PEOPLE

One successful plunge leads to another, at least for Actor Robert Morley (below, posed up to his neck in the Adriatic). Morley's horse came in at Brighton recently, and he explained how he decided to spend the money: "It was called Greek Skittle, so I thought we had better come to Greece." Fine, but if that is to be Morley's system for disposing of his future winnings he would do well to keep his money off another horse by the name of Old Bailey.

A few minutes before the Cowboy-Packer game in Dallas recently, Cheryl Meredith, wife of Cowboy Quarterback Don Meredith, found herself hopelessly mired in Cotton Bowl traffic. In desperation she appealed to a nearby policeman, telling him, "I'm Mrs. Don Meredith, and I've simply got to make the kickoff."

"So?" said the policeman.

"So can I park over there?" Mrs. Meredith pointed to a violation zone.

"No," said the policeman.

"Well, in that case," said Mrs. Meredith, climbing out and handing him the keys, "will you impound my car for me?" Service without a smile, to be sure, but certainly worth the $4 that Meredith forked over when he reclaimed the car the next morning.

Beatles Manager Brian Epstein has taken on a new client. For almost six months now he has been financing the career of a hopeful torero in Spain to the tune, so far, of more than ¬£1,000. This has enabled his formerly impoverished protégé to fight bulls somewhat better dressed—-with three swords, a ¬£120 embroidered cloak, two ¬£150 suits of lights and seven capes worth ¬£100 each—and to travel in his own car as well. It all seems an imaginative investment in view of the fact that the aspirant is a 21-year-old Englishman named Henry Higgins from Woking, Surrey, whom Epstein has never seen fight. Perhaps if you have been managing the Beatles you just like the idea of handling a performer in a more tranquil line of work.

"There they are, having a good time!" thought Mrs. Jon Hall, wife of the actor, as she watched two men begin a healthy day at 7 a.m. with a dip in the Pacific. Half an hour later the same two men were watching a Great Dane begin a healthy day with a romp on Mrs. Hall's front lawn, and she requested that they get that big dog off her grass. The bathers, Jason Robards and unemployed actor Alex Lucas, did not get the big dog off Mrs. Hall's grass: in fact, Lucas, the Dane's owner, suggested that it "sic her! get her!" whereupon the dog obediently pursued Mrs. Hall into the house. "It was then I realized they were pretty drunk, really and truly," Mrs. Hall observed, and a deputy sheriff told a reporter later, "They were apparently trying to play Tarzan, running through the bushes and everything. They were potted." And so much for healthy early morning exercise on Malibu Beach.

Meanwhile, there was another unsuccessful conjunction of aqua pura and aqua vitae last week in Philadelphia, where W. C. Fields III managed to finish last in a pairs-with-coxswain race in the National Rowing Regatta. "I'm sorry I didn't uphold the family reputation," young Fields said, depressed. "My grandfather was all champion in what he did." Fields then obliged with a story his grandfather used to tell about his stint in Atlantic City as a professional drowner for a local pub. "They'd 'rescue' him, bring him to the pub and try artificial respiration. He'd 'recover,' and people would buy drinks to celebrate. There's a theory he got his raspy voice because he caught cold drowning all those times." Jason Robards and Alex Lucas, please note.

There is a middleweight in San Jose, Calif. named Frank Niblett, better known, and with good reason, as "Snakebite" Niblett. A few years ago he was out hunting and was bitten by a rattlesnake. It is no real accomplishment to get bitten by a rattler—almost anyone can do it, if he puts his mind to it—but Niblett bit the snake's head off in return. With the passing of the years Niblett has mellowed considerably, and now he keeps several snakes as pets. "They're a lot more friendly than most people," he says. Well, no wonder. Somebody probably told them what happened to that first unfriendly rattler.

It got a little difficult to tell who was using whom to promote what last week in Anaheim, Calif. Sir Edmund Hillary (below) was in town to publicize New Zealand as a tourist attraction. He visited Disneyland where they tried to get the conqueror of Everest to climb the Disneyland Matterhorn to publicize the resort as a tourist attraction. Sir Edmund refused to clamber up the 147½-foot mountain, but he took the bobsled ride down ("Personally, I'd rather climb Mt. Everest," Mrs. Hillary observed), and his two sons obligingly scaled the unnatural wonder 10 times for the benefit of the Anaheim tourist trade. Presumably the New Zealand tourist trade will somehow benefit as well, now that it has been established that New Zealand and Disneyland, like Everest, Are There.

TWO PHOTOS