Obituaries - Sept. 9, 1997

* Leon Edel; Pulitzer-Winning Biographer of Henry James

Leon Edel, 89, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of American novelist and critic Henry James. Edel received the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1963 for the second and third volumes of his classic five-volume biography of James. He was the Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University from 1966 until he went to Honolulu in 1972. Edel began teaching in 1932 when he became an assistant professor of English at Sir George Williams University in Montreal. From 1934 to 1943, he was a freelance writer and journalist. He went to New York University to teach in 1953, becoming a full professor in 1955. After retiring in 1978, Edel continued to lecture at the University of Hawaii and other colleges. In Honolulu on Friday.

* Derek Taylor; Publicist for Beatles, Byrds

Derek Taylor, 65, a publicist who achieved his own renown during the height of Beatlemania. Taylor held numerous music industry jobs during his life. But inevitably he was best known for his association with the Beatles. He served two stints as their press officer and oversaw global publicity for the ABC miniseries “The Beatles Anthology” in 1995. Born in Cheshire in northeastern England, Taylor was a drama critic for the Daily Express newspaper when he first saw and reviewed the Beatles in concert. He accompanied the group on their world tour in 1964 but left Apple records after eight months to move to Los Angeles as publicist for the Byrds, the Beach Boys and Paul Revere and the Raiders, among others. He returned to England and the Beatles in 1968. In London on Sunday of cancer.

* Father Karl E. Von der Ahe; Jesuit Priest, Educator

Father Karl E. Von der Ahe, 85, descendant of the founders of the Vons markets that have grown into one of the nation’s largest chains. Karl Von der Ahe, however, was a priest for most of his life, graduating from Loyola High School--where he later was principal--before entering the Jesuit novitiate in Los Gatos, Calif., and joining that order. Over the years he taught and held administrative positions at Loyola and Santa Clara universities before becoming minister of the new Jesuit novitiate in Santa Barbara in 1963. He later was pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish in Hollywood and returned to what was then Loyola Marymount University in 1983 as minister and treasurer of the Jesuit community. On Saturday in Santa Monica.