Herb Peterson, McMuffin inventor
Herb Peterson, who invented the ubiquitous Egg McMuffin as a way to introduce breakfast to McDonald’s restaurants, has died. He was 89.
Peterson died Tuesday at his Santa Barbara home, said Monte Fraker, vice president of operations for McDonald’s restaurants in that city.
He began his career with McDonald’s Corp. as vice president of the company’s advertising firm, D’Arcy Advertising, in Chicago.
Peterson eventually became a franchisee and was currently co-owner and operator of six McDonald’s restaurants in Santa Barbara and Goleta, Fraker said.
Peterson came up with idea for the signature McDonald’s breakfast item in 1972. The egg sandwich consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle with the yolk broken, topped with a slice of cheese and grilled Canadian bacon. It was served open-faced on a toasted and buttered English muffin.
NEW YORK
Robert Fagles, scholar, translator
Robert Fagles, a professor emeritus at Princeton University whose bold, flowing translations of Homer and Virgil made him an esteemed and best-selling classical scholar, has died. He was 74.
Fagles died Wednesday in Princeton of prostate cancer, the university said Friday.
According to Fagles’ publisher, Viking, his translations sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, and he enjoyed both an academic and popular audience. He received numerous awards, including the National Humanities Medal, the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Ralph Manheim prize for lifetime achievement. His editions were staged all over the world and the audiobooks attracted such acclaimed actors as Derek Jacobi, who narrates “The Iliad,” and Simon Callow for “The Aeneid.”
LOS ANGELES
Abby Mann, screenwriter
Abby Mann, writer of socially conscious scripts for movies and television and winner of the 1961 Academy Award for adapted screenplay for “Judgment at Nuremberg,” has died, the Writers Guild of America said. He was 80.
Mann, who died Tuesday, won multiple Emmys, including one in 1973 for “The Marcus-Nelson Murders,” which created a maverick New York police detective named Theo Kojak. The film, starring Telly Savalas, was spun off into the long-running TV series “Kojak.”
His “Judgment at Nuremberg” had become a successful drama on television, and against all advice, he was determined to convert it into his first movie script.
Mann persisted, and producer-director Stanley Kramer made the film with a cast that included Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Richard Widmark, Montgomery Clift and Maximilian Schell. “Judgment at Nuremberg” was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won Oscars for Schell and Mann.
His other movies included “A Child Is Waiting,” about retarded children; “Ship of Fools,” involving human interplay on an ocean liner; and “Report to the Commissioner,” about police corruption.