MILESTONES

EXPECTING. SUSAN MOLINARI, 37, G.O.P. Congresswoman of New York, and her husband BILL PAXON, 41, G.O.P. Congressman of New York; their first child; in May.

MARRIED. TED DANSON, 47, onetime Cheers barkeep and former Whoopi Goldberg beau, and actress MARY STEENBURGEN, 42; at Danson's home on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Celebrity attendees included Tom Hanks and the bride's old chums from Arkansas Bill and Hillary Clinton.

DIED. GEORGE KIRBY, 71, comedian-impressionist; of Parkinson's disease; in Las Vegas. One of the first African-American stand-ups to play Vegas clubs, Kirby was for years a fixture on TV variety and talk shows. His repertoire of 100 voices spanned races and sexes, including dead-on renditions of jazz divas Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

DIED. EIJI OKADA, 75, Japanese screen actor admired around the world for his roles as an architect in the French film Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959), a head of state in the U.S. drama The Ugly American (1963) and an insect collector in the Japanese classic Woman in the Dunes (1964); in Tokyo.

DIED. EDWARD LOWE, 75, inventor; in Sarasota, Florida. He first created it as a lark for a friend in 1947, but Lowe soon realized its potential--and for a while his own name became almost as famous as the catchy moniker he bestowed on the household staple that earned him millions of dollars: Kitty Litter.

DIED. MARGARET GORMAN CAHILL, 90, the first Miss America; in Washington. Seventy-four years before TV viewers pondered the pros and cons of the Miss America swimsuit competition, back when the pageant was little else but a swimsuit competition, a flapper-thin form won the title for the 5-ft. 1-in., 16-year-old (or 15-year-old, according to some rumors) Cahill.