Milestones: Feb. 25, 1966

Born. To Princess Christina Margarethe of Hesse, 33, niece of Britain’s Prince Philip, and Robert Floris Van Eyck, 49, a London artist: their second child, first son; in Oxford, England.

Married. Robert M. Goldberg, 25, only son of U.K. Ambassador Arthur J. Goldberg; and Barbara Louise Sproston, 25, a pretty lass from Crail, Scotland, and a fellow Harvard graduate student (she in education, he in law school); in Chicago.

Died. Robert Rossen, 57, Hollywood producerdirector, a onetime boxer from Manhattan’s Lower East Side who, after some years as a Warner Bros, scriptwriter, turned to making his own movies “about things I knew as a kid,” such as Body and Soul, 1949’s Oscar-winning All the King’s Men and The Hustler; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

Died. Metropolitan Antony Bashir, 67, Archbishop of the 110,000-member Syrian Antiochian Orthodox Church of New York and North America, a vigorous anti-Communist who in 1958, while in Damascus for the election of a new Patriarch, exposed a Soviet plot to seat its own Communist-oriented candidate by bribing some delegates with cash, gifts and free trips to Moscow, then led the fight to elect non-Red Patriarch Theodosius VI; of cancer; in Boston.

Died. Albert Thomas, 67, Democratic Congressman from Texas’ Eighth District (Houston) since 1937, a gentle, genial but nonetheless powerful legislator who, as head since 1949 of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Independent Agencies (NASA, AEC, etc.), earned a reputation among some agency chiefs as the budget-snipping leader of “the Thomas Obstacle Course” and among Houstonians as the provider of such plums as its $170 million Manned Spacecraft Center; of cancer; in Washington.

Died. Harold Freedman, 69, literary agent, a onetime actor who turned in his best performances peddling (for a 10% commission) Broadway shows to Hollywood, including Hello, Dolly! to 20th Century-Fox for $2,000,000, and My Fair Lady to Warner Bros, for $5,500,000 and 47½% of the gross over $20 million—highest price ever paid for movie rights; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

Died. Hans Hofmann, 85, pioneer, teacher and father confessor of U.S. abstract expressionism; of a heart attack; in Manhattan (see ART).

Died. Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., 90, the genius who made General Motors the world’s biggest manufacturer; of a heart attack; in Manhattan (see U.S. BUSINESS).