Skip to main content

PEOPLE

"When I am through skiing," said World Champion Skier Jean-Claude Killy, a spectator at the Sebring road race last weekend, "I should like to race cars. First I would go to Carroll Shelby's driving school in California. Then I would race for the world championship." Killy, who wheels down mountainsides at something like 70 mph, drives a battered Mini-Cooper around Val-d'Is√®re at speeds up to 110 mph. The car will go even faster, he claims, "but the tires will not stay on the ground. If I raced cars though, I would need a big car, like a Mustang, but I would not be able to afford to buy one." It was suggested he could get a sponsor. "Who would sponsor me?" he asked. Carroll Shelby squinted under the rim of his black cowboy hat and growled, "I've seen this here kid drive. He instinctively takes the right line around a course because of his training as a skier. He likes speed. He'd be a natural. Jawn-Claw Killy—naw, I don't think he'd have any trouble at all finding a sponsor."

At the Kansas-UCLA track meet Elke Sommer amazed Jim Ryun with her interest (below), even though she was not sure what records he holds. Fast becoming a track enthusiast, she is currently working on a movie called The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz, in which she portrays an East German track star who escapes to West Berlin by pole-vaulting over the Wall (a stand-in—a man in a wig—will do that scene in the film). Elke has been training under UCLA Track Coach Jim Bush, striving for proficiency, as the script demands, at the sprints, hurdles, high jump, discus, shot-put and javelin. "Track has become part of my life," she says. After watching Ryun run the 880 at the dual meet she declared, "I have never seen so much grace in any human being. When he took off on the back-stretch, it was like a beautiful animal running. It was a composition of muscles, strength and grace." "She knows quite a lot about track," Ryun said.

British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was caught in a crossfire of debris and bottles during a soccer riot two weekends ago on a pitch named the Lion's Den in Millwall. But the demonstrations, which included chants of "Gestapo, Gestapo" directed at the chairman of the Millwall club, which had just lost to Huddersfield, did not seem to upset Wilson—he has always been a Huddersfield fan. The team has won every game he has attended. "The Prime Minister," says the manager of Huddersfield, "has become a bit of a mascot."

Another Louisville sponsoring group is being formed—Cassius Clay's having been disbanded—and until last week the businessmen involved planned on naming themselves Nothing But Winners, Inc. In their sporting stable are Lightweight Boxer Marcus Anderson (with a 7-0 record, including six wins by knockouts), rookie LPGA Golfer Mary Lou Daniel and a 2-year-old colt named Pee Wee Reese. The other day clockers at Florida Downs picked the namesake of the onetime Dodger shortstop to win his first start. But the colt, whom Pee Wee Reese chose personally to bear his name, was running a fever by racetime and never made it to the paddock. Meanwhile Mary Lou was finishing in a tie for 20th in the Louise Suggs Invitational. At last word, Marcus Anderson was still unbeaten, but the attorney for Nothing But Winners said that the group might not be incorporated after all, at least not under that name.

When it comes to boats no one will ever be able to call him a bush leaguer. Gussie Busch, St. Louis beer and baseball boss, has taken delivery of a new $700,000 German yacht (above). The 119-foot craft is moored in St. Petersburg, Fla. alongside his 84-foot motor cruiser and his 41-foot Rybovitch. A team of interior decorators has furnished the 19-by-22-foot main saloon, the 19-by-12-foot master bedroom and the 14-by-12-foot dining room of the new boat with Louis XVI chairs, shirred silk panels and Tuscan-finished cherry cabinets. A pineapple, the symbol of hospitality, has been woven in gold into the sea-green carpet.

Members should be forewarned that the traffic on Tehran's royal golf course will be heavier next month. The Shah of Iran's brother, Prince Mahmoud Reza Pahlevi, recently paid a visit to H. R. Owen Ltd. of Berkeley Street, London, the second-largest Rolls-Royce dealer in the world. putting the shop salesmen on a Silver Cloud of anticipation. But instead of buying a $15,000 Rolls, Prince Mahmoud ordered a $980 Mini-moke, a kind of miniature Land Rover. It is to be used as a caddie car on the royal golf course, the prince explained. "We haven't heard of a Mini-moke being used on a golf course before," said an Owen company official, "but we don't suppose it matters if you own the course." Meanwhile, in Hollywood, Actress Ann-Margret has decided to stick to her gold-plated golf cart. Last week she broke her one-year engagement to Actor Roger Smith. Back to Smith went his $12,000 diamond ring, but unreturned was the golf cart he had given her as, well, as a kind of Mini-moke to get about the studio lot.

At the end of the 1965 season Wally Moon, the Dodgers' outfielder, left the big leagues and headed back to the Ozarks, where he was raised. "It was a drastic change, going from Los Angeles to Siloam Springs, Ark. [pop. 4.774]," Moon said recently, "but it was a calculated change. When I was young I loved to hunt and fish. I wanted to do that again. And I wanted to teach; I had always planned on that." Moon, who has a masters degree from Texas A&M, has mastered his plan. In Siloam Springs he has found catfish, quail, wild turkey, squirrel and a job downtown teaching and coaching baseball at John Brown University.

TWO PHOTOS