PEOPLE

The author of The Prince Philip Throneside Book, which was published last month in England, has for the past year held a $4,800 life insurance policy on Prince Philip. "I took the precaution of insuring his life," the writer, Sebastian Stoke-Poges, says, "because if he had fallen off his polo pony or crashed a helicopter any book of a jokey nature would also have been killed stone-dead. I would also have lost my royalties. So I inquired if it was possible to insure his Royal Highness' life. I was sent a form to fill in. They wanted to know if the subject had suffered from fits, ear discharge, nervous debility, varicose veins and some other very personal complaints. I had to say honestly I didn't know." He was issued the policy, however, for $28.80.

Former baseball star Ralph Kiner, in Honolulu recently on his way back from Vietnam, told newspapermen about a football game played by U.S. soldiers near the front lines. "They had a special down-and-out play during which the end raced downfield and caught a pass just before stepping out of bounds," Kiner said, "but in one instance the end raced far downfield and as he caught the ball he was shot in the arm by a Viet Cong sniper. The officials ruled it an incompleted forward pass, another instance of incompetence by officials. It should have been ruled complete due to pass interference."

Roy Hofheinz, owner of the Astros and soccer Stars and proprietor of the Astrodome, is sort of taking over Houston. Before long one will be able to live in his 444-room Astro motel, dine in his restaurants, swim in his pools, watch his ball team play in the Astrodome on Astroturf, attend conventions in the Astrohall or entertain the family at Astroworld, a 56-acre amusement project scheduled for completion in June. It sounds like quite enough to keep a man busy, but not Roy Hofheinz. He has just gone out and bought The Greatest Show on Earth. Hofheinz, with Irvin and Israel Feld of Washington, D.C., paid a price reported to be in excess of $10,000,000 for the Ringling Bros, and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Not even his Astrodome would do for closing this deal: the papers were signed in the Colosseum in Rome.

It will be interesting to see how the London society pages deal with Georgina Campbell (above) when she marries. The daughter of the late Donald Campbell, former holder of the world water-speed record, has recently taken a position as a groom in an English racing stable. What are the papers going to say? The bride is a groom?

Taking in boarders is not Fulton Freeman's usual line of work, which is being the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, but he recently announced that that is what he will be doing during the Olympics. Travelers to Mexico City will not be permitted to buy tickets for the Games unless they have found a place to stay, and Freeman was the first envoy to cooperate with the Mexican government's plea by making Embassy rooms available to Olympic fans.

Race Drivers Bruce McLaren, Stirling Moss and Denis Hulme found some Go-Karts at a car show in San Francisco recently, and it did not take them long to get into the scramble pictured below. One of the few generalizations you can safely make about race drivers is that if you give them anything that moves they will have to race somebody in it. One promoter found this out some years ago when he rounded up a bunch of racing men for a golf match. The minute he turned his back they dropped their clubs to race each other in the golf carts.

For Ted Williams even a quiet salmon-fishing trip to New Brunswick has resulted in another brouhaha with the press. He was fishing during the Series and the press began bugging him about it, finally eliciting the exasperated response, "Why should I have been there? What could I have done? Why not salmon fishing during the Series?" Pausing for breath Williams then went on with good words for Manager Dick Williams, Yastrzemski, Lonborg and the salmon of New Brunswick, but he gathered enough steam to finish up, "I don't have to explain my absence. Is that clear—I mean absolutely clear? I don't have to explain my whereabouts to anyone. Is that clear?" Well, yes. We'd say it was clear.

When Sharon Percy and Jay Rockefeller married last April Sharon received 20 cookbooks as wedding gifts. Now comes reason to suspect that she may have been using them. The young Rockefellers have enrolled in a physical education clinic to work out vigorously on running machines, cycling machines and ropes.

TWO PHOTOS