In passing

Dr. S. Paul Ehrlich Jr., 72, former surgeon general

Boynton Beach, Fla. Dr. S. Paul Ehrlich Jr., who served as acting surgeon general for four years under Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter and lobbied against cigarette smoking, died Thursday in Delray Beach. He was 72.

Ehrlich joined other surgeons general in demanding more stringent controls on secondhand smoke and the sale and advertising of tobacco in 1994 on the 30th anniversary of the first surgeon general’s report on smoking and disease.

He also appeared with other former office holders to oppose a federal policy proposed to respond to the spread of AIDS by requiring parental consent before providing contraceptives and information on birth control to minors.

While in office, Ehrlich developed a hot line to communicate with Iron Curtain countries at a time of cold war isolationism and fought attempts to eliminate the nation’s most recognized public health post.

Award-winning author, poet, critic Guy Davenport, 77

Lexington, Ky. Guy Davenport, an award-winning author, poet and critic, died Tuesday of cancer. He was 77.

Davenport was recognized nationally and internationally by educational and professional institutions for his academic and intellectual achievements in literature, university Provost Michael Nietzel said.

Davenport won the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation in 1996 as editor and translator of “7 Greeks.”

Davenport came to the University of Kentucky as a young English professor in 1963 and stayed for nearly three decades. He retired early after he won a coveted MacArthur Foundation grant in 1990 with a cash prize of $365,000.

Some of Davenport’s best-known books were collections of stories, such as Tatlin! (1974); Da Vinci’s Bicycle (1979); and The Jules Verne Steam Balloon (1987); and books of essays, such as The Geography of the Imagination (1981); The Hunter Gracchus (1996); Objects on a Table: Harmonious Disarray in Art and Literature (1998); and The Death of Picasso: New & Selected Writing (2003).

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Former U.S. chess champion, teacher Arnold Denker, 90

Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Arnold Denker, designated the “Dean of American Chess” and the U.S. chess champion from 1944-46 who played competitively until two years ago, has died at the age of 90.

Denker, a grandmaster since 1981, died Jan. 2 at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., of brain cancer.

“I’ve known thousands of chess players all over the world … and I’ve never found one who had Alzheimer’s. Chess is great because it exercises the mind,” he said last June when the U.S. Chess Federation gave him the “Dean of American Chess” title for his chess prowess, writings and his efforts to teach chess to young people.

Denker was the author of books including “If You Must Play Chess” and “The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories.” A mentor to Fischer, Denker played the young genius to a draw in a national tournament in 1958 when Fischer was 15.

A firm believer that chess is beneficial to people of all ages, Denker in 1984 founded the national Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions, which awards college scholarships to five top finishers. He donated thousands of dollars for the competitors’ travel expenses.

In 1944, he won the U.S. Championship with the score of 15 1/2 to 1 1/2, establishing a record surpassed in U.S. title history only by Fischer’s clean slate 11-0 victory in the 1963-64 tournament.

A graceful loser as well as winner, Denker said after his defeat in a highly publicized 1988 match with a Hitech computer, that the electronic opponent had played “brilliantly” and that he “learned a great deal.”

H. David Dalquist, 86, creator of ever-popular Bundt pan

Edina, Minn. H. David Dalquist, creator of the aluminum Bundt pan, the top-selling cake pan in the world, has died at 86.

Dalquist, who died at his home on Jan. 2 of heart failure, founded St. Louis Park-based Nordic Ware, which has sold more than 50 million Bundt pans.

Dalquist designed the pan in 1950 at the request of members of the Minneapolis Chapter of the Hadassah Society. They had old ceramic cake pans of somewhat similar designs but wanted an aluminum pan. Dalquist created a new shape and added regular folds to make it easier to cut the cake.

The women from the society called the pans “bund pans” because “bund” is German for a gathering of people. Dalquist added a “t” to the end of “bund” and trademarked the name. So all Bundt pans and Bundt cakes stem from Dalquist.

For years, the company sold few such pans. Then in 1966, a Texas woman won second place in the Pillsbury Bake-Off for her Tunnel of Fudge Cake made in a Bundt pan. Suddenly, bakers across America wanted their own Tunnel of Fudge cakes.

The Bundt pan is the biggest product line for Nordic Ware, which sells a variety of pots and pans and other kitchen equipment. More than 1 million Bundt pans are sold each year.

Dalquist founded Nordic Ware after returning from duty with the Navy during World War II. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in chemical engineering.

Dwight Spaulding Strong, 98, New England Watch director

Boston Dwight Spaulding Strong, the former director of the New England Watch and Ward Society, which fought to ban certain books and battled what it perceived as the societal evils of pornography and gambling, died Dec. 28, his daughter said. He was 98.

The puritanical organization was formed in Boston in 1878 to “watch and ward off evildoers.”

Strong was executive secretary of the Watch and Ward Society from 1948 until 1950 and remained in the position from 1950 to 1967 after the organization’s name was changed to the New England Citizens Crime Commission.

In the Watch and Ward Society’s heyday, the Boston Public Library kept books the society considered objectionable in a locked room and the Museum of Fine Arts kept parts of its Asian collection behind closed doors.

When Strong joined in 1948, he focused the organization’s activities on gambling. He drew national publicity in 1962 when his research helped CBS News make the nationally broadcast documentary “Biography of a Bookie Joint,” which showed uniformed Boston police entering and leaving a city key shop were bets were being placed. The documentary led to a grand jury investigation and a shake-up at the Boston Police Department.

Earlier, Strong was director of activities at the Hyde Park branch of the YMCA and executive director of the Dorchester Settlement House.

From wire reports