Milestones Feb. 15, 1999

AILING. WALTER PAYTON, 44, Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back; of a rare liver disease; in Chicago. He awaits a liver transplant.

SENTENCED. MIKE TYSON, 32, trouble-friendly boxing champion; to one year in prison, for assaulting two motorists after an August traffic accident; in Rockville, Md.

DIED. HUNTZ HALL, 78, pop-eyed, baseball cap-sporting comedic actor and member of Hollywood's renowned gang of street toughs, the Dead End Kids (a.k.a. East Side Kids and Bowery Boys); in Los Angeles. Hall, who was first cast as the dim-witted sidekick to Leo Gorcey in the 1935 play Dead End, played the same character in more than 80 of his 120 films.

DIED. LILI ST. CYR, 80, B-movie actress and stripper of the '40s and '50s, famous for her onstage bubble baths; in Los Angeles. Long before the advent of Victoria's Secret, St. Cyr ran a mail-order lingerie company featuring, among other items, "scanti-panties."

DIED. PAUL MELLON, 91, assiduous cultural benefactor and environmentalist; in Upperville, Va. The only son of famed financier Andrew Mellon, he spent nearly $1 billion establishing such treasures as the Yale Center for British Art and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. For decades, he helped run Washington's National Gallery of Art, which he founded in partnership with his father. Mellon insisted that his gifts not be named after his family. "The idea of power has never appealed to me," he said. "Privacy is the most valuable asset money can buy."

DIED. MARIO ZACCHINI, 87, original "human cannonball" who performed for decades at circuses and carnivals; in Tampa, Fla. Zacchini, the last surviving member of a family troupe of cannonballs, said the toughest part about being ejected at 90 m.p.h. wasn't flying but landing in the net.