Copyright 1995 The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
May 21, 1995, Sunday, ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: NATIONAL NEWS, Pg. 11A
LENGTH: 571 words
HEADLINE: NATION IN BRIEF; Elisha Cook Jr., classic film villain, is dead at age 91
BYLINE: From our news services
BODY:
Elisha Cook Jr., whose intense, bug-eyed portrayal of Wilmer, the psychotic, baby-faced killer in "The Maltese Falcon," made him a cult figure to a generation of moviegoers, died Thursday at a nursing home in Big Pine, Calif. He was 91. He was the last surviving cast member of John Huston's 1941 film noir classic, whose company included Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor. Cook had been disabled since suffering a stroke five years ago. He made an appearance just three weeks ago in San Francisco, where the movie and the Dashiell Hammett novel had been set. Cook played the "hophead jazz drummer" in "Phantom Lady" (1944). He was Jonesy, the lovesick loser forced to drink poison in "The Big Sleep" (1946). He was the satanic apartment manager in "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). He was the wife-bedeviled race-track teller in Stanley Kubrick's first commercial feature, "The Killing" (1956). And he was the homesteader who took an unforgettable dying fall into the mud after being shot by Jack Palance in "Shane" (1953).
NOT PUBLIC YET: In her first board meeting as NAACP chairwoman, Myrlie Evers-Williams said Saturday that an audit expected to detail how the group was in debt won't be released until June. Even then, the public may not see it. Some members had hoped the report would be released Saturday at NAACP headquarters in Baltimore, but the board has yet to decide whether to make it public, as Evers-Williams has urged. The accounting firm of Coopers & Lybrand has not completed the audit; members criticized in it sought more time to reply, said the NAACP's general counsel, Dennis Hays. "We want to give everybody an opportunity to respond," Hays said.
VICTIM FOUND: Heavy equipment operators wiped away tears as they helped find the body of a 5-year-old boy who was in a bus crushed by a rock slide near Wenatchee, Wash. Crews kept searching for the body of a man still missing under the tons of silt, sand, gravel and boulders that slid Friday onto a gravel pit and the southbound lanes of a highway along the Columbia River.
SENATOR'S AIDE HURT: A mail bomb that partially exploded in the apartment of a Kentucky senator's aide, injuring him slightly, was not politically motivated, a federal official said. Will Smith, who works for Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, received minor cuts to his hands and face when he opened the package about 7 p.m. Friday in his apartment in Washington. More than 100 residents were evacuated from the building. Patrick Hynes, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the bomb was not associated with anti-government groups, the so-called Unabomber or the recent Oklahoma City blast. A TV report said the bombing involved a personal grudge.
JOB PROSPECTS DIM: A Florida woman who strangled her two young children as they slept has emerged from five years of psychiatric care with a request: She wants to be a baby sitter. Dorothy Diane Rose has been involuntarily hospitalized since she was found innocent by reason of insanity in the 1990 slayings. Those caring for her in a halfway house wrote a judge last week for an opinion on her job goal. Circuit Judge William Graybill, who made the original ruling of innocence in Rose's case, has set a hearing for June 6 in Tampa. "Given her history, we don't think it's an appropriate area of employment for her," said Jay Pruner, an assistant state attorney. GRAPHIC: Photo: mug of Elisha Cook Jr.