• July 03, 1995
• Vol. 44
• No. 1

Passages

By Allison Lynn

British World War II hero Peter Townsend, 80, the Royal Air Force group captain whose romance with Princess Margaret in the '50s titillated the United Kingdom like nothing since the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, died on June 19 in St. Léger-en-Yvelines, France, of cancer. In 1955, Margaret was forced by pressure from her sister Queen Elizabeth and the Church of England to choose between Townsend, a divorced commoner nearly 16 years her senior, and her royal position and income. She chose the latter. Townsend eventually entered self-imposed exile in France, where he worked as a wine buyer and a public-relations executive and wrote six books. He wed Belgian heiress Marie-Luce Jamagne in 1959....

British-born screenwriter Charles Bennett, 95, who collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on eight films, died on June 15 in Los Angeles of natural causes. Their movies together include such classic thrillers as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935) and Foreign Correspondent (1940), the last of which led to a falling-out between the two. "[Hitchcock] loathed anybody getting any credit whatsoever," Bennett once said....

Emmy-winning choreographer and dancer Ernest Flatt, 76, whose Ernie Flatt Dancers were regulars on The Carol Burnett Show (1967-79), died of an aortic hemorrhage on June 10 in Taos, N.Mex....

Drew Stephens, 45, former boyfriend of Karen Silkwood, the Oklahoma nuclear-plant worker who alleged serious safety violations, died in a plane crash while practicing aerobatic loops on June 14 in El Reno, Okla. Stephens, in recent years the owner of an auto-repair shop in Oklahoma City, was played by Kurt Russell in the movie Silkwood (1983)....

Wood-carver Mike Kent, 37, host of the 4-year-old PBS how-to series That Can't Be Wood!, died on June 12 in Neosho, Mo., of cancer.

Design consultant Alfonso Cacace, 50, who befriended actor Peter Falk's mother, Madeline Falk, 92, and from 1992 to '94 appropriated more than $1 million of her cash, jewelry and securities, pleaded guilty on June 19 to grand larceny. Cacace, whose plea was entered in New York state supreme court in Manhattan, has paid back $416,000 and agreed to return another $670,000. Due for sentencing Aug. 3, he could face four years in jail.

Singer Amy Grant, 34, canceled 17 concerts after she learned, during a routine eye exam in Nashville on June 12, that she had a detached retina in her right eye. Surgeons reattached it three days later. Grant expects to be back onstage July 20....

Elizabeth Taylor, 63, underwent surgery on June 19 at a Los Angeles hospital to replace her right hip, which she injured while doing aerobics in the swimming pool at her home in Bel Air. Taylor, who had a similar operation on her left hip 15 months ago, is expected to be released within a week of her surgery.

Actress Julie Warner, 30, who plays Amy on NBC's Pride & Joy, wed writer-director Jonathan Prince (Camp Nowhere), 36, on June 17 in Los Angeles. It is the first marriage for both.