EXPECTING. Meryl Streep, 33, seraphic star whose riveting performance as the heroine of Sophie's Choice last month won her best actress of 1982 honors from the New York Film Critics Circle, and her husband, Sculptor Don Gummer, 36; their second child.

DIED. John L. Swigert Jr., 51, plucky, earnest Apollo 13 astronaut, who was due to be sworn in this week as a Republican Congressman from Colorado; of lung and bone-marrow cancer; in Washington, D.C. Chosen as a replacement one day before unlucky 13's launching in 1970, the civilian astronaut coolly announced, when an oxygen tank exploded, "Houston, we've got a problem," then initiated emergency procedures he had helped develop. Turning to politics, he spent most of his life savings in an unsuccessful bid for a senatorial nomination in 1978, but came back last year to win 77% of the votes in a congressional primary. Swigert announced his cancer last September, saying his doctors were confident he would beat the disease.

DIED. Hugh Gallen, 58, plainspeaking, two-time Democratic Governor of traditionally Republican New Hampshire, who upset Incumbent Meldrim Thomson in 1978 on his promise (later honored) to eliminate a surcharge from electric bills and hold the line on taxes; of liver and kidney failure, a week before he was to leave office; in Boston. A self-made owner of a car dealership, Gallen in his third gubernatorial campaign refused to take "the pledge" against a state income or sales tax because of looming budget problems, rightly suspecting that his stance might cost him reelection.

DIED. Arthur Bryant, 80, cheerful proprietor of a down-home Kansas City restaurant frequented by Presidents and championed by some critics as the world's greatest barbecue joint; of a heart attack; in Kansas City. Upon taking over the place in 1946, Bryant swiftly introduced his own legendary sauce--red, grainy and spicy--and downgraded the decor, saying that fancier "wouldn't be no grease house."

DIED. Jack ("the Dandy") Parisi, 83, natty, baggy-eyed triggerman for the infamous Murder, Inc. gang of the '30s who beat every rap brought against him save one: he served six years for narcotics trafficking; in Hazleton, Pa. Said one prosecutor of the tightlipped, Italian-born hitman: "If you hung him up by the thumbs for eight weeks, he might tell you his first name."

DIED. Louis Aragon, 85, engaged and engaging rebel, homme des lettres and uncrowned laureate of French Communism; in Paris. A Dadaist and co-founder in 1919 of surrealism, Aragon was a decorated hero of two World Wars, revered especially for the ringing patriotism of his 1940s Resistance poems. Slim and elegant, he uncorked his rhetorical gifts irrepressibly: in art criticism, in labyrinthine, sometimes brilliant novels (The Bells of Basel, Holy Week), in often romantic poetry, but most vigorously--and to some incongruously--in essays, books and political activism championing Stalin. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.