(2 of 2)
When Mark Twain visited Vassar in 1885, he had, he said, a "ghastly" time and thought the college president "a sour old saint." But now, whether Twain's ghost likes it or not, he is at Vassar to stay. The college has joyously accepted from the daughter of Twain's grandniece Jean Webster McKinney, '01, a collection of the 19th century humorist's letters and notebooks. They contain their share of Twainian "stretchers," or exaggerations. From the gold camps of the West he wrote: "I have had my whiskers and moustaches as full of alkali dust that you'd have thought I worked in a starch factory and boarded in a flour barrel." Twain might have been less than joyous about the whole affair; he once said that "all private letters of mine make my flesh creep when I see them again after a lapse of years." -
He's twice her age, but the match is perfect. Making an ABC-TV special are Olympic Champion Dorothy Hamill, 20, the ballerina of figure skaters, and the superbly athletic star of the New York City Ballet, Edward Villella, 40. To be shown March 2, the show is being filmed in Quebec as part of the city's Winter Carnival. In one spectacular sequence, Hamill and Villella appear to swirl and spin together on the frozen river below Le Cháteau Frontenac. During the filming, Hamill skated alone over mirrorlike black ice; then Villella pirouetted across a translucent sheet of Plexiglas covering the ice. The shots were later combined. The result, Villella says, "is like a dream."
ABC's million-dollar newscaster, Barbara Walters, is "miscast in the anchor spot" and should "withdraw from the news show," declared TV Guide in an editorial. Has Barbara really been doing all that badly? After all, ABC's Nielsen rating has gone up half a point in the nearly five months since Walters went on the evening news. Still, news viewing is up in general, and ABC'S share of the total three-network news audience has not changed. Rallying to Walters' defense, the Washington Post's Sally Quinn argued that Walters' coanchor, Harry Reasoner, should be the one given the boot: "He's insulting her on the air. He's being rude and sarcastic and putting her down." Richard Salant, president of CBS News, is also sympathetic. Says he: "She's taking an awful licking." Walters herself seems unruffled. "The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated," she maintains. "The only ones who don't seem to be concerned are ABC and me."