David Boss; National Football League Executive

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.

* 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

Jacques Neuville, 82, a forger for the French Resistance in World War II who became a San Francisco department store executive. Born and reared in Berlin as Guenther Neustadt, Neuville, the son of a well-to-do Jewish family in the clothing business, adopted a French name when he was sent by his family to Paris because of the Nazis’ rising power. In Paris, Neuville studied painting and joined the French army. When his artillery unit was overwhelmed by German forces, Neuville made his way to a Resistance unit in Lyons and forged the ration cards, passports and marriage and birth certificates that were used for false identities. Neuville received the Croix de Guerre in 1946 for his wartime service in the anti-Nazi underground in Lyons and Paris and later received a U.S. citation for providing information on pilots captured by the Germans. Neuville was betrayed to the Gestapo by a woman who went through his pants pockets one night and found many ration cards. He was in prison for six weeks until a sympathetic French guard left the doors open, allowing Neuville and other prisoners to escape. Late in 1940 he went to Paris, where he served in an underground unit by working as a street and cafe portrait artist who passed on to the Resistance tidbits of conversation from customers who were German officers. In 1952, Neuville began a marketing career in San Francisco. He later became the merchandising manager at Macy’s, where he helped develop a marketing concept in which disparate items like china, luggage and stationery are displayed together. He retired in 1977. In addition to his wife, Christianne, Neuville is survived by two daughters and four grandchildren. On Dec. 29 in Sausalito, Calif.

* George J. Popjak; UCLA Professor, Cholesterol Expert

George Joseph Popjak, 84, a UCLA professor of biological chemistry and psychiatry who won international recognition for his research into cholesterol. Popjak began his study of lipid metabolism after he moved to England from Hungary in 1939. In 1968, he accepted an offer of professorships in both biological chemistry and psychiatry at UCLA. He published more than 230 scientific papers and several books and remained an active researcher after he retired in 1984, focusing on atherosclerosis. On Dec. 30 at his home in Westwood.