MARRIED. Charles Shipman Payson, 79, retired industrialist and majority stockholder of the New York Mets; and Virginia Kraft, 47, associate editor of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, who met him in 1962 when she wrote an article about his Florida hunting lodge; both for the second time; in Falmouth Foreside, Me. Payson's first wife, Heiress Joan Whitney Payson, died in 1975.

DIED. Sheik Sabah as Salim as-Sabah, 62, Emir of Kuwait; of a heart attack; in Kuwait. After succeeding his brother in 1965, he curbed oil production to conserve the enormous reserve that gives the Persian Gulf sheikdom the highest per capita gross national product in the world ($11,510 a year) and pays for its lavish welfare services. He was a strong supporter of Arab unity and a heavy financial backer of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

DIED. Alberto Gainza Paz, 78, editor and publisher of Argentina's great 108-year-old La Prensa, who became an international symbol of a free press by defying Dictator Juan Peron; of cancer; in Buenos Aires. Forced into exile when Peron took over his paper in 1951, Gainza Paz resumed control in 1956 after the dictator's overthrow. Almost 20 years later La Prensa broke a story about the alleged misuse of a $700,000 check that contributed to the downfall of Peron's successor, his widow Isabel.

DIED. Howard Hawks, 81, director of such lean, fast-paced films as Red River, The Big Sleep and Scarface; of complications from a concussion caused by a fall; in Palm Springs, Calif. "For me, the best drama is the one that deals with a man in danger," said Hawks, and the endangered men of his movies included such giants as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, James Cagney and Gary Cooper, matched with sexy, strong-willed Hawksian discoveries such as Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Carole Lombard and Jane Russell. When French cineasts made a cult of the tall, quiet director, claiming for example that he "incarnates the classic American cinema," Hawks commented: "I get open-mouthed and wonder where they find some of the stuff they say about me. All I'm doing is telling a story."

DIED. General Oliver Prince Smith, 84, leader of one of the most famous--and successful--retreats in military history; in Los Altos, Calif. Trapped by eight divisions of Chinese Communists in North Korea in the fall of 1950, Smith led the 20,000-man 1st Marine Division on a bloody 13-day, 70-mile breakthrough to the sea and rescue. "Retreat, hell!" said Smith. "We're just advancing in a different direction." A softspoken, bookish Christian Scientist sometimes called "the Professor," Smith was much decorated for his amphibious landings at Inchon and Seoul and during World War II.

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