PEOPLE
Race Driver Parnelli Jones's close loss to a Ford-engined car at Indianapolis last Wednesday was a pure case of injury being added to insult: Parnelli had been put down by Ford before the race even started. Ford had imported Sharron Moran, a rookie on the LPGA circuit, to play in the drivers' golf tournament preceding the 500. "One dozen Arnold Palmer golf balls to any man who can best our girl!" the publicity trumpeted. Nobody bested Sharron, including her partner, Jones (below), who came in with a 107 to her 85. "It was a very cute idea," Sharron cooed. Parnelli's coos are not on record.
Admirers of Frank Merriwell are going to be cheered to hear of Duke University Tackle Robin Bodkin and his manly account of himself against a gang of what were, no doubt, cads, bullies and toadies. Recently Bodkin was walking alone on Duke's Campus Drive shortly after midnight when he was set upon by 10 toughs. Driving in two automobiles, they shouted to Bodkin to run, that he was going to be whipped. Bodkin elected to stand and fight, whereupon five assorted cads, bullies and toadies leaped from one automobile, and the driver struck Bodkin with a spray nozzle. Bodkin took the spray nozzle away from him and struck him back. The other four retreated, "yelling," according to a subsequent police report, "for their companions in the second car to start firing a .22 automatic rifle they had borrowed." Bodkin's assailants admitted, the report continues, "that the gun was pointed at Bodkin and snapped three times but didn't fire. Bodkin beat out the window glass of one car in trying to get to the youths, and the two cars left the scene in a hurry."
"They just plain got whipped by Bodkin," an officer said later. "The boys told us that if they had known he was so tough they would never have jumped him." Merriwell fans can have only one possible reservation about this satisfying performance. Ought Robin Bodkin to have been up at all after midnight? Surely, Frank Merriwell would have been in bed by half past nine.
"It would have been too much to wish for good acoustics, too," a Caracas music critic wrote last week. "One can't have everything." What a Caracas performance of Bizet's Carmen did have that Rudolf Bing is never going to provide was a live bullfighter fighting a live bull. Venezuelan matador Antonio Girón and a Mexican bull replaced the customary off-stage sound effects for the bullfight scene in the opera, which American contralto Jean Madeira sang from a stage built into the stands of Caracas' Nuevo Circo arena. In this setting a real bullfight proceeded somewhat more satisfactorily than it might have on the stage at New York's Lincoln Center, but there were a couple of artistic imperfections. It did not do a whole lot for the mood of the fourth act, for example, to have Girón (temporarily in the role of Escamillo) dedicate the bull to a male member of the audience. Venezuelan President Ra√∫l Leoni, instead of to his beloved Carmen. And perhaps it was stage fright, but Girón killed badly. After 20 minutes and three botched sword-thrusts he had to dispatch the bull with a descabello. Nevertheless, bullfight reviewers praised Girón's cape work, and a music critic called the opera "an ambitious experiment beautifully carried out," so it is too bad that there was only the one performance. One performance may have been as much as the cast was up to—certainly it was enough for the bull.
According to last week's New-York Times, Mrs. Ralph C. Wilson Jr. of Detroit is suing Mr. Ralph C. Wilson Jr. for divorce. Required to put up $10 million security pending a possible property settlement, Wilson looked things over and finally decided to pledge his football club. Should Mrs. Wilson emerge successful from the fray she may find herself with custody of the Buffalo Bills.
As usual, England's royal husbands are not being permitted to bumble in peace. Prince Philip was thrown by a polo pony last week, landing heavily on his back, and on the same day Lord Snowdon was severely dunked in the English Channel. All the press photographers not occupied in catching Philip out Hat seem to have got Tony looking like a wet stoat (below), but despite press emphasis on the time he spent in, rather than upon, the water, Tony distinguished himself. He was competing in the first cross-channel water-ski race over a rough 42 miles between Greatstone-on-Sea, Kent and a point off Cap Gris-Nez in France: conditions were stormy and cold, and Tony's team, cheerfully yclept the Sunny Water Ski Club, comprised only three members to share out the distance. One of them, Tony Richardson, Secretary of the British Water Ski Federation, was asked whether at any time the team had felt like giving up. "Right from the start," he answered promptly, but the Sunny Water Skiers hung on and finished fourth among only 6 teams of 52 to finish at all. The Earl of Snowdon was able to go home to Princess Margaret with a new cigarette box.
TWO PHOTOS