In passing
Jean Ruth Hay, 87, WWII radio show host
Fortuna, Calif. Jean Ruth Hay, who woke millions of American troops each morning during World War II with her upbeat radio program “Reveille With Beverly,” which was broadcast into foxholes, cockpits and military outposts from Alaska to New Zealand, died Sept. 18. She was 87.
Hay died after suffering a stroke while gardening, her son Bob said.
Between 1941 and 1944, Hay’s dawn broadcast as the effervescent Beverly reached an estimated 11 million people. Her jumpin’, jivin’ selections – Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole – were a welcome alternative to the 5:30 a.m. bugler’s blast that jarred American troops from their beds in military outposts across the globe.
With a cold Coca-Cola in one hand and a stack of records in the other, Hay’s day at Hollywood’s station KNX-AM began with her signature opening, “Hi there, boys of the USA.”
“We’re ready with the stuff that makes you swing and sway,” she would croon.
Called the world’s first global disc jockey, her programs reached servicemen in 54 countries.
Hay posed for pinup shots and was voted by troops, “The girl we’d most like to be trapped in the turret of a B-17 with.”
Geoffrey Beene, 77, fashion designer
New York Geoffrey Beene, the award-winning designer whose simple, classic styles for men and women put him at the forefront of American fashion, died Tuesday. He was 77.
The designer launched his own company on a shoestring budget in 1963 and turned it into a fashion empire. Along with Bill Blass, Beene was regarded as one of the godfathers of American sportswear.
Beene, who had planned to be a doctor and found himself daydreaming instead about fashions, was an eight-time winner of the Coty Fashion Critics Award and the first American designer to show his clothes in Milan.
Gertrude Dunn, 72, pro baseball player
Avondale, Pa. Gertrude Dunn, who played in the women’s professional baseball league immortalized in the 1992 film “A League of Their Own,” died when the single-engine plane she was flying crashed Wednesday. She was 72.
In 1952, Dunn was voted Rookie of the Year after leading her team to the championship of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.
After the league folded in 1954, she attended West Chester University, where she majored in physical education and played on the U.S. national field hockey and lacrosse teams. She was a member of the U.S. Field Hockey Hall of Fame.
Barbara Schwei, 57, Indian theater founder
New York Barbara Schwei, the founder and producer of The American Indian Dance Theater, died Wednesday. She was 57.
Schwei died at her home from breast cancer, said Les Schecter, a longtime friend.
She founded the theater in 1987 and her company of Indian dancers, singers and musicians traveled throughout North America, Europe and Asia. She received a Grammy nomination for “Best Traditional Folk Recording” in 1990 as producer of the American Indian Dance Theater’s original album.
In addition to her work with the theater, Schwei also produced concerts and co-produced the stage musical “Nash at Nine.”