Names make news. Last week these names made this news:
At a polo match in Sussex, England, the crowd gasped when the fast-galloping Duke of Edinburgh thudded to the ground as his pony skidded on the wet turf, cheered when he picked himself up after a dazed few moments and legged it after his mount. Unhurt except for bruises and scratches, the duke charged back into the game, led his team to a 6-1 victory.
Nine days of competition at the second annual salaam to celestial beauty at Long Beach, Calif, were climaxed by the crowning of a new Miss Universe: Christiane Martel, 18, a green-eyed brunette fashion model from Paris. Height: 5 ft. 3 in.; weight: 125 Ibs.; hull dimensions (stem to stern) 33-22-35. Photographers snapped a beaming picture of the winner surrounded by the runners-up from the U.S., Japan, Mexico and Australia. After a tough hour posing, Miss Universe sounded (in French) like most any other working girl: "My feet are killing me."
West Berlin police arrested a pudgy little drunk in a greasy suit for brawling over his taxi fare, found that he was none other than Hanns Eisler, East Germany's top composer, former Hollywood tunesmith, and brother of famed Communist Gerhart Eisler. Barely able to stand on his feet, Eisler treated his jailers to a long night of pie-eyed indiscretions. "The stock of freedom in East Germany is not high," he shouted. "Too much freedom doesn't become a people. As for the uprising of June 17, "we expected it because the workers were not living as well as workers in West Germany. In fact, the living standard in the U.S.S.R. is lower than that of the U.S.A." Sober and silent 22 hours later, Eisler was released, scurried back to the Soviet zone.
Sparkling, bright-eyed but still pale after four months of fighting for recovery from her physical and nervous collapse, Actress Vivien Leigh appeared at a London party in her honor and was sure she would be onstage again in the fall, alongside Husband Sir Laurence Olivier. She traced the beginning of her illness back to her 1949 London performance in A Streetcar Named Desire ("A grueling nine months' run--it took a lot out of me"). The heat of moviemaking in tropical Ceylon last winter and the long flight back to Hollywood had been the last straw.
At a Madrid bullfight, Hollywood Gossipist Hedda Hopper, getting her first taste of a real Spanish corrida, was carried away by the excitement of it all when the torero, Chicuelo, toured the arena and was showered by a complimentary cascade of hats, cigars and flowers. Hedda whipped off her own ostrich-feather, Parisian cartwheel hat (by Jacques Path) and skimmed it into the bull ring. "I know I threw away a $100 hat," she said, "but I certainly got more than one thousand dollars worth of thrills."
While Mrs. Perle Mesta, ex-U.S. Minister to Luxembourg, was off on her guided tour of the Soviet Union, some highly discriminating thieves broke into her Newport, R.I. villa, next door to the mansion of Railroad Financier Robert R. Young. The booty: three egg cups, several ash trays and a small selection of cups & saucers.
Major James Jabara, the world's original jet ace, bagged his 15th Communist MIG over Korea to become the Air Force's second triple jet ace--one MIG behind Captain Joseph McConnell Jr. Jabara made one last search for the enemy three days later on the 100th mission of his second Korean tour (163 missions in all), then resigned himself to going home and "sitting out one of those jet desk jobs."
Putting into Portland, Ore. for repairs on his teeth, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas dropped into a dentist's chair, decided it was as good a place as any to reel off some mental floss. Samples : 1) he considers this month's successful assault of Kashmir's Nanga Parbat by German climbers a "far tougher'' feat than the Hillary-Tenzing conquest of Everest; 2) Syngman Rhee is the "George Washington" of Korea, and deserves America's sympathy and support, as does Mohammed Mossadegh, "the first great ruler in [Iran's] history to have been raised up by the people"; 3) Chiang Kai-shek (who has traveled both high and low in the Justice's esteem) is the symbol of a tired, failure-marked revolution.
In London, some 200 English friends, Ashanti tribesmen, socialites and Labor Party leaders (notably Aneurin Bevan) gathered for the wedding of Enid Margaret ('Teggy") Cripps, 32, youngest daughter of the late austerity Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Stafford Cripps, and Joseph Appiah, 32, African law student and personal representative in Britain of Gold Coast Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah. When they emerged from St. John's Wood Church and paused for photographs, she in her mother's pearl silk gown, he in the crimson, yellow, black and green ceremonial robe of his tribe, they looked the picture of happy newlyweds. After honeymooning in Paris, they plan to live for a while at her London flat before settling down on the Gold Coast.
New Hampshire's Republican Senator Styles Bridges, the Senate's temporary president, was deep in thought after leaving a conference with President Eisenhower, sauntered out into streaming traffic three blocks from the White House, and was bowled over by a passing car. He was hurried to a hospital, where doctors found a few bruises, no broken bones.
In his old home town of Newburyport, Mass., Novelist John P. (Point of No Return) Marquand, 59, was "resting comfortably" in a hospital after suffering a heart attack at his Kent's Island home.
Ex-Manhattan Model Sloan Simpson O'Dwyer, estranged wife of William O'Dwyer, onetime New York City mayor and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, settled down in Spain four months ago to "forget her troubles and recuperate before facing life again." Last week, able to face life once again, Sloan said she was willing to go to Mexico "at any moment" to testify in Roman Catholic Church proceedings to annul her marriage. But of her husband, laboring as a "legal adviser" to a Mexico City law firm, she could say only the best: "Bill is one of the finest men alive. He's got a heart of gold. We still are good friends." Future plans were hazy, but she would love to go back to the States and do a TV show, "sort of a travelogue, maybe called Going Places with Sloan."
In Atlantic City, Sophie ("Last of the Red-Hot Mammas") tucker, celebrating her 50th anniversary in show business at 69, proved that she was right up to date by announcing her new number for next season: I'm a Three-D Mamma with a Big Wide Screen.
New York's Democratic Senator Herbert H. Lehman said farewell to suburban ease. Since he went to the Senate in 1949, he has been living with Mrs. Lehman in Washington's Wardman Park Hotel and a Manhattan apartment, has had little time to spend on the 75-acre, Purchase, N.Y. estate which had been his home since 1921. Last week realtors announced that the Lehmans had sold the estate, their 19-room Tudor mansion and all the fixings (asking price: $150,000) to a chain-store owner. Some of the fixings : a sun room overlooking Long Island Sound, ten-car garage, six-room gatehouse, terraced gardens, tennis court, oval swimming pool, five horse stalls (without horses) and a root cellar.
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