Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

At the Rome airport, a minor Italian movie producer spotted a traveler who strikingly resembled Actor Laurence Olivier, "only he was older and shorter." Thinking quickly, the producer introduced himself and offered the man the lead in a film burlesque of Olivier's Hamlet. The man, who identified himself as "Mister Smith," roving salesman of bathroom supplies, eagerly accepted the offer, promised to go to work as soon as he had sold his supply of basins. The producer happily spread the news of his coup in Rome's movie circles, then read in the next day's paper that his discovery was actually Olivier himself passing through Rome to make a new movie in Ceylon.

The Saturday Evening Post announced that it had bought the partial memoirs of Charles A. Lindbergh, in which the notoriously shy "Lone Eagle" tells the story of his life up to and including the transatlantic flight which made him famous. Title of the story: "The Spirit of St. Louis." Reported price: $100,000.

When Asbestoscion Tommy Manville, 58, decided that the time was ripe for his twelfth marriage (this time to Mrs. Lillian Bishop Alvear, 29-year-old divorcee and mother of two children), he found the process getting slightly more difficult. The city clerk in New Rochelle, N.Y. refused to sell him a license; but he was able to buy one in Greenwich, Conn., which requires a five-day wait. Then came bad news from Manhattan. Anita Frances Roddy-Eden Manville, his most recent wife, who bought a Mexican divorce last year, swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills when she heard of Tommy's latest romance. She recovered with still worse news for Tommy: her Mexican divorce was no good, and she wired her lawyer in Mexico to prove it. At week's end, with the Connecticut waiting period over, the Manville love score stood: 11 previous marriages, one presumptively legal wife, one frustrated fiancee.

In Florida, where he is wintering, Robert Frost, four-time Pulitzer Poetry Prizewinner, had good news from Manhattan: the Academy of American Poets had awarded him their annual $5,000 fellowship for 1953.

In Rio de Janeiro, President Getulio Vargas ordered a tighter control over the Brazilian Confederation of Dove Fanciers. His decree: people who profess ideologies contrary to the legal regime are henceforth forbidden to raise carrier pigeons.

In Yonkers, N.Y., Mrs. Earl Browder, 56, Russian-born wife of the former head of the American Communist Party, charged with perjury and illegal entry into the U.S., was served with a deportation warrant by immigration agents. Pleading illness, she posted a $2,000 bond pending a formal hearing.

Morton Sobell, the atom spy who was convicted along with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (now in Sing Sing under death sentence), was transferred from the Atlanta penitentiary to serve his 30-year sentence in the "maximum security" of Alcatraz.

Still convalescing from his month-long siege of influenza, Pope Pius XII canceled his routine private and public audiences as the only celebration of his 77th birthday and the 14th anniversary of his election to the papal throne.

The Very Rev. Dr. Hewlett (the "Red Dean") Johnson, now on tour of Canada, arrived in London, Ont. (pop. 121,516) to speak on the virtues of Communism, and found that he had attracted an early audience of university students. When they greeted him by hooting, popping paper bags and ringing cowbells, the dean announced that he would leave "unless the children quit yelling." The noise finally stopped when the dean dashed through a rear door to a back alley into his car. Said he as he left: "They are not quite adult yet in London."

The pet project of Harry Truman, his memorial library which is expected to cost some $2,000,000, received a sizable gift from labor: $150,000 from the C.I.O. and $100,000 from the United Steelworkers of America, bringing total donations to date up to $400,000.

In a plane piloted by her husband Prince Bernhard, Queen Juliana of The Netherlands flew to England for a one-day visit to thank Britain for the recent flood-relief gifts. After lunch at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, Juliana went to her embassy, where she received members of the British Carpenters' Guild, who made her an honorary carpenter.

Harvard's humor magazine, the Lampoon, announced its annual Roscoe awards. Among the winners: Comic Jerry Lewis as "the worst comedian of all time," who gave the year's "worst performance" in Jumping Jacks, the year's "worst picture"; his partner Dean Martin for the "worst supporting performance"; and Cinemactress Marilyn Monroe for the year's "worst female performance" in the movie Niagara.

In the Swedish embassy in Washington, Ambassador Erik Boheman presented his country's second highest military medal. Commander First Class, Royal Order of the Sword, to Polar Explorer Bernt Balchen. The medal will be held in trust until Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing Balchen, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, to accept and wear the foreign decoration.

In Chicago, members of Local 130 of the A.F.L. Journeymen Plumbers and Steamfitters Union voted to walk out over a 15-c- wage demand. Management announced that it would appeal the strike decision to the union's past president: Secretary of Labor, Martin Durkin.

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