German List Arzubide; Poet Chronicled Mexican Revolution

German List Arzubide, 100, poet who chronicled the bloody Mexican Revolution of 1910-20. Born in Puebla, capital of the Mexican state of Puebla, on May 31, 1898, List said on his 100th birthday: “I want to die smiling, as I will soon do, since I don’t want to continue abusing life, especially when the doctors have taken all the fun away by forbidding me alcohol and women.” His poetry, now little known, was very popular during the revolution in which more than 1 million people were killed. List was on the side of the revolutionaries against the hard-line conservatives and was jailed several times. He wrote his first poem, a derisive caricature of his jailer, on the wall of his cell the first time he was incarcerated. He went on to write dozens of poems praising Emiliano Zapata and other revolutionary heroes. On Saturday in Mexico City, of acute anemia.

Eleanor Norris Keaton; Widow of Buster Keaton

Eleanor Norris Keaton, 80, widow of legendary silent screen comedian Buster Keaton. The daughter of a studio electrician, she started dancing in MGM musicals as a teenager. The young Eleanor Norris was formally introduced to Keaton in 1938 by friends who suggested he could teach her to play bridge. Despite his two failed marriages and her relative youth, the couple were married July 28, 1940, when she was 21. They worked together in stage shows and traveled to film festivals where he was honored. The marriage remained strong until his death of lung cancer on Feb. 1, 1966. She later raised championship St. Bernard dogs, descended from her husband’s pet Junior, including several that appeared in the Beethoven series of family films. Eleanor Keaton was a docent for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo, a consultant on gags for filmmakers including Mel Brooks, and a popular speaker at showings of silent films including the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Last Seats on Broadway series each June. On Monday in the Motion Picture Relief Fund Hospital, Woodland Hills, of emphysema and lung cancer.

John O. Van Koert; Designer Championed Danish Furniture

John O. Van Koert, 86, American designer who championed modernist Scandinavian furniture and silverware. Van Koert taught design at the University of Wisconsin and later designed jewelry and industrial goods, including furniture, in New York. In 1954, he was exhibition director of “Design in Scandinavia,” a show that helped introduce Danish modern design to the United States. On Oct. 11 in Santa Fe, N.M.