In passing

Donald W. Douglas Jr., aircraft company heir

Los Angeles Donald W. Douglas Jr., who as president of Douglas Aircraft Co. introduced the DC-8 airliner and brought the aircraft manufacturer into the jet age, has died. He was 87.

Douglas, the son of famed aircraft designer and Douglas Aircraft founder Donald Douglas, died Oct. 3.

He was named president of the company in 1957, a year before the DC-8 was introduced. A decade later, the financially ailing company merged with McDonnell Aircraft, which merged with Boeing in 1997.

Douglas started with his father’s company in 1939 as an engineer. In 1943 he became manager of flight testing, overseeing the creation of such warplanes as the C-54 transport plane.

Douglas retired in 1974, but remained on the board of directors until 1989.

In 1993, Douglas unsuccessfully sued McDonnell-Douglas when the financially troubled company announced it would end health benefits for 20,000 company retirees, including the Douglas family.

Marie Odee Johnson, 107, WWI-era veteran

Dallas Marie Odee Johnson, a World War I-era veteran, died Sept. 25. She was 107.

She turned 20 in 1917, when she became one of the first women to serve in a non-nursing role in the military. Johnson was one of nearly 12,000 women who worked stateside in the Navy’s first female division, nicknamed the Yeomanettes. They were assigned mainly clerical duties to free up men for fighting.

She was stationed in New York, where she secured tickets for sailors on shore leave, and in Washington D.C., where she was a secretary for a Marine general.

Willy Guhl, 89, Swiss designer of furniture

Geneva Swiss designer Willy Guhl, creator of innovative furniture including the loop rocking chair and table, died Monday. He was 89.

He was part of the Swiss neofunctional design scene and one of the first advocates of flat-packed furniture, which has since been made famous by the Swedish chain Ikea. Guhl said that more customers would be able to afford furniture if it was assembled at home, giving poorer people better access to good design.

Guhl’s trademark rocking chair, which he designed in 1954, was made of a single piece of material, bent to complete a loop. It was designed according to Guhl’s motto of “achieving the most with the minimum of effort.”

Guhl’s loop furniture was recently used in the garden of the British reality TV show “Big Brother.”

Joyce Jillson, 58, celebrity astrologer

Los Angeles Joyce Jillson, author of a nationally syndicated astrology column who divined the stars on behalf of the Reagan administration and Hollywood players, died Oct. 1. She was 58.

Her daily astrology column appeared in nearly 200 newspapers.

As the official astrologer for 20th Century Fox Studios, Jillson consulted on the best opening days for Fox movies. She picked the opening date for 1977’s “Star Wars” – the second-highest grossing movie of all time.

In 1988, Jillson was linked to the Reagan White House after former chief of staff Donald T. Regan wrote in a book that Nancy Reagan consulted astrologers.

Jillson contended she advised Reagan campaign aides to select George H.W. Bush as Reagan’s running mate in 1980.