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PEOPLE
One little noticed but very busy figure in the Green Bay Packers' dressing room after the Super Bowl was an 11-year-old boy, who was squirming and worming his way about collecting autographs from people like Paul Hornung, Bart Starr and Jim Taylor. He even approached formidable Vince Lombardi and said, "Coach, would you sign my program?" Lombardi autographed the program but told him, "I hope your Daddy doesn't spank you for coming in here." Daddy might well. The boy was the son of Kansas City Coach Hank Stram. Said Stram when he found out, "I'm not surprised. He spent more time with visiting teams this season than he has with us." Young Dale Stram did not get whipped. After all, he was the only member of the family who came out ahead on the day.
Feeling that some baying beagles would make the New York Festival Orchestra's performance of Leopold Mozart's Hunting Symphony sound more authentic, Conductor Thomas Dunn imported the Buckram Beagles, a Long Island hunting pack, to Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall (below). Unfortunately, the hounds smelled a rat, not a rabbit. While a hi-fi recording of hounds baying gave the proper musical note, Buckram's best sniffed at the cellos, stared across the footlights and hammed it up for a delighted audience. Finally, to a din of applause that drowned out Mozart, the 22 beagles were picked up and carried ignominiously offstage. As entertainers they had few peers, but as concert performers they were dogs.
A jet carrying the Dodgers' Walter O'Malley and Red Patterson and the Angels' Gene Autry and Bill Rigney home from Pittsburgh had trouble with its landing gear. As the plane circled Los Angeles International Airport, the pilot explained the wheels were being lowered manually, but asked as a precautionary measure that the passengers be prepared for a crash landing, a procedure that includes removing shoes. "Poor Autry," said Rigney, as a stewardess came to collect the shoes, "they aren't even going to let him die with his boots on."
Pro football has finally outgrown television. In San Antonio the other day an announcer, about to interview Tommy Nobis, asked the Falcon linebacker to put on one of those microphones that hang around the neck. Nobis' neck was so large (20 inches) that the mike cord would not reach around it.
Possibly concerned that his image might be going to pot, the movies' muscular Marlon Brando turned fitness fanatic and signed up for streamlining at the Buxted Park health hydro in Sussex, Britain's newest health spa, where for pretty pence clients are starved into shape. Brando underwent a week of Buxted conditioning, which includes sauna baths, footbaths, neuromuscular massages and a special diet (consisting some days of a glass of hot water and lemon for breakfast, a glass of hot water and lemon for lunch, mint tea during the afternoon and a glass of hot water and lemon for dinner). "Mr. Brando received the normal treatment," said the resort's spokesman after the star departed. "There was nothing remarkable about his diet, simply the usual emphasis on fruit and juices to reduce weight. He benefited from his stay. He shed several pounds, but in our opinion he was not with us long enough for a dramatic success."
When Dallas Cowboy Running Back Don Perkins announced his retirement from pro football three weeks ago, New Mexico's new governor, Dave Cargo, appointed him to a $950-a-month job as director of the state's Department of Courtesy and Information. His main concern would have been overseeing the operation of information booths and truck stops at New Mexico's ports of entry. It looked as if Perkins was getting nothing but a fake hand-off when, in his first speech to the state legislature, Governor Cargo recommended that the Department of Courtesy and Information be abolished. But the governor promised that Perkins, who has been active in Republican politics and for a time last year considered running for the state legislature, would receive another gubernatorial appointment if New Mexico decides Courtesy and Information is obsolete.
While her husband was in Australia thanking the government for its assistance in the Vietnam war, Madame Nguyen Cao Ky stopped at a Canberra sports store, where she professionally sighted in a toy rifle (below). She decided not to buy the gun, choosing two cowboy suits as gifts instead, but later in the day told the press that she was a good shot. "I have my own .38 special, which gets quite a bit of use, but I can handle any sort of gun really," she said. "My favorite weapons are pearl-handled six-guns that I use to practice the fast draw, like Gary Cooper." Madame Ky was taught to shoot by her husband, who prides himself on his marksmanship. When a Canberra newsman challenged him to a shooting contest, Premier Ky quickly took him up on it. "We'll shoot for a case of Australian beer," he declared. At week's end the duel still had not come off, but the newsman was practicing with a .38. He had wanted to use a .22 pistol, but Ky told him,"It's a woman's weapon." Maybe so, but not for Madame Ky.
TWO PHOTOS
