People, Dec. 1, 1958

At a United Nations reception, Partygiver Elsa Maxwell, 75, seemed the very soul of wit as a brace of old and dear friends—Pakistan's filly-following Delegate Aly Khan and Opera Outcast Maria Callas—squashed her in with socially correct shoulder blocks. Later, contemplating a frothy dinner she hosted (in another friend's apartment) for magisterial Austrian Conductor Herbert von Karajan, Elsa sighed publicly about her people-nabbing prowess: "Why, I wonder, am I blessed with such friends?" neglected to add an answer.

As Dominican Playboy Porfirio Rubirosa and his fifth wife, sometime Cine-minx Odile Rodin. 21, whooped...

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