Marshall Barer,75, who wrote the words for the Broadway musical "Once Upon a Mattress" and for the "Mighty Mouse" cartoon theme song, died in Santa Fe, N.M., on Tuesday of cancer.

Fritz Haber,86, an aeronautical engineer who developed a way to simulate the gravity-free environment of space in the training of Apollo astronauts by flying a plane in a roller-coaster pattern, died Aug. 21 in Norwalk, Conn. He was one of the German scientists recruited after World War II to work on the U.S. space program. His wartime design for a missile to be transported piggyback on another aircraft was put to work to carry the space shuttle on a modified Boeing 747 for transport between California and Florida.

Dorothy Manners Haskell,95, a columnist who chronicled the lives of Hollywood celebrities, died Tuesday in Palm Springs, Calif. She had worked as an assistant to columnist Louella Parsons for 30 years, then took over her column for King Features Syndicate in 1965 after Miss Parsons retired.

Pub Date: 8/30/98