Milestones, Apr. 17, 1978

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SEEKING DIVORCE. Phyllis George, 28, former Miss America (1971) turned television sportscaster; from Robert Evans, 47, successful Hollywood producer (The Godfather I and II, Love Story, Chinatown); after eleven months of marriage, no children; in Los Angeles.

SEEKING DIVORCE. Jacqueline Carlin, 28, television guest actress (Kojak) and pitchwoman (Palmolive); from Cornelius ("Chevy") Chase, 34, comedy writer and actor who rose to fame with his pratfalls on NBC's Saturday Night Live; after 16 months of marriage, no children; in Los Angeles.

SEEKING DIVORCE. Jacqueline Alline Means, 41, ebullient practical nurse and prison chaplain who gained fame by becoming the first officially ordained woman priest of the Episcopal Church on Jan. 1, 1977; from Delton Means, 48, truck driver; after 25 years of marriage, four children; in Indianapolis.

DIED. Stephen E. Kelly, 58, former publisher of the Saturday Evening Post, Holiday and McCall's and advertising sales director of TIME (1963-64), who fought rising U.S. postal rates of the early 1970s as president of the Magazine Publishers Association; of cancer; in Manhattan.

DIED. Ray Noble, 71, British bandleader, composer and later comedian who stirred as much attention in the 1930s with the clear fidelity of his discs as with his smooth, glossy jazz style; of cancer; in London. Noble used a cavernous sound studio to capture a new resonance when he recorded his popular songs (Goodnight, Sweetheart; By the Fireside; The Very Thought of You), then became an English stooge on American radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.

DIED. Nicolas Nabokov, 74, composer, author and witty raconteur who hobnobbed with the top musicians of his generation; of a heart attack; in Manhattan. A Russian-born cousin of the late novelist Vladimir Nabokov, he got mixed reviews from critics for his flashy ballet scores (Don Quixote, Ode). But he won universal acclaim from the arts world as an organizer of international music festivals in Rome, Tokyo and Paris during the 1950s and early '60s. Nabokov also had a career as an urbane social chronicler (Old Friends and New Music, Bagazh).

DIED. Preston Morris Burch, 93, Thoroughbred racing trainer who worked magic with unspectacular mounts and literally wrote the book on his trade, Training Thoroughbred Horses; in Dunn Loring, Va. Son of a successful trainer and the father of another, Elliott Burch, he saddled the winners of 1,236 races (George Smith, White Clover II, Bold) during a career that stretched from 1920 to 1957, and his horses earned more than $6.2 million.