Died. Lady Harlech, 45, wife of Lord Harlech, who as Sir David Ormsby Gore was British Ambassador to Washington (1961-65) and presently is deputy Conservative leader in the House of Lords; a tall, handsome woman whose poise and intimate friendship with the Kennedys made her one of Washington's top diplomatic hostesses; of injuries suffered when her car collided with a bus; near Harlech, Wales.

Died. Billy Strayhorn, 51, jazz composer and Duke Ellington's strong--though all but invisible--right hand for all these years, who composed such hits as Chelsea Bridge, Johnny Come Lately, and Take the A Train, all of which were commonly identified with Ellington alone; of cancer; in Manhattan.

Died. Margaret Rudkin, 69, founder of Pepperidge Farm, maker of breads and other goodies, the wife of a Wall Street broker, who in 1937 started baking whole-wheat bread on doctor's orders to ease her son's asthma, was soon besieged by neighbors and local dealers, and wound up with a business encompassing 57 products and $40 million annual sales before selling out to Campbell Soup in 1961 for $28 million; of cancer; in New Haven, Conn.

Died. Claude Rains, 76, versatile British-born actor who moved from the London stage to Hollywood's screen at 42, first as the malevolent, disembodied voice in The Invisible Man, followed by 55 other roles, from the corrupt French cop in Casablanca (1942) to the suave British diplomat in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), winning four Academy Award nominations; of an intestinal hemorrhage; in Laconia, N.H.

Died. Air Marshal Lord Tedder, 76, Eisenhower's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander from 1943 to 1945, a brilliant R.A.F. tactician who as Middle East air commander in 1941 devised the concept of "carpet bombing," using hundreds of planes literally to blow a path for ground troops through Nazi minefields and fortifications, later played a major role in planning and carrying out the immensely complex invasion of Europe, with primary responsibility for making certain that land and sea forces had the fullest possible air cover; of Parkinson's disease; in Banstead, England.

Died. George Wilhelm Pabst, 82, one of Germany's early greats of movie directing, best remembered for 1925's Street Without Joy, a grindingly realistic study of post World War I Vienna with a then unknown actress named Greta Garbo, 1925's Secrets of a Soul, the first film on psychoanalysis, and 1931's movie version of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera; of coronary embolism; in Vienna.

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