Names make news. Last week these names made this news:
At a polo match in Sussex, England, the crowd gasped when the fast-galloping Duke of Edinburgh thudded to the ground as his pony skidded on the wet turf, cheered when he picked himself up after a dazed few moments and legged it after his mount. Unhurt except for bruises and scratches, the duke charged back into the game, led his team to a 6-1 victory.
Nine days of competition at the second annual salaam to celestial beauty at Long Beach, Calif, were climaxed by the crowning of a new Miss Universe: Christiane Martel, 18, a green-eyed brunette fashion model from Paris. Height: 5 ft. 3 in.; weight: 125 Ibs.; hull dimensions (stem to stern) 33-22-35. Photographers snapped a beaming picture of the winner surrounded by the runners-up from the U.S., Japan, Mexico and Australia. After a tough hour posing, Miss Universe sounded (in French) like most any other working girl: "My feet are killing me."
West Berlin police arrested a pudgy little drunk in a greasy suit for brawling over his taxi fare, found that he was none other than Hanns Eisler, East Germany's top composer, former Hollywood tunesmith, and brother of famed Communist Gerhart Eisler. Barely able to stand on his feet, Eisler treated his jailers to a long night of pie-eyed indiscretions. "The stock of freedom in East Germany is not high," he shouted. "Too much freedom doesn't become a people. As for the uprising of June 17, "we expected it because the workers were not living as well as workers in West Germany. In fact, the living standard in the U.S.S.R. is lower than that of the U.S.A." Sober and silent 22 hours later, Eisler was released, scurried back to the Soviet zone.
Sparkling, bright-eyed but still pale after four months of fighting for recovery from her physical and nervous collapse, Actress Vivien Leigh appeared at a London party in her honor and was sure she would be onstage again in the fall, alongside Husband Sir Laurence Olivier. She traced the beginning of her illness back to her 1949 London performance in A Streetcar Named Desire ("A grueling nine months' run—it took a lot out of me"). The heat of moviemaking in tropical Ceylon last winter and the long flight back to Hollywood had been the last straw.
At a Madrid bullfight, Hollywood Gossipist Hedda Hopper, getting her first taste of a real Spanish corrida, was carried away by the excitement of it all when the torero, Chicuelo, toured the arena and was showered by a complimentary cascade of hats, cigars and flowers. Hedda whipped off her own ostrich-feather, Parisian cartwheel hat (by Jacques Path) and skimmed it into the bull ring. "I know I threw away a $100 hat," she said, "but I certainly got more than one thousand dollars worth of thrills."
While Mrs. Perle Mesta, ex-U.S. Minister to Luxembourg, was off on her guided tour of the Soviet Union, some highly discriminating thieves broke into her Newport, R.I. villa, next door to the mansion of Railroad Financier Robert R. Young. The booty: three egg cups, several ash trays and a small selection of cups & saucers.