Milestones: Nov. 10, 1961

Born. To Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, 31, and Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon, 31, elegant ex-commoner and onetime court photographer: their first child, a son; in Clarence House, Queen Mother Elizabeth’s London residence. The 6-lb. 4-oz. child automatically received his father’s secondary title, Viscount Linley, but while the Royal Family searched for proper Christian names, delighted London newspapers referred to him simply as “the Jones boy.” He is fifth in line for the British throne, after Queen Elizabeth’s three children and his mother—exactly the same position occupied by Princess Victoria in 1819, 18 years before she became queen.

Born. To Harry Lillis (“Bing”) Crosby, 57, crooning tycoon, and Actress Kathy Grant, 27: their second son, third child (Bing’s seventh, including his disaffected brood by the late Dixie Lee); in Los Angeles. Name: Nathaniel Patrick. Weight: 9 lbs., 2½ oz. (Cracked Sidekick Bob Hope, at work with Bing in London on a new Road film: “I’m sure glad it’s a big baby. The Crosbys throw back the little ones.”)

Divorced. By Pearl Pegler, 48, tireless worker for right-wing Republican causes and veteran of two previous divorces: Westbrook Pegler, 67, splenetic Hearst columnist who, three months ago, in a piece entitled “Why All Men Are Born to Be Saps,” explained that it was because of the sort of woman who has “a waiting list for new husbands three divorces in advance”; after 2½ years of marriage, no children; in Tucson, Ariz.

Died. Joan McCracken, 39, pixyish dancer and actress who rose from the obscurity of the precision-tooled Rockette chorus line to overnight fame by playing the awkward, out-of-step country girl Sylvie, “The Girl Who Falls Down,”‘ in Broadway’s long-running Oklahoma!; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

Died. Clem Whitaker Sr., 62, lanky, white-maned California public relations operator who, with his pretty wife Leone Baxter, injected P.R. razzle-dazzle into U.S. politics to a previously unmatched degree; of a respiratory ailment; in San Francisco. Insisting that they promoted only what they believed in, Whitaker & Baxter were on the winning side of all but a handful of the 85 political campaigns they handled, helped vault Earl Warren and Goodie Knight into California’s gubernatorial mansion, ran the National Professional Committee for Eisenhower and Nixon in 1952 “to rally the people against the dangers of socialism.” and earned $400,000 for their biggest battle—a four-year, $4,700,000 American Medical Association campaign that killed Harry Truman’s compulsory national health insurance program.

Died. John Chapman Wilson, 62, canny, urbane theatrical producer and director, a onetime bond salesman who talked Noel Coward into making him his business manager, went on to direct the Coward hit Blithe Spirit, plus a clutch of other successful Broadway shows, including A Connecticut Yankee and Kiss Me Kate; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

Died. James Thurber, 66, creator of Walter Mitty and chronicler of the war between the sexes; a month after emergency surgery for a blood clot on the brain; in Manhattan (see p. 81).

Died. Guthrie McClintic, 68, incisive, perfectionist director of 94 plays, 28 of which starred his wife of 40 years, Katharine Cornell; of cancer; in Sneden’s Landing, N.Y. A would-be actor who found his niche behind the footlights after no one would take him seriously in front of them. McClintic spotted Miss Cornell in an off-Broadway production in 1917, scribbled on his program “interesting, monotonous voice, watch,” married her four years later, eventually directed her in such hits as Candida, The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Romeo and Juliet, but won his two New York Drama Critics Awards (with Winterset and High Tor), and a Pulitzer Prize (for The Old Maid), directing non-Cornell plays.

Died. Margherita Sarfatti, 78, onetime mistress, intellectual alter ego and biographer of Benito Mussolini, a Venetian Jewess who was driven into exile in 1939 by Il Duce’s importation of Nazi-style anti-Semitism, but who a decade later still hailed the late dictator as “one of the world’s most lovable men”; of a heart attack; in Como, Italy.

Died. Augustus John, 83, bearded, eccentric, Welsh-born master of portraiture; after a short illness; in Fording-bridge. Hampshire, England (see ART).

Died. The Rev. Mordecai Fowler Ham, 84, flame-tongued Baptist evangelist whose searing sermons on hellfire and damnation converted, by his own estimate, 1,000,000 people throughout the U.S. South, including, in 1934, a skinny, 15-year-old North Carolina farm boy named Billy Graham; of a stroke; in Louisville, Ky.

Died. Luigi Einaudi, 87, second president of the Italian Republic, a shy, diminutive (5 ft.) economics professor who wept when Italy’s King Umberto II was dethroned by a 1946 referendum but who, as budget minister, shored up the newborn republic by staving off inflation, and in the largely ceremonial presidency (which he held from 1948-55) helped maintain a measure of dignity and moderation in Italian political life; of a heart attack; in Rome.