David Boss, 67, who as vice president of publishing and creative services for the National Football League started "PRO!" magazine, which served as the league's preprint in all game day programs and exists now as "NFL Insider." Trained as a photographer, Boss graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Arts and came to Los Angeles, working for the Los Angeles Rams and the team's public relations director and then-general manager Pete Rozelle. Boss went to work for NFL Properties after Rozelle became the league's commissioner in 1960. While with NFL Properties he designed the official programs and posters for the first 25 Super Bowls. He redesigned the NFL logo to its present form as a red, white and blue shield with the letters NFL. Boss retired in 1990. His book of non-football photographs, "The Eclectic Eye," was published this year. He was married to Carol Jean Schoelkopf. Donations in his name can be made to the Cancer Therapy Research Fund at USC; S.P.A.R.E., a program for the care of animals at 1017 E. Bedmar St. in Carson, 90746; or the Sciences Foundation for Brain Tumor Research, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C.
David Boss; National Football League Executive
Obituaries
* Richard S. Ide; USC Professor, Vice Provost
Richard S. Ide, 55, former USC vice provost for undergraduate studies and authority on Elizabethan drama and literature. Ide served as vice provost from 1994 to 1997, leading an effort to raise the graduation rate and improve the quality of undergraduate studies at the university. Known as a devoted teacher, Ide oversaw the school's Center for Excellence in Teaching and served as associate dean of the university's high-tech Leavey Library. He joined the USC faculty as an assistant professor of English in 1981, a year after the University of North Carolina Press published his first book, "The Heroic Tragedies of Chapman and Shakespeare." He was also the author of a book on Milton and numerous journal articles. Ide became an associate professor in 1984 and a full professor in 1995. He was at work on a third book, on English Renaissance tragedies, at the time of his death while on vacation in Arizona. A memorial service at USC is planned. On Dec. 25 in Chandler, Ariz., of complications after abdominal surgery.
* Mary C. Morrison; Helped Run Mocambo Nightclub
Mary Catherine Morrison, 84, who helped run the Mocambo nightclub, one of Hollywood's most exclusive haunts in the 1940s and '50s. Along with Ciro's and the Trocadero, the Mocambo was a legendary nightspot frequented by Hollywood's elite, from Lana Turner and Betty Grable to Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart. Morrison, a striking blond who always wore designer gowns when she greeted guests at the club, helped her husband Charlie book the acts--entertainers like Lena Horne and Vic Damone. When Charlie Morrison died in 1957, leaving a considerable debt, Mary got a phone call from Frank Sinatra. According to Morrison's granddaughter, Melody Legget, the famous crooner said, "Mary, I have nothing to do for a couple of weeks. Could I bring in the orchestra and play?" Sinatra, working for scale, performed to sold-out crowds with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra for two weeks, enabling Morrison to pay the club's bills and give her husband "a millionaire's funeral," Legget said. The posh club, which featured palm trees and parrots and macaws in gilded cages, was the site of some famous brawls, including the time actor Errol Flynn slugged columnist Jimmy Fiddler and had his ear speared with a fork by Fiddler's wife. It closed in 1958 and was later demolished to make way for a parking lot. Morrison spent her later years managing a boutique at the Beverly Hills Hotel. On Tuesday of meningitis at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
* Jacques Neuville; Forger for the French Resistance
