The Fives: Requiem for a cereal maker, a dreamer, a bad man and a good cop

By Todd Williams, Journal staff | Monday, July 28, 2008

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The media tends to focus on the big names in its national obituary column, which of late has been a bit light. Oh, yes, there was Estelle Gettty, the diminutive actress who spent decades schlepping a variety of small roles before hitting it big late in her career as the matriarch on the popular television "Golden Girls."

But it is during these lulls that some of the most interesting folks who have passed on recently rise up on the national media radar. Here's just a few.

Robert O. Nesheim, the man who brought us breakfast with the Captain

Some might consider it surprising that the man who developed one of the most wickedly crunchy breakfast cereals of all time, the sugary Cap'n Crunch, was also a staunch advocate for nutritional feed.

But he did also see the development of Life cereals, another staple of breakfast cereal market for decades.

In the early 1980s, Neshiem left Quaker and the creal business and developed health-care products and later served on a committee that developed nutritional guidelines for the military.

Frank "The German" Schweihs, the man who sought to kill Joe Peschi, kinda

Mob enforcers are folk of legend for most of us, less known than feared through the silver screen and lesser TV adaptations. But Schweihs was the real deal.

Scheduled to go on trial later this year on charges he took part in a conspiracy that included numerous organized crime murders, Schweihs suffered from cancer and died on Thursday at a Chicago area hospital.

His reputation was well-known, leading one fellow associate to tell said associate's daughter that if she ever saw Schweihs near their home to immediately lock the door and call the police.

Even his arrest reads like a scene from a big movie.

A star witness against Schweihs for 18 long unsolved mob murders testified the mob enforcer came up with the idea of using an Uzi to murder Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, a longtime mobster in Las Vegas. It was Spilotro who was the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino."

Paul Bentley, the man who caught Lee Harvey Oswald

His 15 minutes of fame may have been just that, but Paul Bentley's image as he escorted Lee Harvey Oswald out of a Dallas theater lives on forever.

The Dallas police veteran helped arrest the presidential assassin after receiving a call about the fatal shooting of fellow officer J.D. Tippit. Bentley and other officers tracked Oswald to the Texas Theater, arresting the assassin after a brief scuffle.

The photo of the cigar toting Bentley leading a haggard and semi-bruised Oswald out of the theater was the first look many had of Oswald, who would be almost immediately linked to the assassination of John Kennedy in Dallas.

Amazingly, Bentley had another connection to Oswald. His brother-in-law, L.C. Graves, was one of the officers escorting Oswald when the killer was shot to death by Jack Ruby.

Charles Yardley Chittick, the man who had a brush with Bogart and turned down Thomas Edison

In an interview with the Associated Press, his daughter-in-law said Charles Yardley Chittick used to joke that he didn't become famous until he was 100.

But what he was most famous for happened well over a half-century before.

The 107 year-old New Hampshire man, who died last week after hurting himself in a fall at a nursing home, once had a dust up with Humphrey Bogart while in college and later turned down a job offer to work for Thomas Edison because he wanted to build golf clubs, a career that simply sound more fun.

Randy Pausch, the man who dared to live

It is somewhat unlikely at this point that you have not heard of Randy Pausch, although you may not remember his name. He is the professor who became an Internet sensation for his "Last Lecture." Diagnosed with incurable cancer in September of 2006, the Carnegie Mellon professor was videotaped giving an optimistic "last lecture" that was later posted on the Web and was viewed by more than 6 million people.

He later wrote a book on the same themes that rose to the top of the best-seller list, and his efforts to raise awareness and research money to fight the aggressive form of cancer.

Pausch was 47 when he died, but the footprint he left on this Earth would not have been more significant if he had lived twice as long.