department than ever before.

While still a senator, Schweiker was chosen as a running mate in Reagan's unsuccessful 1976 bid to become the Republican presidential candidate. Reagan's decision to announce his choice of vice president before securing the nomination was considered unusual and risky. Gerald Ford, with Bob Dole as the vice presidential nominee, became the party's candidate, losing the election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

• Carol Brown Janeway, a prize-winning editor, executive and translator for Alfred A. Knopf whose authors ranged from biologist E.O. Wilson to Nobel Prize-winning fiction writer Imre Kertesz, has died, Knopf said Monday. She was 71.

In 2013, Janeway received the inaugural Friedrich Ulfers Prize for her translations of German literature, including her edition of Bernhard Schlink's novel "The Reader," which Oprah Winfrey chose for her book club in 1999.

• Jules Hirsch, a physician and scientist who helped reframe the modern understanding of obesity by demonstrating that people do not become fatter or thinner simply by indulging in or depriving themselves of food, a finding that supported biochemical explanations for a condition long attributed to personal weakness, has died at 88.

Hirsch supported the view that biochemical conditions in the body predispose certain people to become fat, thereby placing them at risk for obesity's frequent accompanying health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes.

• Big-voiced British singer Cilla Black, a product of Beatles-era Liverpool who became a national treasure over a 50-year music and television career, has died. She was 72.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney said news of Black's death came as a shock. "She had a fine distinctive voice and was always a bit of a laugh. It was a privilege to know and love her," McCartney said in a statement.

Ringo Starr tweeted: "She was a good friend we will all miss her."

Black was born Priscilla White in Liverpool, northwest England, in 1943. As a teenager she sang part-time and worked in the cloakroom of the Cavern Club, where her musical talent was spotted by rising local stars The Beatles.

Signed by the Fab Four's manager, Brian Epstein, she had a string of hits starting in 1964 with "Anyone Who Had a Heart," written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and "You're My World." Both went to No. 1 in Britain, and the latter also charted in the U.S.

She also had success with the Bacharach-David theme tune for the 1966 film "Alfie," and recorded several Beatles songs, including "The Long and Winding Road."

By the late '60s she was famous enough to be known by her first name alone, and hosted a BBC variety show, "Cilla."