In Passing

Phoenix

Evan Mecham, Arizona governor

Evan Mecham, the Arizona governor impeached, indicted and subjected to a recall campaign in 1988 for misuse of state funds and his inflammatory racial opinions, died Thursday of Alzheimer’s disease at a Phoenix hospice. He was 83.

Mecham, a millionaire automobile dealer, unsuccessfully ran for governor four times before he won a three-way race in November 1986 with 40 percent of the vote. The state attorney general quickly began investigating allegations that Mecham had lent his auto dealership $80,000 from his inauguration fund and had obstructed justice in his efforts to stop the investigation of a death threat against a former lobbyist.

Charges against him did not hold up in court, however. But Mecham’s archconservative and impolitic opinions, his deep suspicions about government and his willingness to carry grudges against the establishment were as lethal to his political career as the financial charges.

Within 18 months of his election, Mecham faced a recall drive and impeachment proceedings. The recall election was never held, because after the state House impeached him, the state Senate convicted him and removed him from office in April 1988.

Montgomery, Ala.

Johnnie Carr, civil rights activist

Johnnie Carr, who joined childhood friend Rosa Parks in the historic Montgomery bus boycott and kept a busy schedule of civil rights activism up to her final days, has died.

Carr, 97, who had been hospitalized after a stroke Feb. 11, died Friday.

Carr succeeded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1967, a post she held at her death. It was the newly formed association that led the boycott of city buses in the Alabama capital in 1955 after Parks, a black seamstress, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to whites on a crowded bus.

“Johnnie Carr is one of the three major icons of the Civil Rights Movement: Dr. King, Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr,” said Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Brighton, England

David Watkin, cinematographer

David Watkin, a British cinematographer who won an Academy Award for “Out of Africa” and whose many notable films included “Chariots of Fire,” has died.

Watkin, 82, died Tuesday of cancer at his home in Brighton, England.

After filming the comedy “The Knack … and How to Get It” (1965) in a high-contrast style for Richard Lester, Watkin worked with the director on about half a dozen more films including the colorful Beatles lark “Help!”.

Critics compared Watkin’s use of light to that of the Dutch painter Vermeer, who often illuminated his subjects with light filtered through windows. Watkin’s affinity for natural light is on display in “Yentl” (1983), “The Hotel New Hampshire” (1984) and “White Nights” (1985).