Violinist Olga Rudge, 101, the longtime companion of poet Ezra Pound, died on March 15 of unknown causes at her home near Merano in northern Italy. The two met in 1916 and lived together in Italy until 1945, when U.S. forces arrested Pound for delivering anti-American propaganda during World War II. While Pound was confined to a mental institution in Washington, Rudge campaigned for his release; after he was freed in 1958, the couple returned to Italy. Pound died in 1972....

Cartoonist Jack Berrill, 72, creator of the Gil Thorp comic strip, died in Brookfield, Conn., on March 14, after a long battle with cancer. The Brooklyn-born Berrill began the strip, about a square-jawed high school coach, in 1958. Thorp is syndicated nationally in over 65 papers....

Alfred P. Slaner, 77, who in the 1950s developed the sheer-nylon support hosiery that became known as Supp-Hose, died on March 14 in Mamaro-neck, N.Y. He had suffered from Alzheimer's....

Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski, 54, died of a heart attack on March 13 in Warsaw, one day after undergoing bypass surgery. In 1994 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Red, the best-known of his acclaimed color trilogy (which also included Blue and White)....

Greek poet Odysseus Elytis, 84, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979, died at his home in Athens on March 18 following a heart attack. Elytis is best known for 1959's epic work To axion esti (Worthy It Is), a celebration of the Aegean Sea....

French director René Clément, whose The Walls of Malapaga (1949) and Forbidden Games (1952) won Oscars for Best Foreign Film, died of unknown causes in Monaco on March 17—the eve of his 83rd birthday.

Actor Eric Douglas, 37, the youngest of Kirk Douglas's four sons, was charged with disorderly conduct on March 17 after allegedly disrupting a flight from L.A. to Newark, N.J. He reportedly let his dog Yume loose in the plane, ignoring requests to return the canine to its carrying case. He was freed on $10,000 bail.

After five months of marriage, Species star Natasha Henstridge, 21, and actor Damian Chapa {Bound by Honor), 33, are divorcing. The couple separated in January....

Cover girl Niki Taylor, 21, and semipro football player Matt Martinez, 25, filed for divorce in February after two years of marriage. They have twin sons who are 1.

Actor Richard Thomas, 44, and his wife, art dealer Georgiana Bischoff, 35, are expecting their first child in July. The couple, who were married in November 1994, have six children between them from previous marriages.

Broadway star Bernadette Peters, 48, and New York City stockbroker Michael Wittenberg, 34, are engaged but have not yet set a wedding date. It will be the first marriage for both.

Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, 37, and her husband, actor-director Christopher Guest, 48, adopted a son, Thomas Haden, a newborn, on March 13. He joins an older sister, Annie, 9.