RECOVERING. Charles Manson, 49, mass murderer serving a life sentence for the killings of Actress Sharon Tate and seven others; from second- and third-degree burns of his hands, scalp and face, after he was splashed with paint thinner and set ablaze by a fellow inmate and murderer, Jan Holmstrom, a Hare Krishna devotee who said that Manson complained about his continual chanting; in the California Medical Facility infirmary; in Vacaville, Calif.

DIED. Carl Proffer, 46, scholar, translator and publisher with his wife Ellendea of an indispensable Soviet literature press; of cancer; in Ann Arbor, Mich. By reprinting the work of contemporary, often dissident Soviet authors as well as preserving the work of Soviet playwrights and writers of the '20s, the Proffers' press helped keep some of the best Soviet literary work alive in the West.

DIED. Reidar Sognnaes, 72, a pioneer of forensic dentistry, the founding dean of UCLA's school of dentistry, and the man who in the early '70s confirmed the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann by comparing dental remains with existing X rays; of a heart attack; in Thousand Oaks, Calif. The Norwegian-born Sognnaes also disproved the theory that George Washington wore wooden teeth, demonstrating that his dentures were probably made of cattle, hippopotamus, elephant and walrus teeth.

DIED. Walter Pidgeon, 87, urbane, courtly actor for half a century in Hollywood who dignified more than 100 films, most often as a reassuring and formidable gentleman; of a stroke; in Santa Monica, Calif. Born in Canada, Pidgeon reached his peak of popularity during the 1940s and '50s when he teamed with Greer Garson for eight films, most notably Mrs. Miniver, in which he movingly portrayed the staunch father of an English family whose lives are rent by World War II.

DIED. Ellsworth Bunker, 90, patrician, unflappable diplomat under seven Presidents, who epitomized the old-school foreign service officer during his many key assignments; in Brattleboro, Vt. A graduate of Yale, Bunker was an executive in the sugar industry for 35 years before President Truman named him to be Ambassador to Juan Peron's Argentina in 1951; he was later posted to Italy, India and Nepal. Bunker helped avert a war between The Netherlands and Indonesia in 1962, and three years later mediated between factions in the Dominican Republic. Called from retirement and sent to Viet Nam in 1967 to preside over what he hoped would be the winding down of American involvement, Bunker did finally see the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 1973 after four years of " Viet-namization." Sometimes known in diplomatic circles as "the Refrigerator" for his icy imperturbability, he later capped his career as chief negotiator in acrimonious but ultimately successful talks with Panama over the new canal treaties. "I'm an old-fashioned patriot," he once explained of his devotion to duty despite diplomacy's frustrations. "I have always assumed that my country was fundamentally right in its dealings with others."