Passages

Isn’t it romantic? Actress Jane Seymour, 42, who wrote Jane Seymour’s Guide to Romantic Living 10 years ago, took her fourth husband on May 15 when she traded vows with director-actor James keach (younger brother of Stacy), 45, at the home of friends in Santa Barbara, Calif. It is Keach’s third go at matrimony. The star of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman brings a daughter, Katie, 11, and a son, Sean, 7, to the match; Keach has one son, Kalen, 15.

Singer Marv Johnson, 54, whose early hits, including “You Got What It Takes” in 1959, helped launch Motown Records and define the label’s distinctive soul-pop sound, died May 16 after suffering a stroke backstage two days earlier at a concert in Sumter, S.C….

Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst Jr., 85, the second of five sons of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst Sr., died in New York City on May 14 after suffering a heart attack. A working journalist and newspaper executive, William Jr. won a Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for co-reporting a series on the Soviet Union for Hearst-owned papers. He was the uncle of heiress Patty Hearst, kidnapped in 1974 by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army….

Mary Duncan Sanford. 98, long the reigning doyenne of Palm Beach (Fla.) society, died there of natural causes on May 9. A movie actress in the early’30s as Mary Duncan, Sanford was introduced to husband Stephen “Laddie” Sanford, the polo-playing heir to a carpet company fortune, by Marion Davies, her costar in Five and Ten (1931)….

Actress Minnie Gentry, 77, who played Gram Tee on The Cosby Show and Aunt Bessie on the daytime serial All My Children, died at home in New York City on May 11.

Veteran star Alexis Smith. 71, who played scheming Lady Jessica Montford on Dallas in 1984 and ’90, is recovering from surgery performed earlier this month for a malignant brain tumor. She is undergoing radiation treatments and recuperating at her home in Los Angeles under the care of her longtime husband, actor Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn)….

Claude Akins, 75, who played buffoonish Sheriff Lobo on TV’s B.J. and the Bear in 1979, is in stable condition in a Pasadena hospital after two rounds of surgery this month for stomach cancer.

Howard Rollins Jr., 42, who plays Detective Virgil Tibbs on CBS’s In the Heat of the Night, surrendered to Rockdale County authorities in Conyers, Ga., on May 13 and began 70 days in jail because he violated probation by leaving the state last January. Rollins, who has admitted to substance abuse problems, was on probation following two separate convictions for driving under the influence in Georgia, where Heat is filmed. Rollins plans on returning to Heat following his release.

Cheers’s Kelsey Grammer, 37, who begins his own series, Frasier, on NBC next fall, and his second wife, former exotic dancer Leigh-Anne, 23, expect their first baby in December. Grammer already has two children.

Seventies rock phenom Peter Frampton, 43, has filed for divorce from his second wife, Barbara, 41, on May 11 in L.A. after 10 years of marriage. The couple, separated for nearly three years, have two children.