Born. To Dorothy Lamour (nee Mary Leta Dorothy Slater), 31, Hollywood's No. 1 sarongstress ; and A.A.F. Major William Ross Howard III, 38, prewar Virginia lumbermill-owner, onetime Maryland state legislator: their first child, a son; in Hollywood. Name: John Ridgely. Weight: 6 Ibs. 8 1/2 oz.

Married. Major Benjamin Welles, 29, bonvivacious elder son of sobersided Sumner Welles, and prewar New York Timesm&n., soon to join the Times's China staff; and Cynthia Monteith Aitken, 28, ex-wife of Lord Beaverbrook's son Max; he for the first time, she for the second; in London.

Divorced. James Vincent Sheean, 46, best-selling journalistic bird of passage (Personal History, Not Peace But A Sword) ; by beauteous Diana Forbes-Robertson Sheean, 31, youngest daughter of oldtime actor Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson; after ten years of marriage, two daughters; in Reno.

Divorced. By Bernarr Adolphus ("Body Beautiful") Macfadden, 77, "physcultopathic" ex-publisher of Liberty, True Story, a raft of others, hardy perennial in the Garden of Love: Mary Williamson Macfadden, fiftyish, onetime British beauty contest winner; after 18 years of "perfect union," 15 of separation, days in court without number, seven children (he accused her of "humiliating" him by losing her figure) ; in Miami.

Died. Countee Cullen, 42, lyric satiric* Negro poet (Copper Sun, My Lives and How I Lost Them) and novelist (One Way to Heaven); of uremic poisoning; in Manhattan. Cullen's early work was informed with a sense of suffering, his late with a sense of humor--he said it was written in collaboration with a cat.

Died. Dr. Thomas Barbour, 61, 6-ft.-6 snake-loving, pre-eminent naturalist and author (A Naturalist at Large, That Vanishing Eden), director since 1927 of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology; of a cerebral hemorrhage; in Boston. One of the worst of his many bad moments with reptiles in many lands: his giant boa went AWOL in a Palm Beach-bound train.

Died. Harry von Tilzer (real name: Harry Gumm), 73, dear old daddy of Tin Pan Alley (which he named), writer of such dear old songs as I Want a Girl Just Like the Girl, A Bird in a Gilded Cage, In the Evening by the Moonlight, Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie, first to publish Irving Berlin and George Gershwin; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

*"For a Lady I Know" he wrote:

She even thinks that up in Heaven

Her class lies late and snores,

While poor black cherubs rise at seven

To do celestial chores.

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