Died. Mildred Ella ("Babe") Didrikson Zaharias, 42, sinewy, square-jawed Texas tomboy who played baseball with a House of David team, barnstormed nationally in basketball, boasted "Ah'm gonna lick you!" and did in 632 out of 634 women's athletic events in her teens, set records (later broken) in the 80-meter hurdles and javelin throw in the 1932 Olympics (where she also tied for first place in the high jump, was dropped to second for her unorthodox style), discovered golf in 1931 and was soon outdriving men ("You've got to loosen your girdle and really let the ball have it"), won 56 major tournaments; after a three-year fight with cancer; in Galveston, Texas. Ranked by many the world's greatest woman athlete, Babe Didrikson dabbled expertly in most sports she did not star in (including boxing, football, swimming, pool, tennis), matured from a pugnacious girl into a talented housewife who could design her own clothes, won several golf tournaments (1954 Women's Open, Tarn O'Shanter) after being stricken with cancer in 1953.

Died. Yvonne Faith ("Cutest Little Nudist") Bacon, fiftyish, platinum blonde onetime hip-switcher (Earl Carroll's Vanities, 1930), who once danced in a costume of leaves which a trained fawn consumed as she wiggled, later claimed she invented the fan dance, sued Sally Rand for $375,000 for stealing the idea; after a jump from a hotel window when she failed to get a strip-joint job; in Chicago.

Died. Captain Walter Karig, U.S.N.R. (ret.), 57, literary journeyman who wrote some 20 children's books, headed the team that compiled the six-volume World War II naval history. Battle Report, tossed off bestselling novels (Zotzl, Lower Than Angels); of cancer; in Bethesda, Md.

Died. Madison Alexander Cooper Jr., 63, Waco (Texas) bachelor who managed his family's real-estate fortune, courted "a string of widows," in his spare time turned out (1952) the lusty, lengthy (two volumes, 1,731 pp., 840,000 words) novel, Sironia, Texas, which told in raw, unselective detail everything that happened in 20 years to some 30 major characters; of a heart attack in his auto after completing his thrice-weekly, mile-long jog around the Municipal Stadium track; in Waco, Texas.

Died. Joseph Patrick ("Holy Joe") Boyle, 65, bland, blue-eyed longtime ward heeler for Memphis' E. H. ("Boss") Crump, who became police commissioner in 1940, gave the old steamboat town the cold-water blues by kicking out its gamblers, shutting down its bordellos; after a stroke; in Memphis.

Died. William Edward Boeing, 74, rich man's son who took up flying for fun, decided after his seaplane cracked up that he could make a better one, made it (1916), prospered on war contracts, later built fighters and mail planes, quit the Boeing Airplane Co. in 1934, returned as an unofficial adviser during World War II, when the firm built the legendary Flying Fortresses (B-178) and Superforts (B-293), later saw Boeing develop the B-52 jet bomber; of a heart attack aboard his yacht; in Puget Sound.

Died. Earl Godwin, 75, longtime (since 1908) Washington newsman and folksy NBC radio commentator (since 1935); in Rehoboth Beach. Del.

Died. Dr. Camille Edouard Dreyfus, 77, pince-nezed Swiss-born industrialist and research chemist who. with his brother, the late Dr. Henry Dreyfus, invented and produced (1910) the first commercially successful cellulose-acetate base for nonflammable motion picture film, by 1914 developed an acetate yarn, sometimes touted his product by sporting purple acetate shirts, in 1918 formed the Celanese Corp. of America (1955 assets: $319,940,515), headed it as president until 1945, as board chairman since then; in Manhattan.

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