DIED. Eleanor Powell, 69, exuberant, leggy tap dancer whose nimble heels and toes propelled her to stardom in 1930s and '40s Hollywood musicals; of cancer; in Beverly Hills. In her first film, George White's Scandals (1935), Powell covered four miles in her dance routines, and in Broadway Melody of 1940, she gloriously matched Fred Astaire tap for tap. Those movies, and such others as Born to Dance (1936), Rosalie (1937) and Lady Be Good (1941), won her critical acclaim as the best woman tap dancer on film.

DIED. John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, 77, redoubtable financier, distinguished diplomat, enterprising publisher and the epitome of a U.S. patrician; of congestive heart failure; in Manhasset, N.Y. The Groton-and Yale-educated scion of one of America's wealthiest and most distinguished families. Whitney used his entrepreneurial skills in a grand array of profitable ventures. In the 1930s he astutely backed Gone With the Wind and the long-running Broadway hit Life with Father. He also made early investments in Minute Maid orange juice, Pan American World Airways and several radio and TV stations. A moderate Republican, he was named Ambassador to the Court of St. James's by President Eisenhower in 1956, and while still a diplomat, he purchased the ailing New York Herald Tribune, which he was unable to save, though it was his most treasured business project. An avid sportsman, Thoroughbred horse breeder and art collector, Whitney was an active philanthropist who gave away about $1 million a year. A man who savored the amenities and comforts his achievements easily afforded him, he never flaunted his wealth ($200 million at his death). Demanding in 1946 that his name be stricken from the Social Register, he said, "If you willingly go along with such a travesty of democracy as the Register, you tacitly subscribe to its absurd notions."

DIED. Victor Jory, 79, veteran character actor whose craggy looks and commanding voice kept him always in demand, often as a villain, in more than a thousand plays, movies, TV dramas and radio shows; of a heart attack; in Santa Monica, Calif.

DIED. Arthur Barsky, 82, pioneering plastic surgeon who treated children injured in the Hiroshima atomic explosion and the Viet Nam War; near Le Beausset, France. Author of one of the first textbooks in his field and founder of plastic-surgery services in several New York City hospitals, Barsky led the team that treated the "Hiroshima maidens," 25 deformed A-bomb survivors who came to the U.S. for surgery. In 1969 he set up a 50-bed unit in Saigon and spent much of the next six years there helping to treat more than 7,000 children, grafting skin and restoring savagely burned faces and hands.

DIED. Ben Nicholson, 87, British painter whose abstracted images of still lifes and landscapes formed the main link between English art and the continental cubist-constructivist tradition; in London. Born into an artistic and moneyed family, he began as a realistic painter before developing an abstract geometric style.

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