PEOPLE

Gypsy Rose Lee left burlesque "because I found something better to do, and almost anything is." She is now touring the nation promoting dog food. The product is called Voila Gourmet Dog Food, and it features such doggy delicacies as beef burgundy and Irish stew. Miss Lee is well qualified for the job. She has nine dogs ("three of them pregnant"), two peacocks named David and Lisa, 30 fantails, 30 canaries, "several lovely finches," three tanks of goldfish and a whydah. They all live with Gypsy in her 27-room "early Gloria Swanson" house. The nine dogs, naturally, are Mexican hairless. "What kind of dogs would you expect me to have?" Miss Lee asks.

Jimmy Hahn, senior middle guard on Tennessee's football team, did not play against Georgia last week. The reason was a rather odd one. "I had to have a grade from a correspondence course to be eligible," Hahn mourns. "The grade should have been a matter of record days ago, but the professor who was to have scored the test apparently was out of town. I wrote and wired and called about the test, explaining how important it was. Nothing happened." Hahn said he could have understood the delay if he had been a star player—like maybe the Tennessee quarterback. He took the correspondence course from the University of Georgia.

Jackie Robinson, the former Dodger, returned to Brooklyn from his Connecticut estate to hold a press conference at the Black Pearl garage. There he told reporters that the Black Panthers are a misunderstood organization whose image has been unfairly tarnished. "Improper reporting," Robinson declared, "has determined that the Black Panthers are a militant group, while the fact of the matter is they are seeking peace."

It has been 27 years since Joe Louis' right hand deposited Lou Nova in slumberland, but the colorful Nova is still dreaming. In fact, he is running for President, on the "Utopian Party" ticket, and his "revolutionary...plan for a better life" is every bit as unorthodox as was his training-camp reliance on Yoga, under the tutelage of an early guru known as Oom the Omnipotent. Part of Nova's platform calls for a male and female wartime army of professional volunteers and foreign mercenaries, which would hopefully handle opposing armies better than Nova's "cosmic stance" did the Brown Bomber's combinations. Also on Nova's platform: a woman vice-president; mammoth monorail networks; a national lottery; and legalized dog racing in all 50 states. "To create jobs and abolish unemployment," said the prophet of Oom but not gloom.

According to usually unreliable sources, the Disney Studio has a new relative of Donald Duck on the drawing boards. The character will be a salty sailing-boat skipper, and his name is, of course, Moby Duck.

Fishing for perch in a lonely spot on Lake Geneva, a Swiss angler noticed distress signals from a 45-foot cabin cruiser. Chugging up to the cruiser in his small boat, the perch fisherman found a craft adapted from Arabian Nights. Hanging over the gunwales was a small mob of grim-looking, white-robed Arab guards. In the middle of the deck, embedded in plush cushions, sat brooding Sheikh Ahmed, Emir of Qatar. The Emir is a Croesus-rich oil sheik who maintains a 20-room summer pad on the shores of Lake Geneva, as well as a sort of embassy in town whose main function is shopping around Europe for such items as rare dogs and Arabic-speaking jukeboxes. For an oil magnate, the Emir had a rather embarrassing problem: his cruiser had run out of gas.

John C. Pittenger, freshman squash coach at Franklin and Marshall, is running for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and he has potent help. It seems that "Students for Pittenger" are sponsoring two showings of the film Knute Rockne: All American, the proceeds to go to Pittenger's war chest. One of their advertisements shows Ronald Reagan as George Gipp under the slogan "Let's Win One for Pittenger." Coach Pittenger, who was a Robert Kennedy supporter, might normally expect little aid from that promotion. But the students have hit upon a fiendish scheme. They expect residents of conservative Lancaster, Pa. to flock to see Reagan, depositing their cash in Pittenger's treasury on their way in. The Gipper may win one for Pitt.

It isn't likely that Congress will finance a rat-control bill this year, but Senators Manager Jim Lemon is doing his bit to help the situation. At D.C. Stadium recently a huge rat ran across the field and headed for the Washington dugout, scattering everyone but Lemon, who grabbed a bat and smashed the rat. With his team in 10th place, the unexpected visitor was a painful reminder to Lemon of how unappealing cellar dwelling can be.

At a screening of the movie version of George Plimpton's Paper Lion Actor Alan Alda recalled that he was inadvertently stomped on in a scrimmage by a passel of ponderous football players. "For the first time," Alda said, "I know what athlete's foot is really like."

The hobbies of Hollywood stars certainly reflect their screen personalities and the types of roles they play. There's tough guy Steve McQueen zipping around town on his motorcycle; playboy James Garner is a regular at the big Grand Prix automobile races; and rugged, two-fisted John Wayne is a...chicken flicker? Sorry, Wayne fans, the Duke does raise prize poultry at his Arizona ranch. But all is not lost. He also raises prize Hereford cattle, and word is just out that one of his yearlings, "26 Mischief B-98" is his name, was judged champion bull at the New Mexico State Fair. Just don't yell "chicken" at him, or "bull" either.

PHOTO