PEOPLE

In view of Actor Peter O'Toole's cheerful expression it might almost have been Elizabeth rather than Richard Burton twitting him at Longchamp about his mustache. The Burtons attended the recent running of the Arc de Triomphe as guests of the Baron Guy de Rothschild. Richard courteously placed 1,000 francs upon the Baron's horse Luthier and lost them with a degree of courtesy not recorded. He did better with his more sentimental choices, backing Sir Ivor "because I have a brother of that name" and Carmarthen "out of patriotism for Wales." Sir Ivor and Carmarthen came in second and third. Burton rarely loses money on his sentimental selections.

There is some disagreement about the proceedings in a bar near Cleveland last July. Ralph Smith and Frank Ryan of the Cleveland Browns say that they were simply trying to watch teammate Bill Glass (long active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes) on a television show with Evangelist Billy Graham. A fellow patron of the bar, one Gerald Johnson, is not certain what the show on television was, but is certain indeed that Smith strode over and struck him, breaking his nose, because, whatever the program, Smith felt that Johnson was interfering with his appreciation of it. "We were talking among ourselves," Johnson says of his party, "and we weren't paying attention to the program." Johnson has filed charges of assault and battery, which Smith must answer this week, but he says he is still a fan of the Cleveland Browns.

In 1924 the Honorable Dorothy Brett left England with her friends Mr. and Mrs. D. H. Lawrence for a six-month visit to Taos, N. Mex. Now, at 84, the Honorable Dorothy is still there, and she is annoyed about the fishing. "My favorite streams are all lined solidly with Texans," she says. "They wear white shirts and red shirts and make a lot of noise and wonder why they don't catch any fish. I can tell them why. Fish are smart. You have to wear a blue shirt or a green shirt, and sneak up on them."

Anyone who thinks that General de Gaulle is no longer really with it is wrong again. Le Grand Charles turned up at the Paris automobile show and evinced a lively interest in the latest developments. He paused before the Ford GT40, which won at Le Mans, to comment politely, "You can see it won the race. I congratulate you" and at the stand of the French racing car Matra he said to Driver Servoz-Gavin, "Ah, it is you. You were not lucky." Of the Jarret electronic model he observed, "C'est amusante, cette petite chose-là" ("It's cute, this little one"). Finally, he stunned his entourage by stopping to examine a $3,800 Saab and announcing, "I will think about it."

"Don't," his advisors advised, but Israel's elder statesman David Ben-Gurion did. He insisted, at the age of 82, upon climbing the steps of an eight-story tower in Beersheba. "If you do not want to climb the tower, do not," he said to reporters. "I will." When he and the press got back to the bottom of the stairs, Ben-Gurion was the man not out of breath—perhaps because he keeps fit by taking four-mile walks each day in the desert.

The heat of the political campaign is, as usual, resulting in the proliferation of special-interest committees for the various candidates, such as Farmers For Nixon, Elevator Operators For Humphrey and Shipping Clerks For Agnew. Inside sources report that another such group is about to be established—Fishermen For Muskie.

The 1968 Olympics got under way beneath enough of a cloud without the observations of Otto Hapsburg, pretender to the throne of Austria. "The Games have become a political instrument in the hands of the Russians and the Americans," he said in an editorial for a Madrid newspaper. "It is logical that rules perfectly adapted to the peaceful passage of the 19th century into the 20th are not so adapted in our day. In honor of sport and the ideals of Baron de Coubertin, the most logical thing would be, without doubt, to finish this low farce and make Mexico City the end. If this isn't desired at least there ought to exist the intellectual honesty to admit that what happens in the future under the name of the Olympic Games has as much in common with true sport as a wrestling match among professionals."

The report from England is that Lee Trevino was advised not to go about the island in cowboy attire, so he and his manager, Bucky Woy, complied with the burst of elegance below. Whether this radical change of style affected Trevino in the Piccadilly World Match Play tournament is questionable, but something certainly did. He was put out in the first round.

Pat Hazzard and Joanne Meschery, wives of NBA stars Walt Hazzard (just traded to Atlanta) and Tom Meschery of the Seattle Supersonics, have written a booklet called Basketball for Dolls. They had thought of calling it, more alliteratively, Basketball for Broads, but they chickened out.

TWO PHOTOS