"We're almost in the business of flying rainbows over crushed emeralds," said Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Bach had been flying a 1929 Travel Air 4000 over Pecatonica, Ill. for a documentary being made from his book Nothing by Chance (1969) about barnstorming in the '20s and '30s. The film version of Jonathan takes off next fall.
In spite of his wife's occasional remonstrances, Veteran Actor Sir Ralph Richardson, 70, rides a motorcycle daily when he can. "I had my first motorcycle at 16 and am unable to say when I'll have my last," he explained in Sydney. Australia, where he will be starring in William Douglas-Home's play, Lloyd George Knew My Father. Invited to have a look at a new German BMW, Sir Ralph suddenly took off for a spin. "Sorry, dear," he said later to his wife. "The infernal machine got the better of me."
The conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra was napping at home one afternoon not long ago when the telephone rang. Waking him, his wife said, "The President's on the line." "The president of what?" asked Eugene Ormandy. Richard Nixon was calling to forward an invitation from the Chinese government to the orchestra of its choice—the Philadelphia. Following the lead of the Vienna and London orchestras, which have also toured China, the Philadelphia is not including any works by Russian composers. Ormandy announced last week that it is, however, preparing to play the Yellow River Concerto, a modern Chinese work. The composer is not one man but several, namely "the committee of the composers' union."
"Charging down is Prince Charles, son of . . . Let me think a minute . . . Oh yes, the Queen and that fellow . . . I remember—Prince Philip." The commentator at the polo match was former American Polo Player Tom Oxley cutting up during the Prince's visit to the Bahamas for their Independence Day celebrations (TIME, July 16). The jokes about the royal family were labored. But when Oxley described polo as a disease like polio, the usually easy-going Prince, 24, had had enough. At half time he grimly ran up the steps of the commentator's box: "Cut out the wisecracks," Charles ordered. "You are turning this into a barn dance."
Geraldine Chaplin was sitting on top of the world. Charlie's oldest daughter, 28, was in Madrid with her lover, Director Carlos Saura. She was also playing Anne of Austria in a zany new version of The Three Musketeers directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night). Meanwhile four other versions of the Dumas novel were being filmed, two in Italy and two in France, making this the summer of the 15 Musketeers.
"What's your wife's name?" Duke Ellington asked the man who was standing next to the piano. Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet, the French ambassador to the U.S., answered, "Yanie." "Well, then," said the 74-year-old musician, "this tune will be called Yanie." He played a few bars for the crowd that had gathered in Manhattan's French consulate to see Ellington presented with the French Legion of Honor—the first to go to a jazz musician. The ambassador answered back on the piano with a few bars of Ellington's Mood Indigo.