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"I haven't really kept track of the times I've done it." In fact, Boston Pops Maestro Arthur Fiedler has conducted Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker for a decade of Christmases, and this year's 14 performances at Boston's 5,000-seat Music Hall have been sold out for weeks. Before attending a television celebration of his 80th birthday last week, Fiedler showed that he was limber enough to teach terpsichorean twists to members of the Nutcracker cast. "I want no part in picking the dancers, and they have none in picking my musicians," the maestro said. "But it's me who puts the two together."
HOUDINI WINS TEST IN A SEALED CASKET—STAYS UNDER WATER IN AIRTIGHT CASE AN HOUR AND A HALF WITH NO ILL EFFECTS, proclaimed the New York Times headline on Aug. 6, 1926. Now, almost 50 years later, Magician Harry Houdini has surfaced again, via a long-lost letter, to explain how he pulled off his great sealed-casket trick. "I know you are doing worthwhile work, and . . . I am at your service," wrote the famous escape artist to a safety expert at the Bureau of Mines. Contending that fear, and not just lack of air, caused the death of miners trapped in airtight chambers, Houdini explained how he had kept alive for 91 minutes on a then estimated five-minute supply of air through careful breath control and by remaining absolutely still. The letter, just discovered during a drawer cleaning, revealed that even the great Houdini had a few moments of doubt: "After one hour and 28 minutes, I commenced to see yellow lights and carefully watched myself not to go to sleep."
Who better to rededicate Manhattan's Bristol Basin Memorial, a monument to the World War II bombing victims of Bristol, England, than Actor Cory Grant? "I have a deep-seated emotion about this ceremony," declared Grant, 70, who was born in Bristol and known as Archie Leach when he left more than half a century ago. His ceremonial chores for New York's English-Speaking Union completed in a blustery wind off New York City's East River, Grant then fielded a question about his film future. "Oh, I won't make more movies. I've done all that. Besides," grinned the deeply tanned, still debonair star, "I'm much too old."
The arm has been throwing better than ever, the knees haven't pulled their famous collapsing trick, and as if that weren't enough to keep Joe Namath in football, his New York Jets teammates last week voted him the club's most valuable player for 1974. Even so, Joe, 31, is conspicuously vague about his plans for 1975. Some New York sportswriters have even speculated that Quarterback Namath, who has just fulfilled his estimated $250,000-a-year contract with the Jets, is considering playing for the Rams in Los Angeles, where Actor Namath could keep near the cameras. Says Joe: "I don't know what I will do. I feel I am a better quarterback than I have ever been—able to play two more years if I want." Could money keep Broadway Joe from becoming Hollywood Joe? "Well," answers Jets Coach Charley Winner, "this is what you play for."