Milestones: Jan. 5, 1968

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Married. Harry James, 51, top trumpeter and big-band leader in the 1940s and early '50s, now making the Las Vegas scene swing; and Joan Boyd, 27, former Vegas showgirl; he for the third time (the others: Singer Louise Tobin, Actress Betty Grable), she for the second; in Reno.

Died. Max Miller, 68, author of I Cover the Waterfront and 26 other books; following two strokes; in La Jolla, Calif. The success of Waterfront, a collection of vignettes drawn from assignments as a San Diego reporter, enabled Miller to give up newspapering, but he always retained a feel for the short take and the simple truth—notably with his boyhood adventures in 1933's The Beginning of a Mortal.

Died. Amerigo Dumini, 74, Italian Fascist gangster and organizer of the 1924 murder of a Socialist deputy that almost toppled Mussolini's young regime; in Rome. Soon after accusing Il Duce's government of corruption, Deputy Giacomo Matteotti was kidnaped and beaten to death. The killing produced such a violent public outcry that Dumini was finally arrested and convicted, but let off with a few months' sentence—which grew to 30 years when he was retried, for murder, in 1947.

Died. Paul Whiteman, 76, pop conductor who for two generations filled dance floors, concert halls and the air-waves with his "symphonic jazz"; of a heart attack; in Doylestown, Pa. Trained in the classics on the viola, yet fascinated with jazz's "abandon," Pops Whiteman arrived at a sweet and golden middle road that pleased audiences everywhere—on million-seller records (Whispering), radio, TV, nightclubs and the concert stage. He took chances on new music (Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue) and new musicians (Tommy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden), but his staple was rich, smooth orchestration that kept his foot-long baton in motion until 1961, when he retired to his Bucks County home, Coda, so named for the last few bars on a musical score.

Died. Harry Steenbock, 81, longtime (1908-56) University of Wisconsin research chemist and pioneer in vitamin D-enriched foods; of a heart attack; in Madison, Wis. In 1924, Steenbock discovered that vitamin D could be "activated" with ultraviolet rays from a quartz-vapor lamp, quickly treated milk and other foods to provide the first new source of the rickets-preventing "sun vitamin" since cod-liver oil. His patents could have made him wealthy, but instead he helped set up a foundation to handle royalties, which netted $10,000,000 for the university before a federal court in 1945 ruled his discovery too broad for patent protection.