In Passing

Baltimore

T. Abercrombie, adventurer/writer

Thomas J. Abercrombie, 75, a National Geographic magazine photographer and writer who negotiated countless near-death ordeals during his 38 years of world travel, died Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications from heart surgery.

His escapades are legendary among the globe-trotting, adventuring set. Shortly after arriving at the magazine in 1956, he was sent on an assignment to Antarctica. Once there, he won a lottery to be the first journalist to the South Pole. The plane froze, and he was stranded in Antarctica for three weeks, prompting a superior to ban further flights “until the weather warms up to minus 50 degrees.”

Abercrombie dived with Jacques Cousteau, which he said was “like swimming with a fish.” While suffering from typhoid in the Himalayas, he amputated the frozen toes of a pilgrim as gangrene set in. In Venezuela, he was knocked off the top of a mountain-climbing cable car and bore the scar to the end of his life.

“If you wanted to tell stories, he could tell them into the night. I used to kid that every story he had ended in a near-death experience,” said former presidential press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, who was Abercrombie’s neighbor for the past decade in Shady Side, Md.

Louisville, Ky.

Barry Bingham Jr., publisher

Barry Bingham Jr., who guided the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times to three Pulitzers before family disagreements led to the papers’ sale in 1986, died Monday. He was 72. Bingham had been suffering from pneumonia.

Bingham, a third-generation publisher of the family-owned newspapers, took over in 1971 from his father, Barry Bingham Sr., and quickly emphasized ethics and public service journalism.

The newspapers’ photo staff won the Pulitzer for feature photography in 1976 for photos of court-ordered busing. The Courier-Journal won the Pulitzer for general or spot news reporting in 1978 for stories on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire that killed 164. Two years later, it won for international reporting for coverage of Cambodian refugees in Southeast Asia.

The newspapers were sold by Bingham’s family to Gannett Co. Inc. in 1986 for more than $300 million.

Los Angeles

Henry Farrell, writer of thrillers

Henry Farrell, author of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and other melodramatic thrillers that spurred a genre of psychological horror movies featuring female protagonists, has died. He was 85.

Farrell died March 29 after a long illness at his home in Pacific Palisades.

“Baby Jane,” which Farrell wrote in 1960, was the basis for the film two years later, which brought actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford together for the first time, late in their flagging careers. The two played once-famous sisters whose lives ended in disappointment and tragedy.

“Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte,” starred Davis as a demented recluse and Olivia de Havilland as her scheming cousin.

The two movies became standard bearers for the Grand Guignol film genre starring legendary female actresses in grisly roles.