Married. Harry James, 51, top trumpeter and big-band leader in the 1940s and early '50s, now making the Las Vegas scene swing; and Joan Boyd, 27, former Vegas showgirl; he for the third time (the others: Singer Louise Tobin, Actress Betty Grable), she for the second; in Reno.

Died. Max Miller, 68, author of I Cover the Waterfront and 26 other books; following two strokes; in La Jolla, Calif. The success of Waterfront, a collection of vignettes drawn from assignments as a San Diego reporter, enabled Miller to give up newspapering, but he always retained a feel for the short take and the simple truth--notably with his boyhood adventures in 1933's The Beginning of a Mortal.

Died. Amerigo Dumini, 74, Italian Fascist gangster and organizer of the 1924 murder of a Socialist deputy that almost toppled Mussolini's young regime; in Rome. Soon after accusing Il Duce's government of corruption, Deputy Giacomo Matteotti was kidnaped and beaten to death. The killing produced such a violent public outcry that Dumini was finally arrested and convicted, but let off with a few months' sentence--which grew to 30 years when he was retried, for murder, in 1947.

Died. Paul Whiteman, 76, pop conductor who for two generations filled dance floors, concert halls and the air-waves with his "symphonic jazz"; of a heart attack; in Doylestown, Pa. Trained in the classics on the viola, yet fascinated with jazz's "abandon," Pops Whiteman arrived at a sweet and golden middle road that pleased audiences everywhere--on million-seller records (Whispering), radio, TV, nightclubs and the concert stage. He took chances on new music (Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue) and new musicians (Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden), but his staple was rich, smooth orchestration that kept his foot-long baton in motion until 1961, when he retired to his Bucks County home, Coda, so named for the last few bars on a musical score.

Died. Harry Steenbock, 81, longtime (1908-56) University of Wisconsin research chemist and pioneer in vitamin D-enriched foods; of a heart attack; in Madison, Wis. In 1924, Steenbock discovered that vitamin D could be "activated" with ultraviolet rays from a quartz-vapor lamp, quickly treated milk and other foods to provide the first new source of the rickets-preventing "sun vitamin" since cod-liver oil. His patents could have made him wealthy, but instead he helped set up a foundation to handle royalties, which netted $10,000,000 for the university before a federal court in 1945 ruled his discovery too broad for patent protection.

Died. Frazier Hunt, 82, who helped cast the stereotype of the dashing, trench-coated foreign correspondent; of a stroke; in Abington, Pa. "Spike" Hunt lived and wrote in the same style--first person singular. Beginning with World War I, he embarked on a Cook's tour of hot spots and the men who caused them--Lenin founding his Bolshevik regime, Pancho Villa hiding in Mexico's mountains, Sun Yat-sen ensconced in China, Mustafa Kemal Atatuerk embattled in Turkey; during World War II, he renewed an intimate working friendship with Douglas MacArthur and later wrote a worshipful biography. He got scoops for all his publishers--Hearst, the New York Sun and, most notably, the Chicago Tribune, which in 1919 published a partial draft of the Versailles Peace Treaty that he had sneaked out of Europe in his suitcase.

Died. George Middleton, 87, playwright and one of the craft's shrewder business guardians; of pneumonia; in Washington, D.C. Although several of his 29 works (Polly with a Past, Adam and Eva) became Broadway successes between 1902 and 1938, Middleton's most enduring script--written while he was Dramatists' Guild president from 1927 to 1929--is entitled the Minimum Basic Agreement, which still governs the theater's royalty system.

Died. John Lucian Savage, 88, designer of the Boulder, Grand Coulee, Shasta and a host of other hydroelectric dams; after long illness; in Englewood, Colo. In 21 years as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's chief design engineer, Savage drafted plans for 60 major U.S. dams, yet still was earning less than $10,000 a year when he retired at 65--after which he started a second, more remunerative career as consultant on a score of foreign projects, including Switzerland's Super-Dixence Dam and India's Koyna irrigation project.

Died. Cyrus S. Ching, 91, first director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; of a heart attack; in Washington, D.C. "My policy," said Ching, "is moderation, cooperation, and sit down and talk it over." For more than half a century--first as negotiator for the Boston El., later as U.S. Rubber Co.'s labor troubleshooter, and from 1947 to 1952 as the Government's top peacemaker--the hulking (6 ft. 7 in.), Canadian-born lawyer ironed out countless labor spats with such dogged patience that even John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers couldn't hurry up "Ching and his damned pipe." Both of them worked overtime in the post-war labor climate bringing about settlements, including accords in 1948's two coal strikes and 1949's crippling steel walkout.

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