AP News, September 8th, 2007
Madeleine L'Engle
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ Author Madeleine L'Engle, whose novel "A Wrinkle in Time" has captivated generations of schoolchildren and adults since the 1960s, died Thursday, her publicist said. She was 88.
L'Engle died of natural causes at a nursing home in Litchfield, said Jennifer Doerr, publicity manager for publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The Newbery Medal winner wrote more than 60 books, including fantasies, poetry and memoirs, often highlighting spiritual themes and her Christian faith.
For many years, she was the writer in residence and librarian at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.
"A Wrinkle in Time" _ which L'Engle said was rejected repeatedly before it found a publisher in 1962 _ won the American Library Association's 1963 Newbery Medal for best American children's book. Her "A Ring of Endless Light" was a Newbery Honor Book, or medal runner-up, in 1981.
In 2004, President Bush awarded her a National Humanities Medal.
Born Madeleine L'Engle Camp in 1918, L'Engle graduated from Smith College in 1941 and worked as an actress in New York City. There, she met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, an accomplished stage actor who became known later for his portrayal of Dr. Charles Tyler on the soap opera "All My Children."
In 1945, her first book, "The Small Rain," was published; she and Franklin married the following year. They moved to Connecticut in 1951 and for several years, the couple ran a general store to make ends meet.
They had a son, Bion, and two daughters, Josephine and Maria. The couple had adopted Maria after her parents, who were friends of theirs, died.
The family later moved back to New York; Franklin died of cancer in 1986. Her son died in 1999 at age 47.
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Miyoshi Umeki
LICKING, Mo. (AP) _ Actress Miyoshi Umeki, who won an Oscar for her performance as the doomed wife of an American serviceman in "Sayonara" and later starred in the Broadway musical "Flower Drum Song," died Aug. 28. She was 78.
The Japanese-born actress, the first Asian performer to win an Oscar, died of cancer at a Licking nursing home, said Michael Hood, her son.
In "Sayonara," the 1957 film version of James A. Michener's best-selling novel, she teamed with Red Buttons in a tragic subplot about a U.S. serviceman and local woman who fall in love in post-World War II Japan. They commit suicide rather than part when he is supposed to return to America.
Both won Oscars for their supporting roles, surprising fans to whom Umeki was unknown and Buttons was a television comedian.
She later played Mei Li, a timid mail-order bride brought to San Francisco from China, in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1958 show "Flower Drum Song." She was nominated for a Tony for best actress in a musical and repeated her role in the 1961 film version.
Umeki also portrayed Mrs. Livingston, the housekeeper, in the ABC series, "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" (1969-1972), which starred Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz.
Among her other movies were "Cry for Happy" (1961), "The Horizontal Lieutenant" (1962) and "A Girl Named Tamiko" (1962).
Umeki was born May 8, 1929, in Otaru, Japan. She sang on Japanese radio and television and in the mid-1950s, then left for the United States.
