Divorced. Henry Fonda. 57, hardy perennial of Broadway and Hollywood (Mister Roberts, Advise and Consent); by Afdera Fonda, 29, the former Italian Contessa Afdera Franchetti. dark, lively socialite; after five years of marriage, no children; in Juarez, Mexico.

Died. Polly (real name: Pearl) Adler, 62, longtime (1920-45) Manhattan madam whose garish parlors were a house away from home for those who found the scarlet parrot on her business card an invitation to expensive pleasure; of cancer; in a Hollywood hospital. At Polly's midtown bordello, amid Louis XVI, Egyptian and Chinese furnishings, and a Gobelin tapestry of Vulcan and Venus "having a tender moment," Racketeer Dutch Schultz took his ease, barking orders to henchmen from under a silken canopy, while in nearby rooms Social Registered patrons reveled, and off-duty cops romped. In retirement, tiny (4 ft., 11 in.), dark-haired Polly wrote a bestselling memoir (A House Is Not a Home) that helped enrich the idiom ("There's no shaking off the press"), completed two years of college, where one of her professors coined a rich one of his own: "The problem is, Miss Adler knows nothing about syntax."

Died. John Ireland. 82, gentle, white-haired English composer of songs, chamber, piano and organ music, anthems and orchestral pieces, who put poems to music (his most popular: from Masefield's Sea-Fever) but shied away from longer works because "you must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony"; after a long illness; in Washington, Sussex, England.

Died. George Charles Montagu, 87, ninth Earl of Sandwich, whose :8th century ancestor, the fourth Earl, is credited with concocting the first sandwich (a slab of beef between two pieces of bread) because he once refused to leave the gaming table for a more conventional repast, recipient in 1956 of the National Pickle Packers Association's annual "Pickle Award" in gratitude for the sandwich's assistance in helping the pickle packers peddle a peck of pickles; in Huntingdon, England.

Died. Sailing Wolfe Baruch. 88, retired stockbroker who. with Brother Bernard M. Baruch, hired a locomotive on the Fourth of July 1898. steamed from the Jersey shore into holiday-forsaken Manhattan to cable huge buy orders to the London Stock Exchange on news of the great U.S. naval victory off Cuba in the Spanish-American War, a victory that, as they expected, touched off a great buying spree on Wall Street next day. skyrocketing prices in the U.S. stocks that the Baruchs had bought at low prices in London while others were too busy celebrating; after a long illness; in Miami.

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