Divorced. F. (for Francis) Lee Bailey, 38, flamboyant criminal lawyer whose clients have included Albert ("the Boston Strangler") DeSalvo, Dr. Sam Sheppard and Captain Ernest Medina; and Froma Victoria Bailey; on grounds of incompatibility ("He was too busy with his work"); after nine years of marriage, one child; in Santo Domingo. -

Died. Pierre Lazareff, 65, publisher and director of France-Soir, Paris' largest newspaper; of cancer; in Paris. Lazareff escaped to the U.S. during the Nazi occupation and worked for the Office of War Information. In 1945 he returned to Paris and led the postwar growth of both France-Soir and Elle, the women's fashion magazine. Though Lazareffs outspoken support of Charles de Gaulle resulted in the bombing of his home and newspaper offices during the Algerian crisis, his aggressive management of France-Soir earned him the title "Napoleon of journalists"--and a daily circulation of 1,000,000. -

Died. Louis Perini, 68, baseball club owner who initiated the first major-league franchise shift in 50 years by moving his Boston Braves to Milwaukee in 1953; in West Palm Beach, Fla. A construction and real estate executive who became a Braves owner in 1943, Perini gave a sense of insecurity to sports fans everywhere when he led his money-losing team from their home of 77 years to pastures he hoped would be more profitable. (They were not.) Boston papers dubbed him the "Benedict Arnold of Baseball," but his strategy was subsequently emulated by financially pressed teams in both leagues. -

Died. Yasunari Kawabata, 72, patriarch of Japanese letters; by suicide; in Zushi, Japan. Orphaned at the age of three, Kawabata explored loneliness and human sensitivity in such novels as Thousand Cranes, Snow Country and Sleeping Beauties. "The sentiments of an orphan," he once said, "run deep in all my works." Though a student of both modern Western literature and ancient Asian works, he chose to practice the classic Japanese literary style in which sentences are spare, images vague, and ideas suggested rather than baldly stated. In 1968 he became the only Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for literature; the citation mentioned his mastery in revealing "the essence of the Japanese mind." He left no suicide note, but years ago he offered a possible explanation: "A silent death is an endless word." -

Died. Otto Griebling, 75, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey clown whose sad, sagging face and fumbling impudence have been widely copied circus fixtures for the past 50 years; of a stroke; in New York City.

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