Born. To Strom Thurmond, 73, fourth-term Dixiecrat-turned-Republican Senator from South Carolina, and former Beauty Queen Nancy Moore Thurmond, 29: a second son, fourth child; in Greenwood, S.C.

Died. Margaret Leighton, 53, twice a Tony Award winner (for Separate Tables, 1956, and The Night of the Iguana, 1962), whose stage and screen career stretched over 35 years and included such successful films as The Winslow Boy and The Go-Between in which the willowy, blonde English actress starred in her usual elegant style; while under treatment for multiple sclerosis; in Chichester, England.

Died. Tun Abdul Razak, 53, Prime Minister of Malaysia since 1970 who deftly laid down a nonalignment policy for his country and closely tended homegrown economic problems; of leukemia; in London.

Died. John Martin Murtagh, 64, New York State Supreme Court Justice who was preparing his ruling on whether the state's special prosecutor, Maurice Nadjari, had the authority to investigate the New York Democratic Party chairman Patrick Cunningham; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. A tireless, methodical, thorough worker, Democrat Murtagh presided over Republican Nadjari's corruption cases for three years and repeatedly clashed with the prosecutor, whose slashing, unorthodox tactics caused Murtagh to throw out a number of pre-jury indictments.

Died. Frank Schoonmaker, 70, tastemaking oenologist and writer whose pioneering articles and books educated American palates and drew the world's attention to the then unheralded wines of California's Napa and Sonoma counties; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. Schoonmaker dropped out of Princeton University in 1923 because he felt it had little to teach him, and on a visit to France began his study of vintages in the household of a wine merchant. In 1933, Harold Ross of The New Yorker commissioned Schoonmaker to write a landmark ten-article series on the wines of Europe that started him on his career as one of the nation's premier wine critics. Later Schoonmaker became a consultant to leading American vintners and went into the wine business himself. His books include Frank Schoonmaker's Dictionary of Wines and the Encyclopedia of Wine.

Died. Dame Agatha Christie, 85, prodigious mystery writer whose works ; numbered more than 80 books and 17 plays; in Wallingford, England (see BOOKS).

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