PEOPLE
"We have nothing in common, but we find much to talk about," Jean-Claude Killy was quoted as saying of O. J. Simpson last week. The fact is they do have something in common and they may end up talking a great deal about it—they both want to drive the pace car at Indianapolis next month.
The Italians took Wilma Rudolph to their collective bosom during the 1960 Olympics, and nine years later she is far from forgotten. Wilma is still so popular that two Roman newspapers have stirred up a rousing press war over her. First a left-wing paper published a series detailing Wilma's distress in the U.S., reporting, erroneously, that she was so poor that she had been forced to sell her gold medals and abandon her children (presumably in that order). Then a right-wing paper flew her over to demonstrate that she was perfectly all right and the left-wing paper all wrong. Wilma said, in effect, that her present circumstances were not too bad, that they could be better and that she would like to make them better by doing some modeling. She slipped into the outfit below at the Galitzine fashion house and showed herself well equipped to model, which was fortunate, since the well-meaning Italians had been about to offer her a swimming instructorship at a Milan sports club. Wilma can't swim.
Two other well-known persons not quite going near the water are Vice-President Agnew and Florence Chadwick. Agnew has discovered that the official luncheon and dinner trail is adding extra pounds and he is trying to hold the line. Unfortunately the Secret Service makes him use elevators so he can't run up stairs as he did when he was governor but he has been pulling on the oars of his rowing machine. At the same time Miss Chadwick has joined a community course in San Diego to learn how to sail. She does not own a boat, she has never sailed a boat, she has never crewed upon a boat but she now knows how to tie a clove hitch.
Prince Charles recently visited Sweden, and a London paper reports that he and Swedish Crown Prince Carl Gustaf spent a quiet day in the forest looking for elk. "Prince Charles was particularly anxious to see wild elk," a member of the royal party said later, according to the Daily Mail. "We wandered about vaguely making what we hoped were moose calls, but to no effect." Now that is not as dumb as it sounds. What we call an elk doesn't exist in Europe, although there is a relative called a red deer, and what Europeans call an elk we call a moose. Perhaps whatever is there in the Swedish forest just isn't answering any calls until the matter is cleared up.
Tom Bradley, who was the first Negro on the Los Angeles City Council and may well be the city's first Negro mayor, was quite an athlete as a youngster. In high school he was an All-City tackle and did practically everything in track—he held the All-City and Southern California record for the quarter mile (49.4), and his Southern League long-jump record (23'9½") stood for about 20 years. Now 51, Bradley spectates. "I put the clubs away six years ago and haven't been able to get them out of the closet since," he says of his golf; as for the calisthenics he used to do every morning, after an 18-hour day he no longer has the time or the strength. He remains trim as a whisker, however. When you're running you don't have to jog.
A plane chartered by the Buffalo Bills hit turbulence on a trip last fall, and Running Back Gary McDermott suffered a gash on the cheek that eventually required six stitches. While the stewardess was administering first aid, Quarterback Dan Darragh moved in and introduced himself to the young woman, whose name was Ruth Randall. It isn't any more. Dan Darragh now has a wife. All Gary McDermott has is a small scar on his cheek.
It just so happened that when the local opera association in St. Petersburg, Fla. began to cast Cavalleria Rusticana the St. Louis Cardinals were in town. There is a cardinal's part in Cavalleria, and the Cardinal chosen to play it was Pitcher Nelson Briles, whose qualifications included the lead in his Chico (Calif.) High School production of Damn Yankees and three bit parts when his college (Chico State) put on Twelfth Night. Briles said afterward that the single Saturday night performance had gone smoothly and was over well before his midnight curfew. "St. Petersburg is a retirement community," he pointed out. "Here things are usually over by 5." A few nights later, Briles was backstage at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, talking with the cast. "Acting makes you a more cultured person," he explained, "and that's what I want to be."
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