Milestones: Apr. 17, 1964

Divorced. William du Pont Jr., 67, Maryland country squire, great-great-grandson of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont and one of ten of his descendants on the board of the family chemicals empire; by Margaret Osborne du Pont, 43, three times (1948-50) U.S. Women's singles tennis champion, 13 times winner in the doubles; on grounds of mental cruelty; after 16 years of marriage, one son; in Las Vegas.

Died. Jigme P. Dorji, 45, Premier since 1955 of Bhutan, mote-size (18,000 sq. mi.) Indian buffer state in the Himalayas, who with his brother-in-law, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk, brought Bhutan boldly into the 20th century by abolishing slavery and polyandry, joining the Colombo Plan, building hospitals and the first road to the outside world; by an unknown assassin's bullet, as he sat in a resthouse at the Indian border post of Phunchholing.

Died. El Brendel, 73, cinecomedian born in Philadelphia to Irish and German parents but famed in the early '30s for his bogus Swedish accent, which made "yumpin' yimminy" slang of the day in dozens of yuicy Hollywood roles; of a heart attack; in Hollywood.

Died. Hesketh Pearson, 77, British biographer, frustrated Shakespearean actor, whose gossipy, tarts-and-all style of literary portraiture produced 18 skin-deep but readable studies of improper Victorians Charles Dickens (one illegitimate child) and Oscar Wilde (two legitimate ones), other figures from Britain's King Charles II ("most civilized of monarchs") to that self-styled rebel against "the tyranny of sex," George Bernard Shaw; of jaundice; in London.

Died. Julien Arpels, 79, president of high society's Parisian jewelers Van Cleef & Arpels, Inc., who with his brother Louis took over the business from his father, set up a New York branch in 1940 that outpaced Paris headquarters, expanded to Palm Beach and Caracas marketing such wares as Napoleon's emeralds and a 34.6-carat pink Indian diamond but never, never talking about who bought what or for how much; of a stroke; in Manhattan.

Died. John Gillis Townsend, 92, Delaware's Mr. Republican, Governor (1917-21), U.S. Senator (1929-41), and a delegate to every G.O.P. National Convention but one between 1904 and 1960, a multimillionaire real estate man and farmer who rejoiced in his title as the state's "Strawberry King" while pushing through as Governor a program, then considered "dangerously liberal," of workmen's compensation, vocational education, state income taxes; of pneumonia; in Philadelphia.