Roly-poly Playboy John Jacob Astor

III, 46, down to his last $5,000,000 by his own admission, launched a legal attack on the estimated $100 million-plus estate of his late half brother, Philanthropist Vincent Astor, who died last February at 67. Left out of the will without a penny, J. J. charged that Testator Astor was "mentally ill when the paper was executed . . . suffering from senility [and] arteriosclerosis ... incompetent to make a will." J. J.'s main chance to break the will: for undisclosed reasons, Vincent Astor was indeed a patient in Manhattan's famed Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic while the document was being drawn for his signature a year ago.

After three months of seclusion in India's hill resort of Mussoorie, Tibet's self-exiled Dalai Lama, 24, broke his routine to witness a spectacle that strongly reminded him of his own people's bondage under the Red Chinese invaders. The attraction: The Ten Commandments, one of the late Cecil B. DeMille's last epics, his twice-filmed tale of Moses' struggle against Egyptian terror and tyranny. The movie won a rave notice from the God-King: "I liked it very much. I was greatly moved."

Shrieking the Japanese equivalent of "Oh, my gosh!" Tokyo Fashion Model Akiko Kojima. 22, exuded sheer joy at the happy news. She was the new Miss Universe, the first Asian ever to take the crown in the international beauty contest, held last week for the eighth year in Long Beach, Calif. Burbled Akiko over her fast-breaking curves (37-23-38): "I am floating on a cloud and living a dream!" Overwhelmed by new-found fondness for the U.S., she also announced that she wants to live in the U.S. eventually, raise a family, be "a lovely wife."

In London Sir Winston Churchill, 84, popped up at the christening of his tenth grandchild, cherubic little Rupert Christopher Soames, two months, son of Britain's Secretary of State for War Christopher Soames and Churchill's daughter Mary. "He's beautiful," murmured Sir Winston. Observed proud Papa Soames: "The new baby looks awfully like Sir Winston--but then, so do most babies!"

Up before a West German Bundeswehr draft board stepped handsome Wolf Rudiger Hess, 21, conscientious objector and son of convicted Nazi War Criminal Rudolf Hess, now whiling away his life in Berlin's dark Spandau Prison. Young Hess explained that he is loath to put in his legal twelve-month stint in West Germany's army. With bitter Teutonic irony, he enlarged upon his refusal to be drafted: "My conscience forbids me to serve those who judged and condemned my father. Moreover, in performing military service, which might be construed as aiding in the preparation for a next war, I might some day suffer the same unpleasant consequences that my father did."

Word trickled from the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, W. Va. that Maine-born Mildred Gillars. 58, bohemian-inclined oddball who achieved notoriety as Axis Sally, apparently wants to remain locked up. Mildred used to amuse Allied troops in World War II with English-language propaganda broadcasts from Germany. Typical pitch for defection: "Throw down those little old guns and toddle off home. There's no getting the Germans down!" Mildred, if she lives so long, will be sprung in 1979, not counting the ten years off that she could get for good behavior. But it was learned last week that Traitor Gillars, eligible for parole last March, took her stand two months earlier, gave no reason but waived all rights to review and parole.

Since presiding over Britain's royal wedding in 1947, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, 72, Archbishop of Canterbury, has had little practice in tying nuptial knots. So he was understandably rusty last week while presiding at the marriage of his son, TV Producer Humphrey Fisher, 35, to pretty Airline Stewardess Diana Davis, 27. In pronouncing the lines of the Church of England ceremony, he solemnly besought God that "this woman may be lovely" instead of "loving." He hastily corrected himself, at ceremony's end further atoned by stalling the bridal procession with official busses for every single bridesmaid. Protested loving, lovely Diana: "Come along! Stop all that! Leave my bridesmaids alone!"

Londoners paid little note to the tall young woman in the striped dress, perhaps even less attention to her spectacled escort in the woolly sweater. But she was none other than Marina Mussolini, 19, granddaughter of Italy's late Fascist dictator. Marina was raised by her aunt, Countess Edda Ciano, after her father, Flying Ace Bruno Mussolini, favorite son of il Duce, died while testing a bomber that crashed in 1941. Now enrolled in a very proper North London finishing school, she stepped out for an early evening date (curfew on that occasion: 8 p.m.) with Sergio Valva, an old acquaintance.

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