Milestones Dec. 16, 1996

ENGAGED. ANGELA BASSETT, 38, actress (Waiting to Exhale, What’s Love Got to Do with It), and COURTNEY VANCE, 36, a star of The Preacher’s Wife. The couple are planning a 1997 wedding.

MARRIED. NANCY KASSEBAUM, 64, retiring Republican Senator from Kansas, and former Senate majority leader HOWARD BAKER, 71, a fellow Republican; in Washington.

APPOINTED. MARSHALL LOEB, 67, former managing editor of Fortune and Money magazines; as editor of the influential Columbia Journalism Review; in New York City. Loeb worked for TIME for 24 years.

AILING. VACLAV HAVEL, 60, chain-smoking playwright-President of the Czech Republic; with pneumonia; following surgery to remove a malignant tumor and half of his right lung; in Prague. Doctors said Havel’s prognosis was good, but late in the week, they performed a tracheotomy to relieve breathing problems. Havel’s wife Olga, recipient of a famous series of his letters under the communists, died of cancer in January.

DIVORCING. ELIZABETH CLARE (“Guru Ma”) PROPHET, 57, head of the New Age sect Church Universal and Triumphant, and ED FRANCIS, 46; after 15 years of marriage; in Corwin Springs, Montana.

SENTENCED. JONATHAN SCHMITZ, 26, guest on The Jenny Jones Show who killed fellow guest Scott Amedure after Amedure admitted to having a gay crush on him; to 25 to 50 years in prison; in Pontiac, Michigan.

DIED. DAN FLAVIN, 63, minimalist sculptor who specialized in using fluorescent lights; of complications from diabetes; in Riverhead, New York.

DIED. BABRAK KARMAL, 67, Soviet-backed communist leader of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986; of liver cancer; in Moscow.

DIED. TINY TIM, 70ish, singer and ukelele player; of cardiac arrest; in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The singer had his greatest success in 1968 with Tiptoe Through the Tulips, a cover of a 1929 hit.

DIED. PETE ROZELLE, 70, commissioner of the National Football League from 1960 to 1989; of brain cancer; in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Generally considered the best commissioner in any pro sport, Rozelle took over the N.F.L. when he was only 33 and there were 12 franchises, each valued at $1 million. Thanks to his leadership–he devised revenue sharing among owners and created the Super Bowl after merging with the rival American Football League–there were 28 teams when he retired, some valued at more than $100 million.

DIED. IRVING GORDON, 81, songwriter; in Los Angeles. Gordon wrote Unforgettable for Nat King Cole in 1951 and won a Grammy for the song in 1991 when Cole’s daughter Natalie recorded a new version that paired her voice with her late father’s in a digital duet.