Born. To Enos ("Country") Slaughter, 42, tobacco-chewing, knuckle-bald New York Yankee outfielder whose dependable pinch-hitting recalls a long, starring career with the St. Louis Cardinals (1938-53), and Helen Spiker Slaughter, 28, onetime airline stewardess: their second child, second daughter (he has a son by one of four earlier marriages); in Ridgewood, N.J. Name: Sharon Lynn.
Died. Marion Hilliard, M.D., 56, Canadian gynecologist whose thoughtful essays on the act and fact of love won transcontinental gratitude; of cancer; in Toronto. With "a happy bedroom" the central aim of her medical philosophy, Spinster Hilliard published many articles in Chatelaine, collected them in one best-selling volume (A Woman Doctor Looks at Love and Life).
Died. Martin L. Straus II, 61, adman and business tycoon, chairman (1940-49) of Eversharp, Inc., who started plugging his pens and pencils in 1940 on radio's quiz show Take It or Leave It, began a seemingly unstoppable inflation when he stunned incredulous listeners by presenting a game in which Eversharp contestants could supply progressively difficult answers and work their way toward an extravagant "$64 question"; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.
Died. Tengku Sir Badlishah, 64, Sultan of Malaya's Kedah state, who once zipped around the peninsula in a canary-colored Rolls-Royce, was elder brother of Malaya's Prime Minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman, son-in-law of Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Malaya's Paramount Ruler; of a heart attack which came while he was playing tennis; in Alor Star, Malaya.
Died. Eyvind Laholm (real name: Edwin Johnson), 64, Wisconsin-born operatic tenor who sang in Europe for 14 years before making his debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House in 1939, was once Adolf Hitler's favorite singer; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.
Died. Saxe Commins, 66, senior editor at Manhattan's Random House publishing firm, editor of three Nobel prize-winning U.S. writers (Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, William Faulkner); of a heart ailment; in Princeton, N.J. "The role of the editor," said Saxe Commins, "is to be invisible"; yet his hidden persuasion had profound effect on modern American literature. Friend and editor of William Faulkner since Mosquitoes in 1927, Commins in recent years cleared working space for the Mississippian in his Manhattan office and Princeton home, provided the right kind of stimulation for the novelist's production of A Fable and The Town. Also editor of Sherwood Anderson, James Michener, Gertrude Stein, W. H. Auden, Robinson Jeffers, Budd Schulberg and Irwin Shaw, Commins long directed Random House's Modern Library series, also assembled the Selected Writings of Washington Irving (1945), Selected Writings of Robert Louis Stevenson (1947), Basic Writings of George Washington (1948), Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson (1952), and (with Robert N. Linscott) the four-volume World's Great Thinkers (1947).