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Who is Mark Epernay? That was the literary puzzle of the week on the New Frontier. Epernay is the pseudonymous author of The McLandress Dimension, a satire to be published this fall by Houghton Mifflin Co. The "dimension" is defined as the longest span of time that a person's thoughts can remain centered on something other than himself. Elizabeth Taylor rates three minutes, the Rev. Martin Luther King four hours. Some New Frontiersmen get only so-so ratings—President Kennedy 29 minutes, Under Secretary of State Averell Harriman 12.5 minutes. Suspected perpetrator: John Kenneth Galbraith, 54, Harvard economist, until lately U.S. Ambassador to India. Galbraith's McLandress dimension, the book says, is only 1½ minutes. When a newsman asked him whether he knew Epernay's identity, Galbraith gave a cagey reply: "Who is Epernay? I have no guesses. I am utterly devoid of literary curiosity."
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With 2,500 gallons of simulated rain per minute pouring down, Warner Bros, began shooting My Fair Lady, and plopping gamely into the puddles went Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, that "so deliciously low, so horribly dirty" flower girl who gets brought indoors by Professor Higgins. Audrey and Co-Star Rex Harrison were not the only ones getting soaked: the movie rights ran to an all-time high of $5,500,000 and production will cost an estimated $15 million, a record for the studio. Audrey herself will collect a splashy $1,000,000.
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The Australian, Belgian, Greek, Italian, Peruvian and Spanish ambassadors to the U.S. were among the 800 or so guests attending Newport's top summer spectacular: the debut of winsome Janet Jennings Auchincloss, 18, daughter of Investment Broker Hugh D. Auchincloss and half sister of Jacqueline Kennedy (who sent a bouquet, insisted the party go on despite her own recent tragedy). The Auchincloss estate, Hammersmith Farm, was done up in Venetian style, with colored lanterns, a pink marquee on the lawn overlooking Narragansett Bay, Meyer Davis' orchestra in gondolier garb, gondolier hats for the young men and golden masks for the young ladies. Janet, in a white strapless gown by Dior, looked like a cinch to get invitations to the season's best parties.
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"Hollywood has gone from Pola to Polaroid," she declared not long ago. But a real star always saves up a twinkle or two for her twilight years, and last week sometime Actress Polo Negri, 65, femme fatale of many a silent movie, was back in the news. In San Antonio, Texas, it was announced that the late heiress Margaret West had willed Pola, her longtime friend and house guest, jewels, furniture, lifetime use of a San Antonio mansion and an income of $1,250 a month. Then, in Los Angeles, Walt Disney Productions announced that Pola is going to make a movie comeback in a suspense drama called The Moon Spinners, to begin filming this September on the island of Crete.
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