Charles Goren, 90, who developed a point system that...

Charles Goren, 90, who developed a point system that popularized the game of contract bridge and wrote a widely syndicated column on the game, died April 3 in Los Angeles of a heart attack. Mr. Goren, a Philadelphia native, learned to play auction bridge as a college student at Montreal's McGill University. He first took a hand in a game organized by a girlfriend, and, by his description, "made an ass of myself." He immediately found a book on bridge and memorized it from cover to cover, vowing never to be so humiliated again. Mr. Goren began writing about bridge for local Canadian newspapers as a student. As a young lawyer in Philadelphia, he became a serious tournament bridge player and developed his point-counting system that enabled even unsophisticated card players to enjoy the new game of contract bridge. He became so enmeshed in playing and writing about bridge that he rejected a proffered judgeship, his nephew Marvin R. Goren said, and abandoned his law practice in the mid-1930s. The bridge champion wrote 26 books on bridge that have been translated into seven languages. He also wrote columns for the Time magazine empire and for the Chicago Tribune newspaper syndicate.

Natalie Schafer, 90, actress known to generations of "Gilligan's Island" fans as Lovey, the wife of millionaire Thurston Howell III, died Wednesday of cancer at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. Ms. Schafer's character and Howell, played by the late Jim Backus, were among the marooned passengers on the charter boat Minnow on the show, which ran from 1964 to 1967 and still is seen in reruns.