Time USA-October 3-2016

Milestones

DIVORCING

Brangelina

Brad Pitt and angelina

Jolie, who announced on

Sept. 20 that they are to

divorce, spent more than a

decade in the media spotlight.

The pair went public after

their 2005 movieMr. and Mrs.

Smith—shot while Pitt was

married to Jennifer Aniston. As

depicted in the then exploding

medium of glossy tabloids, the

triangle had archetypal power;

the dichotomy of the good-

natured sitcom star Aniston

and the “dark,” intriguing Jolie

seemed almost too apt.

The couple made use of the

public’s interest to promote

their films and causes, framing

themselves as the heirs to

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard

Burton—globetrotting

cosmopolitans whom scandal

followed endlessly. Over time,

the parents of six went from

courting press attention to

shunning it. Nonetheless,

their parting signals the

end of an era. As more and

more celebrities strive to be

“relatable,” Pitt and Jolie were

the last movie stars famous

for living purposefully outsize

lives. —daniel d’addario

DIED

▷Charmian Carr,

actor, on Sept. 17

at age 73. She

was best known

for portraying

Liesl, the eldest

von Trapp

daughter, in the

movie adaptation

of Rodgers and

Hammerstein’s

The Sound of

Music.

▷Roy Rowan,

journalist and

author, on

Sept. 13 at age

96. The former
    TIME foreign
    correspondent,
    who covered the
    Chinese civil war,
    was one of the
    last American
    journalists to
    evacuate Saigon
    in April 1975.
    ▷Curtis Hanson,
    film director, on
    Sept. 20 at age


97. He won a
    screenwriting
    Oscar for the
    crime filmL.A.
    Confidential.
    ▷ A terminally ill
    minor in Belgium,
    whose death was
    the first assisted
    suicide since the
    country removed
    age restrictions
    for euthanasia
    two years ago.

RECORDED

Thehottest

summer since

records began,

according

to a federal

climate report.

The average

temperature

across land and

ocean from June

to August was

61.7 ̊F, beating

the previous

record set

last year.

Albee outside Boston’s Colonial Theatre on March 10, 1976

DIED

Edward Albee

Icon of the American theater

By Tracy Letts

it’s hard to imagine the kind of gravity that words

had with a ferociously intelligent man like Mr. Albee, who

died Sept. 16 at age 88. He chose them and ordered them

meticulously—not only in his great works of drama likeThe

Zoo Story, A Delicate Balanceand Who’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf?, but also in lectures and casual conversation. I first met

him in 2008 when he handed me the New York Drama Critics’

Circle award for my playAugust: Osage County. That was very

meaningful to me, to receive it from undoubtedly the greatest

playwright of a generation. I was in awe of him.

Mr. Albee (he once asked me to call him Edward, but it

never felt right) led the charge for a freer form of expression,

changing theater and contemporary American life—the way

we speak, the way we tell jokes. He shifted long-held beliefs

and attitudes about marriage, love and class. He was deter-

mined to make trouble—he considered it an essential part

of a playwright’s job. He kicked open a door in a conserva-

tive world to challenge people and the status quo. He was not

interested in making it easy for people to digest prechewed

ideas. And he never strayed from his idea of what theater

should be. He stuck to his guns.

Mr. Albee was the last of a group of legendary playwrights

who essentially defined American drama. There’s not another

one of those guys coming through the door. I thank Mr. Albee

on behalf of a grateful public.

Letts is a playwright and actor who played George inWho’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf? on Broadway in 2012

Jolie and Pitt have both won

Oscars—hers for acting,

his for producing

ALBEE: JOHN J. MULLINS—AP; GNOME, WITCH, BRIBES, JOLIE AND PITT: GETTY IMAGES