Died. Dan Duryea, 61, Hollywood's slippery heel (Black Bart, Terror Street, Manhandled); of cancer; in Hollywood. Duryea sparkled as a versatile actor whose rough treatment of women shocked audiences and censors alike (1945's Scarlet Street was banned in New York, probably for his ungentlemanly slapping of Actress Joan Bennett). He went on to portray a modified villain, recently appeared in roles that allowed him to play the gentle soul for a change.

Died. Dorothy Gish, 70, sister of Lillian, who often teamed with the famous silent-screen star in the earliest days of motion pictures, appeared in more than 25 films, including Orphans of the Storm (1922), Madame Pompadour (1927), and numerous Broadway plays; of bronchial pneumonia; in Rapallo, Italy.

Died. James H. Rand Jr., 81, co-founder of Remington Rand Inc. and the merger genius who helped create the giant Sperry Rand Corp.; of cancer; in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. "Go out and make a living!" Rand Sr., founder of the Rand Ledger Co., brusquely told his business-minded son in 1915. Rand proceeded to turn a borrowed $10,000 into the American Kardex Co., which marketed a filing cabinet he had invented, then in 1925 merged with his father's company, and in 1927 with the Remington Typewriter Co. The final merger, with the Sperry Corp. in 1955, resulted in Sperry Rand, a megafirm with annual sales of more than $1 billion.

Died. Witter Bynner, 86, poet-translator who pulled one of U.S. history's most successful literary put-ons; in Santa Fe, N. Mex. Disgusted with the imagist, expressionist and futurist schools of poetry, Bynner in 1916 founded a spurious "spectrist school." Helped by fellow poet Arthur Ficke and a bottle of Scotch a day, he produced in ten days a volume called Spectra, which was praised for two years by eminent critics for such spoofy lines as:

Smell me, a dead fish . . .

Taste me, a rotten tree . . .

Someday touch me, all you wish,

In the wide sea.

Died. Sir Walter Nash, 86, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and architect of the free world's first comprehensive social security system; of a heart attack; in Wellington. A stocky socialist, Nash used his post as Minister of Finance in New Zealand's long-running (1935-49) Labor government to push through a womb-to-tomb measure that provided everything from butter to baby bonuses; he became Prime Minister in 1957, but taxed his utopians so heavily that they ousted him from office three years later.

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