DIED. Joseph Hirsch, 71, Philadelphia-born artist whose boldly realistic paintings, etchings and lithographs often depicted scenes of social injustice or corruption; of cancer; in New York City. In 1949, asked to create a poster for Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, Hirsch produced the poignant drawing of a stooped Willy Loman that became famous worldwide as a symbol of the play.

DIED. Gregory Breit, 82, Russian-born physicist who took part in research leading to the first atomic explosion in 1945, and seven years later affirmed theoretical evidence downplaying the possibility that the hydrogen bomb might cause a "runaway" superexplosion; of cancer; in Salem, Ore.

DIED. Chief Dan George, 82, Canadian Indian noted for his portrayal of the sage Old Lodge Skins in the 1970 movie Little Big Man; in Vancouver, Canada. A former stevedore who served for twelve years as chief of the Tse-lal-watt tribe in his native British Columbia, George began an acting career at age 61 in the Canadian television series Cariboo Country, and strongly maintained that Indians should portray themselves in movies and TV. "A white man just does not know how to be an Indian," he argued. "A white man cannot understand what it is that goes on in an Indian's mind."

DIED. Alton Ochsner, 85, internationally renowned surgeon, teacher and medical researcher who in 1936 suggested a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer; after heart surgery; in New Orleans. An outspoken critic of American health habits, he co-founded the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans in 1941 and served as its director of surgery for 24 years, training heart specialists like Michael DeBakey and attending such patients as Argentina's President Juan Peron, Golfer Ben Hogan and Actor Gary Cooper.

DIED. Harry Warren, 87, prolific composer of Shuffle Off to Buffalo, Serenade in Blue, September in the Rain, Chattanooga Choo Choo, I Only Have Eyes For You and more than 300 other songs, including the score of the 1933 film musical 42nd Street, now a successful adaptation on Broadway; in Los Angeles. Born Salvatore Guaragna, the son of an Italian immigrant bootmaker in Brooklyn, the musically self-taught Warren worked as a rehearsal pianist and song plugger before publishing his first hits in the 1920s. During the '30s and '40s he wrote the scores for a string of movie musicals, winning Academy Awards for Lullaby of Broadway (from Gold Diggers of 1935); You'II Never Know (Hello Frisco, Hello, 1943); and On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe (from The Harvey Girls, 1946). A quiet, amiable man whose talent brought him fortune but not fame, he once said: "I lack charisma. Not even my best friends have heard of me."

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