Milestones Jan. 15, 1996

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AILING. MARCELLO MASTROIANNI, 72, actor; from kidney trouble; in Milan. His illness has forced the versatile screen star to postpone a reunion with his first love, the stage.

DIED. RICHARD VERSALLE, 63, tenor; of an apparent heart attack; at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Poised on a ladder, Versalle was performing the opening scene of The Makropulos Case when he was stricken and fell to the stage. He had just sung the line, "You can only live so long."

DIED. LITA GREY CHAPLIN, 88, actress; in Woodland Hills, California. At 12, she was Charlie Chaplin's new star in The Kid (1921). At 16, she was Chaplin's new wife. At 18, her lurid divorce complaint launched one of the earliest celebrity court cases.

DIED. LINCOLN KIRSTEIN, 88, author and arts patron; in New York City. If George Balanchine made American dance possible, Kirstein made Balanchine possible, bringing the choreographer to the U.S. in the '30s and co-creating the School of American Ballet and New York City Ballet.

DIED. ARTHUR RUDOLPH, 89, rocket scientist; in Hamburg, Germany. Rudolph developed the towering Saturn V booster that hurled American astronauts to the moon in 1969. But in the 1980s he was driven into exile after the Justice Department linked him to the use of forced labor at a Nazi V-2 rocket factory.

DIED. ARLEIGH BURKE, 94, retired U.S.N. admiral; in Washington. During World War II, Burke's daring command of Destroyer Squadron 23 in the Pacific theater earned him a place in Navy textbooks--and the nickname "31-Knot Burke" for his emphasis on stealthy speed over simple firepower. In postwar Washington, he navigated the shoals of Pentagon politics, rising to Chief of Naval Operations for three terms. An entire class of destroyers bears his name.