Obituaries - Feb. 20, 1999

Charles Burlingame; Celebrity Grand Prix Founder

Charles F. Burlingame, 72, veteran public relations executive who established Toyota’s annual celebrity Grand Prix in Long Beach. Burlingame worked in public relations for four decades, starting in the Air Force as a spokesman for the 7th Air Wing in postwar London. After 23 years in the military, he worked in the aerospace industry, helping explain such projects as the Minuteman missile and the Apollo spacecraft for North American Aviation. He conceived the idea of the Grand Prix races in 1977, pitting famous amateurs such as Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Paul Newman against professional drivers such as Dan Gurney and Rick Mears. On Feb. 13 of cancer in Montclair, Va.

Andre Devigny; WWII Escapee Inspired Film

Andre Devigny, 82, a French lieutenant whose dramatic escape from a Nazi firing squad inspired an award-winning movie. Devigny was sentenced to death during a Nazi court-martial Aug. 20, 1943, for acts including killing the chief of the fascist Italian secret police in southeast France. He was sentenced to die eight days later at Lyon’s Montluc prison. But three nights before his scheduled execution, he dismantled the lock on his cell door and fled to the roof, carrying ropes he had fashioned from his bed and mattress. He made it to the street, but not before scaling two walls and strangling and stabbing a German guard. Devigny was recaptured the next day but managed to dive into the Rhone River as he was being led away. He hid in mud flats for hours until it was safe to make his way to the Swiss border. He eventually returned to France and volunteered for a commando unit that saw action in southern France. His escape inspired the movie “A Man Escaped,” which earned Robert Bresson the award for best director at the 1957 International Cannes Film Festival. Devigny was head of France’s foreign intelligence unit when he retired from the army as a general in 1971. He briefly considered a political career, but said the back-stabbing was “far worse than anything I’d ever encountered in secret warfare.” On Thursday in Paris.

Dorothea Zack Hanle; Food Writer, Editor

Dorothea Zack Hanle, 83, longtime food writer and editor at Bon Appetit magazine who helped found the international fine dining society, Les Dames d’Escoffier. Hanle was born in Philadelphia and attended Wilson College in Pennsylvania and Barnard College in New York. After a stint as a writer at Mademoiselle magazine, she was hired by the Dell Publishing Co. as editor of special projects. She wrote or edited more than 65 how-to books, including the popular “Surfers Handbook” in 1968 and “The Hairdo Handbook: A Complete Guide to Hair Beauty” in 1964. She also wrote several cookbooks, including “The Golden Ladle” in 1945, “Cooking With Flowers” in 1971, and “Cooking Wild Game” in 1974. She joined Bon Appetit in 1976 as its New York editor and created a number of popular features, including “Profiles in Cooking,” “The Bon Vivant,” and “Entertaining With. . . .” She was honored by the James Beard Foundation at its first annual editors dinner in 1990, when she became Bon Appetit’s editor at large. She served as an editorial consultant for the magazine until 1997. On Monday, in North Brunswick, N.J.

Teruo Kawamoto; Fought Mercury Poisioning

Teruo Kawamoto, 67, activist who led victims’ fight against mercury poisoning in Japan. More than 1,000 deaths have been attributed to the environmental disaster that came to be known as Minamata disease, named for the fishing and factory town on the western coast of the island of Kyushu. The Chisso Corp. chemical firm dumped 27 tons of mercury-laden effluent into Minamata Bay starting in the 1930s, contaminating the fish and shellfish eaten by the town’s residents. Nearly 2,300 people are certified victims of the disease, which causes severe and permanent damage to the brain and central nervous system. Kawamoto called the dumping a “crime against humanity.” His father died of it, and Kawamoto was also a victim, although his death from liver cancer was not directly related to Minamata disease. Kawamoto filed lawsuits against Chisso and in 1971 led a sit-in outside the company’s Tokyo headquarters to demand compensation. He received hate mail for his campaign, which caused a deep social rift in Minamata between families of victims and non-victims, many of whom were related to Chisso employees. Chisso agreed to pay the victims after nearly two years of negotiations. In 1983, Kawamoto was elected to the Minamata Municipal Assembly, where he helped victims win government recognition. He is survived by his wife and two children. On Thursday in Minamata.