Composer Milton Babbitt, who was known for his complex orchestral compositions and credited with developing the first electronic synthesizer in the 1950s, died Saturday. He was 94.

Paul Lansky, a composer and Princeton University colleague who was once a student of Babbitt's, said Babbitt died at a Princeton hospital. Lansky said he did not know the cause of death.

Born in Philadelphia, Babbitt earned degrees from Princeton and New York University. He joined Princeton's faculty in 1938 and became a professor emeritus of music there in 1984.

In the 1950s, RCA hired Babbitt as a consultant as it was developing the Mark II synthesizer. He became a founder and director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where the synthesizer was installed.

He blended electronic music with vocal performances in compositions such as “Vision and Prayer” and “Philomel” in the 1960s and “Reflections” in 1975.

Princeton awarded Babbitt, then 75, a doctorate in 1992, 46 years after his dissertation on the 12-tone system of modern composers was rejected.

“His dissertation was so far ahead of its time it couldn't be properly evaluated at the time,” Theodore Ziolkowski, dean of Princeton's graduate school and a close friend of Babbitt, said.

The music department then awarded doctorates for historical musicology, not composing.

Ziolkowski said faculty members weren't satisfied with the honorary doctorate Princeton awarded Babbitt the previous spring.

“We thought it wasn't right that such a distinguished composer and music theoretician who has contributed so much to music in this country should not have the degree he had earned,” Ziolkowski said then.

Babbitt received a special Pulitzer citation for his life's work in 1982, won a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1986 and received the Gold Medal of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1988.

-- Associated Press

French scholar Jacqueline de Romilly, a specialist on ancient Greece, a prolific writer and one of the first women to join the prestigious Academie Francaise, has died. She was 97.

Romilly died Saturday at a hospital in the Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt, said her publisher, Bernard de Fallois.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Romilly "a great humanist whose voice we will miss." The scholar was known for her works on ancient Greek literature, tragedy and thought. She wrote several books on ancient historian Thucydides.

At age 91, Romilly told French magazine Lire that she had spent more time with "Pericles and Aeschylus than with my contemporaries. They fill my life, from morning to night."

Romilly was the first woman to teach at the College de France. In 1988, she became the second woman to join the Academie Francaise, the institution that safeguards the French language, after writer Marguerite Yourcenar.

"I had the luck of being part of a generation where women could get up on the podium for the first time, where the gates opened at last," she told Le Point magazine in 2007.

Romilly was born Jacqueline David in Chartres, southwest of Paris, in 1913. Her mother was Jeanne Malvoisin, an author, and her father was Maxime David, a philosophy professor who was killed during World War I.

She began teaching in high schools in the 1930s. Because her father was Jewish, she was forced to stop teaching during World War II, when France's Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. After the war, she taught at the University of Lille and the Sorbonne before joining the College de France in 1973.

In her later years, Romilly defended the study of the classics and often spoke and wrote about the importance of education. In 1995, she was given Greek nationality. Among her many honors, she held a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French government.

Her marriage to Michel Worms de Romilly ended in divorce.

--Associated Press

Avery Clayton grew up paying little attention to the bits of African American history his librarian mother, Mayme Clayton, enjoyed collecting.

It wasn't until later that he realized the significance of what she had amassed.

"Her part was to assemble the collection. I really believe my part is to bring it to the world," Avery Clayton said, explaining his intention to establish the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum in Culver City.

The collection features rare books, manuscripts, photographs, films and other documents and artifacts. Some of the items were displayed at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino in an exhibit called "Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles,"  which opened last year.

"Most African American history is hidden," Avery Clayton, who co-curated the exhibit, told The Times in 2007. "What's exciting about this is that we're going to bring it back and show that black culture is rich and varied."

Clayton, a 62-year-old retired art teacher, died suddenly on Thanksgiving Day, one year ago. Read the complete Times obituary, and to learn more about the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, visit its website, http://www.claytonmuseum.org/.

-- Claire Noland

Photo: Avery Clayton in 2009 at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, where the exhibit "Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles" was on display from October 2009 to February 2010. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

When Herb Farmer came from Buffalo to Los Angeles to enroll at USC, he ensured his role at the school by bringing along his camera.

"When Herb arrived here . . . he was a pretty big man on campus because he had a camera and the school didn't," Doug Wellman, the film school's director of facilities and operations, said in 2008.

"It became the official camera of USC cinema. And as Herb taught here and was a student here, he modified this camera. He added the 400-foot magazine. He added a motor drive. He added a variety of lenses . . . and he constantly improved it. And that is exactly what Herb has done for this entire school."

Farmer, who filmed USC football games from the roof of the Coliseum press box, went on to oversee the school's film archives and serve as a professor and associate dean of the School of Cinematic Arts. He died a year ago at age 89.

"It's been a wonderful life working with students here," he said at a 2008 campus celebration of his years at the university. "I'm grateful for the time that I've been able to put into it. And I'd do it again if I had to or could."

Farmer's news obituary appeared in The Times on Nov. 27, 2009.

 -- Keith Thursby

 Photo: Herb Farmer preparing to film a USC game in 1942. Credit: USC School of Cinematic Arts

David Lloyd, the father of television writer and producer Christopher Lloyd, was a television comedy writer who wrote the classic "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." He died of prostate cancer one year ago at age 75.

[For the record at 2:28 p.m.: An earlier version of this post stated the David Lloyd was the father of actor Christopher Lloyd. He was the father of television writer and producer Christopher Lloyd.]

Lloyd's four-decade comedy career included writing for "The Tonight Show," "Frasier," "Taxi" and "Cheers" among others. His famous "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" earned him an Emmy award in 1976.

"If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he's got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world," said Les Charles, co-creator of "Cheers."

He was known for being both a quality and a quick-writing comedian. Allan Burns, co-creator of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," called Lloyd a "one-man writing staff."

Lloyd was born in Bronxville, N.Y., and studied English at Yale. After graduating in 1956, he served in the Navy and began teaching English at Rutgers Preparatory School in New Jersey before making his break into television.

For more, read David Lloyd's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: David Lloyd with his Emmy for comedy writing that he won in 1976 for his "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Credit: Family photo.

Thomas P. O'Malley was president of Westchester's Loyola Marymount University during a period of significant expansion for the university. He died one year ago at age 79.

O'Malley served as president of Loyola Marymount from 1991 to 1999. A skillful fundraiser, he oversaw a capital improvement drive that raised $144 million, $16 million more than its goal. Among projects completed during his tenure were the Hilton Center for Business and the Burns Recreation Center.

An inspired teacher, O'Malley was remembered for his enthusiastic engagement in campus life, from singing in the choir at Sunday Mass to portraying Pope Paul III in a faculty play.

"Father O'Malley was truly a renaissance man -- bigger than life, quick with wit, poetical and well-versed in languages," Loyola Marymount President Robert B. Lawton said in a statement.

Before Loyola Marymount, O'Malley worked at Boston College, where he was chairman of the theology department and was named the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1973. In 1980, he became president of John Carroll University in Cleveland, where he stayed for eight years.

For more, read Thomas P. O'Malley's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Thomas P. O'Malley in 1998. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French philosopher who is widely considered the father of modern anthropology because of his then-revolutionary conclusion that so-called primitive societies did not differ greatly intellectually from modern ones. He died one year ago at age 100.

Levi-Strauss' years spent studying tribes in Brazil and North America led him to the conclusion that the myths and cultural keystones of primitive peoples revealed an intelligence no less sophisticated than that of Western civilizations. Those myths, he argued, all tend to provide answers to such universal questions as "Who are we?" and "How did we come to be in this time and place?"

The philosopher and sociologist was briefly a warrior when World War II broke out and Germany invaded France. When his country was defeated and occupied, he gained employment at a school in Montpellier, but was soon fired because he was Jewish.

He lived in the United States for the rest of the war, working for the New School for Social Research in New York and serving as a cultural attache in the French Embassy in Washington. He returned to his home country after the war was over, earning his doctorate in anthropology at the University of Paris in 1948.

He had become a leading influence in France by the mid-1960s, though by the 1980s his ideas were being supplanted by those of the so-called post-structuralists, who argued that history and experience were far more important than universal laws in shaping human consciousness. More recently, however, his views have come back into popularity.

For more on his journeys, thoughts and influence, read Claude Levi-Strauss' obituary by The Times' Thomas H. Maugh II.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Claude Levi-Strauss in 2005. Credit: Pascal Pavani / AFP/Getty Images

Carol Tomlinson-Keasey shattered a glass ceiling when she was named to head UC Merced in 1999 before the campus broke ground. No woman had been a founding chancellor of a UC campus. She died one year ago from complications from her eight-year battle with breast cancer.

The founding of UC Merced was riddled with complications, including a site change and a reduction in the size of the campus because of environmental concerns, political leaders who called the campus a "boondoggle" and a state budget crisis that resulted in a one-year delay in its opening.

Tomlinson-Keasey was part of the UC system for almost 30 years. She began as an associate professor of psychology at UC Riverside in 1977, and in the 1990s served at UC Davis in provost positions and as dean of the College of Letters and Sciences. She moved to the UC Office of the President in 1997.

Tomlinson-Keasey, who was a distinguished developmental psychologist, wrote three books and dozens of articles, monographs and book chapters on subjects such as child and full-life development and how gifted children realize their cognitive potential.

For more on her life and involvement in the founding of UC Merced, read Carol Tomlinson-Keasey's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Carol Tomlinson-Keasey. Credit: Noah Berger

Ronald W. Walters, a longtime political analyst and scholar at Howard University and the University of Maryland who was a leading expert on race and politics, has died. He was 72.

Walters died Friday night after an illness, University of Maryland spokesman Lee Tune said Saturday. He had lung cancer.

Walters spent 25 years at Howard before becoming director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland. He wrote numerous books and more than 100 articles.

University of Maryland Law Professor Georgia Sorenson said Walters was a thoughtful and independent scholar. He followed politics closely and was thrilled to see President Obama's election, she said.

"He felt it was very important to continue to focus on African Americans" in politics, Sorenson said. "He didn't think it was done yet.… This was really his deepest passion."

In 1984, Walters served as a deputy campaign manager for the Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential bid. He consulted on Jackson's second campaign in 1988 and advised members of Congress over the years, said California Rep. Barbara Lee, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

On Saturday, Lee called Walters a "scholarly giant" and a "man whose academic record and analytical insights have contributed to America's understanding of the intersection of race, politics and policy."

Walters was a frequent commentator. He spoke up recently when Glenn Beck staged a rally Aug. 28 at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Beck's rally was "taking a slap at the movement," Walters told the Afro-American Newspapers. "They really want to dishonor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963 to give it a conservative spin," he said.

--Associated Press

William Trombley's approach to covering a meeting of the UC regents left a lasting impression on Jane V. Wellman, a former UC budget analyst.

"He covered those meetings with gleeful intensity, forgiving them nothing if their work offended his idea of what a public governing board should do, which was to oversee and protect the public interest," Wellman told The Times' Elaine Woo.

Trombley spent nearly 30 years at The Times and was known for reshaping the paper's coverage of higher education.

After leaving The Times in 1992, Trombley founded and edited an influential quarterly called National CrossTalk with the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose. He also wrote for Life magazine.

His news obituary appeared on Sept. 11, 2009.

-- Keith Thursby

Photo: William Trombley, with his wife, Audrey, in 1999. Credit: Rod Searcey

William P. Foster, credited with innovating a much-imitated high-stepping style as founder and longtime director of the Florida A&M Marching 100 band, died Saturday. He was 91.

Foster died in Tallahassee, university officials said. No cause of death was given.

Foster was the marching band's director from 1946 until his retirement in 1998. He created more than 200 half-time pageants for the band at the historically black university. He is credited with innovating marching band techniques, including a high stepping style imitated by high school and college bands nationwide.

"There's a psychology to running a band," Foster told the New York Times in 1989. "People want to hear the songs they hear on the radio; it gives them an immediate relationship with you. And then there's the energy. Lots of energy in playing and marching. Dazzle them with it. Energy."

In 1989, the French chose the Marching 100 to represent the United States in the Bastille Day Parade in Paris, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. Instead of traditional marching band music, the band marched — and danced — to songs by James Brown.

"They illustrate American music to me, which is to say the best of black music," the parade's artistic director, Jean-Paul Goude, told the New York Times.

Members of the Marching 100 have played at Super Bowls, the Olympics, the Grammy Awards and the inaugurations of Presidents Clinton and Obama.

Foster, born Aug. 25, 1919, in Kansas City, Kan., graduated from the University of Kansas in 1941. He earned his master's degree from Wayne State University in 1950 and received his doctorate from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1955.

He wrote two books, "Band Pageantry: A Guide For the Marching Band" and "The Man Behind the Baton."

--Associated Press

Photo: William P. Foster, left, greets students in 2008. Photo: Associated Press

Test takers, unite in saluting Stanley Kaplan. Yes, he's a real person, not just a name on a test-prep school marquee.

Kaplan, who died one year ago at age 90, started a tutoring business at his family's home in Brooklyn in 1938. He helped his first anxious student prepare for what was then called the Scholastic Aptitude test in 1946. By 1984 he led a national chain of more than 100 locations.

Said Kaplan of his efforts to help students raise the test scores that could help them get into the college of their choice: "In America there's nothing wrong with competition. There's nothing wrong with trying to do the best you can. And that's what I try to help students do."

Read more of the Stanley Kaplan obituary that appeared in The Times.

-- Claire Noland

Photo: Stanley Kaplan. Credit: Kaplan Inc.