Milestones Aug. 3, 1998

RESIGNING. MIKE MCCURRY, 43, likable, verbally nimble presidential press secretary whose 3 1/2-year tenure was marked by his artful and droll containment of a voracious White House press corps. He will be replaced by deputy press secretary Joseph Lockhart.

ELECTED. KEIZO OBUCHI, 61, president of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and thus virtually certain to become the country’s new Prime Minister. A cautious politician who most recently served as Foreign Minister, he won the party vote despite overwhelming public opposition and a revolt by younger party members who argued that Japan’s economic crisis necessitated a bolder leader.

DIED. MARK HAMPTON, 58, debonair interior designer who brought low-key luxury to top-drawer America; of cardiac arrest brought on by liver cancer; in New York City. Among Hampton’s well-heeled clients were President and Mrs. George Bush, for whom he helped refurbish the White House.

DIED. RICHARD EBERLING, 68, convict accused by the son of Dr. Sam Sheppard of being the real killer of Sheppard’s pregnant wife in 1954; after a lengthy illness; in Orient, Ohio. Sam Sheppard served nearly 10 years for the crime but was acquitted in a 1966 retrial and died four years later. Eberling, who had washed windows at the Sheppards’ suburban Cleveland home, denied any involvement in the killing. He died while in prison for another murder.

DIED. HERMANN PREY, 69, German baritone known for his interpretation of Schubert lieder and comic operatic characters during a 46-year international career; of a heart attack; near Munich.

DIED. TAZIO SECCHIAROLI, 73, celebrity-hounding photographer whose stalking inspired the character named Paparazzo–thereafter the term for members of his pesky trade–in the 1960 film La Dolce Vita; of a heart attack; in Rome.

DIED. ALAN SHEPARD, 74, unflappable space hero who in 1961 became the first American in space and, in 1971, one of only 12 men to walk on the moon; in Monterey, Calif. (see Eulogy, below).

DIED. DON DUNPHY, 90, announcer considered the voice of boxing, who in his 50-year career called more than 2,000 fights, including 50 heavyweight championships and Muhammad Ali’s first and last bouts; in Roslyn, N.Y.

DIED. ROBERT YOUNG, 91, television’s benevolent authority figure for two decades, first as the patriarch on Father Knows Best and later as Marcus Welby M.D.; in Los Angeles. In 1954, after a solid but unspectacular movie career during the 1930s and ’40s, he accepted the role of Jim Anderson on Father Knows Best, a highly glossed depiction of family life that was comforting and enormously popular; it left the air as a top-rated program. As he portrayed the ideal father, so too did he embody the ideal doctor as Welby, a physician who cared enough to treat the person along with the illness. His controlled characters belied a troubled off-screen life, however, as over the years Young struggled with alcoholism and depression and in 1991 attempted suicide.