MILESTONES

By LESLIE DICKSTEIN, TAM GRAY, NADYA LABI, JAMIE MALANOWSKI, MICHELE ORECKLIN, ALAIN SANDERS AND JOEL STEIN

SENTENCED. GUEORGUI MAKHARADZE, 36, Georgian diplomat who killed a Maryland teen while driving drunk; to seven to 21 years in prison; in Washington.

SENTENCED. VINCENT ("The Chin") GIGANTE, 69, Mob boss whose famously odd behavior (namely, roaming the streets in a bathrobe) was judged a ruse; to 12 years in prison, for murder-conspiracy and racketeering; in New York City. Gigante was also fined $1.25 million.

DIED. NICOLETTE LARSON, 45, pop songstress who put the country in Neil Young's California rock, taking his Lotta Love to the Top 10 in the 1970s; of cerebral edema; in Los Angeles.

DIED. STUBBY KAYE, 79, rotund and riotous singer; in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Once billed as the "extra padded attraction," Kaye put every pound to showstopping effect as he rocked the boat--and Broadway--in the original Guys and Dolls. He played Nicely-Nicely Johnson onscreen too, as well as a banjo-playing minstrel in the frontier spoof Cat Ballou.

DIED. LILLIAN DISNEY, 98, Walt Disney's benevolent widow, who helped found the California Institute of the Arts; in Los Angeles. Disney coined the moniker Mickey Mouse, wisely persuading her husband to give up his choice: Mortimer.

DIED. EDDIE CHAPMAN, 83, British crook turned World War II double agent; in London. Serving time on the Channel Islands for his sticky fingers, Chapman was sprung by German occupiers who sent him to blow up an English factory. He faked the demolition with the aid of a master illusionist and returned to Germany a hero--code-named "Zig Zag" by his new friends, British intelligence.

DIED. RALPH FASANELLA, 83, self-taught painter; in Yonkers, N.Y. A machinist who took up the brush to help his arthritis, Fasanella was "discovered" in 1972. His favorite subjects: the Big Apple and its human gridlock.