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Carol Hollywell is the heroine of The Last of the Southern Girls, the first novel by Willie Morris, ex-editor of Harper's. A headstrong and hoydenish native of De Soto Point, Ark., with a flawless face and figure, the lady sounds suspiciously like his great and good friend from North Carolina, Barbara Howar, the unofficial director of Washington fun and games during the L.B.J. years. By no coincidence, Barbara is also publishing her autobiography, Laughing All the Way, and there is, she admits, a certain parallel between the two books. "I have learned that one does not talk in one's sleep around a writer." Morris, she said, squirreled away material "while we gazed at the moon." Both books were written in nine months "when there was an absolute cleavage in our relationship." But Barbara was hardly magnolia-mouthing the whole thing: "He has his heroine involved with a Congressman. Honey, I've never taken up with a Congressman in my life. I'm such a snob I've never gone below the Senate."
So many actresses were arriving in Philadelphia that anyone who noticed might have thought that some face lifter or take-it-off ranch was doing land-office business. The stars were there for the out-of-town run of the revival of Clare Boothe Luce's 1936 hit The Women. With 35 actresses in the cast, The Women might almost be Actors' Equity's answer to Equal Opportunity Employment, since two big Broadway shows have all-male casts—That Championship Season with five men and The Changing Room with 22. One minor problem with the show, which includes Myrna Loy, Alexis Smith, Rhonda Fleming and Kim Hunter, was that the stars had final approval on all photographs taken. Group shots were virtually impossible. Obviously, however, not all the actresses were publicity shy.
"I knew this was a friendly audience when I spotted 19 of my 23 vice presidential choices." George McGovern was flipping his political pancakes at Washington's annual Gridiron Dinner. "I wanted to run for President in the worst way—and I did. I also wanted to be President very badly, but Mr. Nixon is already doing that." McGovern added, "We opened the door to the Demcratic Party, and all the Democrats walked out." He promised to support Nixon if he's right: "After all, we have only one President—two Secretaries of State, maybe, but only one President."
Maybe American politics could stand a little transcendental meditation. Or so Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the former guru of the Beatles and Mia Farrow, told the Illinois house of representatives when he showed up in Springfield as the guest of Representaive W.J. ('Bingo Bill") Murphy. Only last May, Bingo Bill pushed through a resolution encouraging the teaching of transcendental meditation, the Maharishi's technique of mind relaxation, on IIlinois college campuses and in state drug programs. Seeking some serenity of his own, Governor Daniel Walker asked the visiting guru to explain the state's new budget, about which the press had been giving him a lot of grief. The Maharishi answered: "When the world turns to transcendental meditation, the world's problems will be less and the budget will be smiling all the time." Marveled the Governor: "A smiling budget. How about that!"