Milestones: Feb. 12, 1965

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Born. To Sherri Finkbine, 32, Phoenix housewife who became the central figure in the 1962 thalidomide debate by going to Sweden for an abortion of a baby she feared was damaged by the drug (it was) after Arizona had denied her legal permission; and Robert Finkbine, 33, high school social studies teacher: their fifth child, third daughter; in Phoenix. Sighed the proud Papa: "Both the mother and child are perfect."

Born. To Princess Grace, 35, still High Society's leading lady; and Prince Rainier, 41, ruler of Monaco: their third child, second daughter; in Monte Carlo. Name: Princess Stephanie Marie Elisabeth.

Divorced. Leslie Caron, 33, elfin French film star (The L-Shaped Room, Father Goose); by Peter Hall, 34 director-producer of London's Royal Shakespeare Company, her second husband (her first: Chicago Meat Heir George "Geordie" Hormel II): on uncontested grounds of adultery with Hollywood Actor Warren Beatty, who was ordered to pay court costs: after nine years of marriage, two children; in London.

Died. Art Kassel, 67, Chicago bandleader whose wailing saxophone and syrupy voice put such songs as Love Letters in the Sand on the hit parade and kept his Castles in the Air radio program a national favorite throughout the 1930s; of kidney failure; in Van Nuys, Calif.

Died. Kent Cooper, 84, general manager of the Associated Press from 1925 to 1948; of pneumonia; in West Palm Beach, Fla. A bluff, hearty farm boy from Indiana, "K.C.," as he liked to be called, was the visionary who built the A.P. into the world's largest news-gathering service: in the 1930s he pioneered the widespread use of the Teletype ticker and the transmission of photos by wire and radio, but made his major contribution by breaking ties with the cartel of European news services that once monopolized overseas stories, instead marshaling his own army of reporters in every corner of the globe.

Died. Tom Mercer Girdler, 87, chairman of Republic Steel Corp. from 1937 to 1956, a tough-talking engineer who took over a faltering company, gradually built it into the industry's third biggest producer (after U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel), but is best remembered for his tooth-and-nail opposition to unions, a fight that resulted in the bloody 1937 South Chicago strike (ten killed, hundreds injured) and eventually idled nearly a million workers in seven states for six weeks; of a heart attack; in Easton, Md.