Underneath a beaming picture of Britain's Queen Mother Elizabeth, the New York Daily News reported: LOVE IS CATCHING: QUEEN'S MOTHER AIMS TO BE BRIDE. The Queen Mother, 59, and a widow for eight years, said the News, may wed Sir Arthur Penn, a bachelor of 74. Sir Arthur is now treasurer of the Queen Mother's household as well as Queen Elizabeth II's extra equerry and groom in waiting. Next day, in Northern Rhodesia on a royal tour of Africa, Queen Mother Elizabeth made it abundantly plain that, whatever else he may be, Sir Arthur is definitely not a bridegroom in waiting. Announced her private secretary: Reports that such a marriage is contemplated are "complete and absolute nonsense." He added: "These were Her Majesty's last words. In fact, Her Majesty used a stronger word."

Half a century after she had the audacity to pioneer a 'bove-knee-length, one-piece bathing suit, Australian-born Mermaid Annette Kellerman, 73, now a Los Angeles matron, returned to her homeland, cast a knowing eye on the bikini-teeming Gold Coast beaches south of Brisbane, observed: "A bikini is very nice on a very young girl. But, my dear, those spare tires and that view as they walk away from you--!"

Citizens of all political complexions turned out for a down-with-H-bombs rally in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, but the oddest pair seemed to be Topeka's Old Republican Alfred Mossman London and the widow of the man who overwhelmed him in the 1936 presidential election, Old Democrat Eleanor Roosevelt. Landon, 72, and Mrs. Roosevelt, 75, obviously struck responsive chords with each other in their mutual endorsement of a "sane nuclear policy." Neither of them, however, joined a ban-the-bomb march after the rally. That was left to more militant demonstrators, such as Old Socialist Norman Thomas and Union Leader Walter Reuther.

At the invitation of Nikita Khrushchev, who apparently wanted an American he could be nice to, Cleveland Industrialist Cyrus Eaton, 76, recently awarded a Lenin Peace Prize, flew to Paris with his invalid wife, but got there only as K. was about to depart at Orly Airport. Eaton told K. the story of George Washington, the cherry tree and telling no lies. Later, Eaton was asked if he regarded Dwight Eisenhower as a liar in the spy plane ruckus. "No," replied Canadian-born Millionaire Eaton, "but we pulled some serious fibs. We need to return to the principles of George Washington." His helpful history lesson earned Eaton a Khrushchev promise: "When Communism has triumphed in the whole world, I'll say a word in your favor."

On the eve of his 53rd birthday, Sir Laurence Olivier got a present of sorts from his wife, Actress Vivien Leigh, 46, after almost 20 years of marriage that often found them poles apart. Currently an ocean apart, Olivier, starring in the London hit Rhinoceros, and Vivien, starring on Broadway in Duel of Angels, have agreed to part for keeps. The stiff-upper-lipped announcement came from Vivien: "Lady Olivier wishes to say that Sir Laurence has asked for a divorce in order to marry Miss Joan Plowright. She will naturally do whatever he wishes." Saucer-eyed British Actress Plowright, 28, was Olivier's co-player on Broadway last year in The Entertainer. Sir Laurence's statement: "It is too private an affair to discuss just now. I must think."

Five weeks after an assassin fired two bullets into his head at point-blank range, South Africa's Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd left the hospital in "excellent" health.

The will of the late Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. was filed in Manhattan and proved to run a lengthy 59 pages, with three codicils appended, with surprisingly little in it for the U.S. Treasury. After giving away almost half a billion dollars in his lifetime, John D. Jr. left an estate of about $150 million in securities, real estate and works of art. To his widow Martha, his second wife, Rockefeller gave half his residual estate, untaxable as a marital deduction; Martha gets the fortune in trust, can dispose of the principal in her own will as she pleases. The other half of the residual estate goes to the charitable Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.

The unchallenged Pied Piper of Harlem, New York's Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, has often damned assorted Southern whites from his Northern bailiwick, but last week, mounting a Richmond, Va. rostrum, he turned his cannon toward the North and fired: "The Northern 'liberal' is trying to hold on. But the Negro leader makes no distinction any longer between the North and the South. He sees increasing hypocrisy in the former and increasing honesty in the latter."

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