SEPARATED. Dorothy Hamill, 26, vivacious American ice-skating sensation of the 1976 Winter Olympics; and Dean Paul Martin, 31, actor and son of Entertainer Dean Martin; after 1 1/2 years of marriage, no children; in Santa Monica, Calif.

SEEKING DIVORCE. Roone Arledge, 52, aggressive, innovative president of ABC News and Sports; and Ann Arledge, 35, former Miss Alabama; in New York City.

DIED. Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, 67, theologically conservative leader of Boston's archdiocese, the nation's third largest; of heart failure; in Boston. Ordained in 1946, he became bishop of Brownsville, Texas, in 1966 and succeeded Boston's Richard Cardinal Gushing in 1970. "A gentle, compassionate man," in the words of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, he caused a stir in 1980 by opposing pro-abortion candidates.

DIED. Balthazar Johannes Vorster, 67, former Prime Minister and President of South Africa, known as a stern enforcer of apartheid; of a pulmonary embolism; in Tygerberg. Interned during World War II for membership in a pro-Nazi movement, Vorster was named Justice Minister in 1961 and imposed such policies as "banning," a form of house arrest, and detention of dissidents without trial. Elected Prime Minister after the 1966 assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd, Vorster held sway for 13 tumultuous years, his racist government increasingly opposed by riots at home and pressure from abroad. He resigned as Prime Minister in 1978 and left the presidency in 1979 after a scandal involving a government slush fund intended to improve South Africa's image.

DIED. James Wechsler, 67, liberal columnist and former editor of the New York Post; of cancer; in New York City. Wechsler was one of the first major journalists to oppose Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch-hunt tactics in the early 1950s. His signed columns (1961-83) often rang with moral indignation on behalf of the disadvantaged.

DIED. Felix Bloch, 77, Swiss-born U.S. physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize with American Edward Purcell for the study of nuclear magnetic resonance, a method of measuring the frequencies of signals emitted by atomic nuclei under the influence of radio waves in an electromagnetic field; of a heart attack; in Zurich. NMR has revolutionized medical science as a diagnostic method without the ionizing radiation of CAT-scan X rays or painful injections of contrast material.

DIED. William Fellner, 78, influential conservative economist; of a heart attack; in Washington, D.C. A Budapest businessman, Fellner emigrated to America in 1939, then taught at Berkeley and Yale before President Nixon appointed him to the three-member Council of Economic Advisers (1973-75). Fellner was perhaps best known for his analytical studies of inflation, which helped lead to the indexation of federal income taxes, approved by Congress in 1981 and scheduled to become effective in 1985. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.