PEOPLE
"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky," sang Poet-Seaman John Masefield, but his nephew, Charles Masefield, 24, is happy to settle for just the sky. Charles, whose father is managing director of Britain's Beagle Aircraft, Ltd., took off from London last week in a flying jalopy older than he by four years. With 23-year-old Lord David Trefgarne taking turns at the controls, Masefield flew the rickety biplane from London to New York in a speedy 45 hours.
Granting audience to a clutch of clamorous reporters in a Chicago motel room. His Haughtiness Muhammad ("Now, don't you guys go calling me Cassius") Ali ended a week-long guessing game by revealing that he had, indeed, taken himself a wife. She is a pretty 27-year-old model from Chicago named Sonji Roi (below), and if she had little to say about her new marriage, it was largely because her new lord had closed her up in the bathroom while he talked. "Muslim women," Muhammad told the reporters, "should remain in the background."
There wasn't a badman in sight, and Chester was off somewhere ogling a farm girl, so Matt Dillon climbed off the seat of his steed, a converted International Harvester delivery wagon, and unloaded an enormous 12-foot surfboard. "I work 48 weeks a year on Gunsmoke," said James Arness, Matt's 6-foot 6-inch real-life counterpart, as he took to the waves, "and this is the only thing that keeps me sane."
V stands for Victory. It also stands for Pirate Pitcher Vernon Law, his wife VaNita and their four boys, Veldon, Veryl, Vance and Vaughn. When a fifth boy arrived recently, during a game in which Law shut out the Houston Colts, a reporter suggested the child be named Victor. "Can't," replied Vernon, "already got a dog by that name." So they called the baby Varlin.
Hoping to contribute his bit to an America's Cup season, Bob Mathias, two-time Olympic decathlon champion, decided to challenge the sports at Newport, R.I. to another kind of competition. In answer, the Drexels, the Langleys, the Auchinclosses, the Van Alens—all showed Lip at the Newport Casino to see what it was all about. Mathias told them, "I'm going to stand here, and you people are going to draw pictures of me." With that he peeled oil his shirt, grasped a stick of wood and froze in a javelin-hurling position, while the Newporters tried to capture his image with finger paint and charcoal.
Mary Worth, who presides in a sort of suburbanly saintly way over the comic strip of the same name, had better lean over and read the sports page some day. There's this girl in her strip named Patsy, see, and Patsy is in love with a rising young golf pro. But Patsy's mother is trying to break up the romance by demanding that the pro give it all up to work in a toy factory. The pro, who loves golf better than Patsy, won't buy. Along about then Mary Worth might have popped up to tell Patsy about Mark McCormack and the incomes he manages to eke out for Arnie Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, et al. But no. Patsy, who talks a mean cliché, seems reconciled to the shattered romance: "Let's just say a beautiful drive ended up in the rough! And so far as I'm concerned, the ball is unplayable!"
In case New York Ranger fans are worried, Goalie Jacques Plante has not defected to Montreal, although last week he was back in the net at the Montreal Forum, site of his old triumphs. He was there to tend goal not for the Canadiens, but for the Montreal Nationals' lacrosse team. The job was only temporary, and old Jake the Snake got a lot of cheers. He did not, alas, save many scores.
The State of California is spending more money than ever before on sport, but the man behind it all is just sitting there fretting. A compulsive sportsman who would rather hunt, fish, shoot or play golf than pass a law, Governor Pat Brown broke his ankle on a golf course a month ago and has been hobbled by a plaster cast ever since. If the doctors don't take it off soon, said Pat last week, he's going to start limping around the course, plaster cast and all.
Two years ago Latin-lover-turned TV-tycoon Desi Arnaz took himself a new wife named Edie and—being at heart an ardent angler—promptly began teaching her to catch fish. She apparently was a good student. A few weeks ago in her first taste of deep-sea competition off Guaymas, Mex., Edie Arnaz hooked into three big sailfish. By the time the tournament ended, she had won the top prize over 90 other fishermen—including teacher Desi.
New York Giant Quarterback Y. A. Tittle last year established NFL lifetime records for most passes completed and most touchdown passes thrown. Last week he set another record by autographing 1,206 copies of his new book, Y. A. Tittle: I Pass! in 2 hours, 13 minutes and 27 seconds.
Despite appearances, Britain's dignified political leaders had not decided to settle their differences in the alley—or so they insisted. Returning to London from vacation to discuss the Cyprus crisis, Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home explained that his bandaged hand was the result of a finger prick he incurred while pruning roses in Berwick shire. Opposition Leader Harold Wilson maintained just as firmly that he had cut and bruised his face climbing rocks in the Scilly Isles.
PHOTO
