BORN. To Lucie Desiree Arnaz, 29, actress (Broadway's They're Playing Our Song) and daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and her husband of six months, Actor Laurence Luckinbill, 46: a son, her first, his third; in Los Angeles. Name: Simon Thomas. Weight: 8 Ibs. 6 1/2 oz.

DIVORCED. Erik Estrada, 31, star of the TV show CHIPS; and Joyce Miller Estrada, 40; after one year of marriage (which cost Erik a settlement of $2,740 a month for the next four years), no children; in Los Angeles.

DIED. John Lennon, 40, former Beatle whose singing, songwriting and social activism left a lasting imprint on the culture of the past two decades; of gunshot wounds by an assassin's hand; in New York City (see NATION).

DIED. Michael Halberstam, 48, hard-driving physician, author and editor whose multi-faceted career led from Public Health Service assignments at the northern tip of Alaska and on an Indian reservation in New Mexico to a successful cardiology practice in the nation's capital; of gunshot wounds received when he surprised a burglar in his home; in Washington, D.C. Son of a New York doctor and older brother of Pulitzer-prizewinning Journalist David Halberstam, he edited Modern Medicine magazine, contributed to many magazines and newspapers, wrote books on medical subjects and published a favorably reviewed 1978 novel, The Wanting of Levine (see NATION).

DIED. Kamel Abdel Rahman, 72, Palestinian contractor who headed one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East and was reportedly a top financier of the Palestine Liberation Organization; of complications resulting from a fall; in Cannes, France. Abdel Rahman, whose Consolidated Construction Co. built more than 2,000 km of roads in Oman, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, left an estimated 75% of his $150 million estate to Palestinian and other charities.

DIED. John J. Bergen, 84, a Pennsylvania mine owner's son who became a top industrialist and investment banker, playing a leading role in the construction of the new $100 million Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1968; in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

DIED. Benedictos I, 91, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, who in 1964 arranged the first meeting in 500 years between the heads of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches; of a heart attack; in Jerusalem. The Turkish-born Benedictos acted on lifelong ecumenical principles in bringing together the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, and Pope Paul VI, whose two great branches of Christianity split in the 11th century.

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