Mary Alice Casiday Bye; Busby Berkeley Dancer

Mary Alice Casiday Bye, 88, former Busby Berkeley Golden Girl. As Mary Alice Casiday, she was a contract dancer and actress with Warner Bros. and William Randolph Hearst Production Co. until the mid-1950s. She appeared in several Busby Berkeley movies with their lavish production numbers, and was selected Miss Golden Girl in the Berkeley troupe. She also appeared in non-musical films with such actors as Clark Gable and on “The Earl Carrol Show.” She later married businessman Cecil Bye and retired from show business. On Monday in Glendale.

Thomas W. Ford; Wealthiest S.F. Landlord

Thomas W. Ford, 77, considered the wealthiest landlord on the San Francisco peninsula. The 20 buildings owned by his Ford Land Co. have been assessed at more than $75 million. Ford leased space to some of Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists and was an unusually popular landlord known for his single-paragraph leases. A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Ford earned an engineering degree at Yale and served with the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. He graduated from the University of Michigan Law School and was hired as legal counsel at Stanford, which became the focus of much of his philanthropy. In 1964, Ford joined Cornish & Carey, a real estate firm, as a land development specialist, and two years later formed his own company. He was also a supporter of moderate Republican politicians and in 1984 founded the Lincoln Club, a party support group. On Monday in Portola Valley, Calif., of a heart attack.

Skip Nicholson; Helped Develop Panavision

Skip Nicholson, 68, Hollywood agent who helped develop Panavision. Born in San Francisco, Nicholson began his career in the Army--on the photo staff of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in France during World War II. In 1954, he became the first employee of Panavision, where he helped develop and manufacture its first distortion-free projection lens, the prototype for lenses in use today. In 1969, he joined Technicolor, where he worked with cinematographers, directors and producers. That association prompted him to form the Skip Nicholson Agency in 1981 to represent directors of photography. His first client was Laszlo Kovacs, whose credits include “Ghostbusters,” “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and the soon-to-be-released “Jack Frost.” The agency merged with another in 1988 to become Smith, Gosnell, Nicholson & Associates. On Nov. 18 at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills.