Milestones: Nov. 23, 1962

Born. To Angler Biddle Duke, 46, impeccable State Department Chief of Protocol, heir to an American Tobacco Co. fortune, who lost his third wife in a plane crash last year, and blonde, bubbly Robin Chandler Duke, 39, onetime boss of Pepsi-Cola’s public relations department: a son; in Washington, D.C.

Died. Irene Gibbons, 60, who as “Irene” clothed some of Hollywood’s most celebrated figures both on and off the screen; by her own hand (defenestration) ; in Hollywood.

Died. Herman Brown, 70, salty founder and president of Brown & Root, Inc., multimillion -dollar-a-year construction firm, and one of the country’s wealthiest men, with a personal fortune estimated at $100 million; of a heart attack; in Houston. Brown & Root’s most recent spectacular is a $30 million Mohole contract to drill into the earth’s core, but Brown’s greatest source of pride was a 1942 U.S. Navy contract to build and operate a shipyard, deliver a specified number of ships by a specified date. Brown & Root had never built a ship, but the company met its schedule.

Died. Jean-Gabriel Domergue, 73, slick Parisian portraitist of beautiful women, notably Greta Garbo, Michelle Morgan and Lucienne Boyer, whom he glorified in a light and decorative style; of a heart attack; in Paris.

Died. Willis Harold O’Brien, 76, longtime moviemaker who ushered in Hollywood’s monster era with his trick photography of dinosaurs and other enormous beasts; of a heart ailment; in Hollywood. O’Brien’s monsters were, of course, tiny movable models photographed a few frames at a time, a technique best remembered in his 1933 classic King Kong, in which a mammoth ape invaded Manhattan, wound up atop the Empire State Building batting away U.S. fighter planes like so many gnats.

Died. Arthur Vining Davis, 95, terrible-tempered tycoon who ran up a fortune in aluminum and reinvested it in Florida industry, becoming one of the world’s wealthiest men, worth an estimated $350 million; in Miami. With backing from Banker Brothers Andrew and Richard B. Mellon, Davis helped found Aluminum Co. of America in 1907 as the nation’s first aluminum producer, became Alcoa president in 1910, board chairman in 1928, and ruling with desk-thumping autocracy, built Alcoa into an industrial giant with assets of $503 million before retiring from active management in 1948 to start a second career. Buying some 100,000 acres in the Bahamas and Florida, he farmed some of the land, developed the rest, and before long had money coming in from resorts, housing, ice-cream plants, a shipping company and an airline.