Born. To Geraldine Gleason, 25, elder daughter of TV's indestructible Fat Man, and John Chutuk, 26, Manhattan talent agent: their first child, a son; in Manhattan.

Died. Flannery O'Connor, 39, authoress of the Deep South, an impassioned Roman Catholic from the Georgia backwoods who, in 30 short stories and two critically acclaimed novels (Wise Blood, The Violent Bear It Away}, explored the South's religious curiosities, finding among them such an appalling collection of lunatic prophets and murderous fanatics that one critic called her "a literary white witch," and she herself said, "I write from 9 to 12, and spend the rest of the day recuperating"; of lupus erythematosus (a rare tissue disease); in Milledgeville, Ga.

Died. Kathryn Messner, 61, Manhattan book publisher, who in 1955 accepted a manuscript that five other publishers had rejected, spent a year editing and toning down its lurid, sex-studded account of small-town U.S. life, saw the gamble pay off as Grace Metalious' Peyton Place sold over 300,000 copies of her hardback edition and later brought in handsome royalties from 8,000,000 paperback sales; after a long illness; in West Long Branch, N.J.

Died. Aleksander Zawadzki, 64, President of Poland, a onetime coal miner who joined the Communist underground in 1923, served the cause with such ardor that Moscow made him a general during World War II, then in 1952 eased him upstairs to become Chairman of the Council of State, a sinecure that relegated him to laying cornerstones and delivering speeches; of cancer; in Warsaw.

Died. Sir Cedric Hardwicke, 71, British character actor and comedian, who so delighted London as George Bernard Shaw's favorite lead (Heartbreak House, The Apple Cart) that he was knighted in 1934, after which he crossed the Atlantic to keep them chuckling on Broadway (30 productions) and in the movie houses as one of Hollywood's Typical Britishers, bald pate, frosty visage, deadpan drollery and all; of emphysema; in Manhattan.

Died. Mary Josephine Fitzgerald, 98, widow of Boston's famed Mayor "Honey Fitz" and maternal grandmother of John F. Kennedy, who watched on TV as J.F.K. took the presidential oath on her Bible and as Grandson Ted beat out George Lodge to become U.S. Senator (thereby avenging Honey Fitz's 1916 defeat by George's great-grandfather), but was never permitted to see or hear anything about the assassination--though the family "had a hunch she knew"; in Boston.

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