Two months ago Jazz King Louis ("Satchmo") Armstrong was gravely ill in a Manhattan hospital, fighting an apparently losing battle for his life. Now the gravel-throated singer and trumpeter has told newsmen: "My playing and singing's O.K. and I feel pretty good." To prove it, he took up his trumpet, blasted into What a Wonderful World, and announced he planned to go back to work. Said Satchmo: "That's what life's all about, man."
Slowed down by a dilatory auto ahead of him on an English highway, former Racing Ace Stirling Moss stepped on the gas and passed the slowpoke. Unfortunately, the leisurely motorist turned out to be an off-duty policeman, who charged Moss with crossing a double white line. Haled into court, one of the world's most famous drivers had his license taken away. "Terribly unfair," grumbled Moss, who had to be chauffeured home by his attorney. "At the moment I'm riding a bicycle and it's bloody awful."
In the Dominican Republic to file for a quickie divorce from Barbra Streisand, Actor Elliott Gould, 32, walked hand in hand from the courtroom with pregnant Jenny Bogart, 19. Gould announced that he was the father of her baby, due to be born "around Christmas." Furthermore, Jenny announced defiantly, she and Elliott will continue to live together out of wedlock because "we don't believe in marriage."
In Rome, a city that takes its singing seriously, the uproar was reminiscent of the time Maria Callas failed to complete a performance of Bellini's Norma. This time it was Aretha Franklin, who had been touring the country while the Italians hailed her as La Regina del Soul. After fainting at the end of a performance, Aretha canceled her next day's show, a move that produced outraged howls and legal action from Promoter Ezio Radaelli, who had paid her $65,000 in advance. Aretha responded by booking a flight to Paris. But she was picked up by forewarned policemen at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, hustled away, searched, and—after promising to return $40,000 to Promoter Radaelli —finally allowed to board a plane for New York. "I'll come back for you," she shouted to fans cheering from the terminal terrace. Her famed vocal cords sounded as strong as ever.
After her firebrand activities on behalf of Northern Ireland's Catholic minority, Bernadette Devlin, 23, the youngest member of the British House of Commons, would hardly seem to need more publicity. Yet last week Bernadette, who is unmarried, went out of her way to disclose to the press that she expects a baby in the fall. She refused to name the father. "I do not expect it to be easy," she admitted, "some people might want to see me hide and sulk. Others might feel that they were owed some explanation. But my morals," she insisted, "are a private matter."