Died. Maria Goeppert Mayer, 65, only woman besides Madame Curie to win the Nobel Prize in physics; of a heart attack; in San Diego. A German-born scientist who emigrated to the U.S. in 1930, Mayer visualized the atomic nucleus as a series of onion-like layers of neutrons and protons. That insight was developed into the Jensen-Mayer "shell theory" of the nucleus, for which she shared the 1963 Nobel Prize with fellow physicists Hans Jensen of Heidelberg and Eugene Wigner of Princeton.

Died. Walter Winchell, 74, gossip columnist and rapid-fire radio reporter (see THE PRESS).

Died. The Marquess of Salisbury, 78, the Tory blueblood whose high-pitched stammer echoed through British Parliament for more than four decades; of fibrosis of the lung; in Hertfordshire, England. Salisbury belonged to a family of politicians whose influence dated back 400 years to Elizabethan times. A man of rigid principle, he resigned from government in 1938 to protest his party's appeasement of Mussolini. He was later called back to office by Winston Churchill, became leader of the House of Lords, and in 1957 played a pivotal role in the selection of, Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister. -

Died. Bronislava Nijinska, 81, grande dame of neoclassical ballet; of a heart attack; in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Though overshadowed for a time by her famous brother Vaslav Nijinsky, she built her own durable reputation as a choreographer, dance mistress and inspiration of two generations of ballet performers. While ballet in the early part of the century stressed costume and dramatic content, La Nijinska helped re-establish the importance of pure dance through her creations Les Biches and Les Noces. -

Died. Eugene Cardinal Tisserant, 87, Roman Catholic scholar and longtime prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Oriental Churches, which supervises the affairs of Eastern Rite Roman Catholics; of a heart attack; in Albano, Italy. An accomplished paleographer (specialist in ancient writing), Tisserant was until last year administrator of the Vatican library, which he modernized into one of the best equipped in all Europe. An important figure in the ecumenical movement to bring the Greek and Roman branches of the church into closer harmony, he was considered a possible papal candidate after the death of Pius XII. As Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, he traveled extensively with Pope Paul.

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