Gone were the dark glasses, slouch hat and sullen manner. In sunny Portofino, a smiling, bareheaded Greta Garbo breezed ashore from Movie Producer Sam Spiegel's yacht Malahne, sent a crowd into camera-clicking ecstasies with a big "Hello," joined her shipmate for a lighthearted shopping spree and dinner at the Restaurant Pitosforo. Burbled the proprietor: "It was the Garbo that for many years I've dreamed of seeing. She appeared rejuvenated in spirit."

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With Princess Grace and the children waiting in Monaco, all set for an oceangoing holiday, Prince Rainier, 40, flew to Amsterdam to take possession of his new 290-ton, $694,000 yacht Albecaro II, named for little Albert and Caroline. But before officially presenting the ship to Rainier, Shipbuilder Herman Kerstholt and 80 guests took it for a gala trial run in the North Sea. Ten miles offshore, smoke and flames suddenly lashed out of the engine room. An explosion sent passengers into panic, and since there were no lifeboats, only the timely arrival of rescuers prevented tragedy. When rescued, Builder Kerstholt burst into tears. Also upset, though not visibly tearful, was Rainier, who angrily bemoaned a two-month delay before the damaged vessel could be ready for her maiden voyage to the Mediterranean.

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Giving an outdoor performance in Washington, D.C., puckish Pianist Victor Borge, 54, became the first Danish-born Connecticut resident ever to play a piano on the steps of the Capitol. "It's nice to hear some harmony on Capitol Hill," quipped Borge to an audience sprinkled with Senators and Representatives. "I was in the Far East spreading good will. Then I read the news in the papers, and thought I'd better come home." The show was arranged by Connecticut's Democratic Senator Abraham Ribicoff, who hoped it would help sell Congress on his pending bill to establish a national arts council and an arts foundation.

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A professional painter himself, winner of the 1944 Carnegie Prize, the late Carroll Sargent Tyson Jr. (1878-1956) was a highly discerning art collector. That was evident last week when the Philadelphia Museum of Art reported that Tyson's widow, who died Aug. 2, had willed the museum 19 masterworks, including five Renoirs, two Manets, a Van Gogh, a Goya, a Degas. "The Tysons' taste was impeccable," said the museum's president, R. Sturges Ingersoll. "These paintings are of a quality that will make it almost impossible for future collectors to meet their standard."

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Who is Mark Epernay? That was the literary puzzle of the week on the New Frontier. Epernay is the pseudonymous author of The McLandress Dimension, a satire to be published this fall by Houghton Mifflin Co. The "dimension" is defined as the longest span of time that a person's thoughts can remain centered on something other than himself. Elizabeth Taylor rates three minutes, the Rev. Martin Luther King four hours. Some New Frontiersmen get only so-so ratings--President Kennedy 29 minutes, Under Secretary of State Averell Harriman 12.5 minutes. Suspected perpetrator: John Kenneth Galbraith, 54, Harvard economist, until lately U.S. Ambassador to India. Galbraith's McLandress dimension, the book says, is only 1 1/2 minutes. When a newsman asked him whether he knew Epernay's identity, Galbraith gave a cagey reply: "Who is Epernay? I have no guesses. I am utterly devoid of literary curiosity."

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With 2,500 gallons of simulated rain per minute pouring down, Warner Bros, began shooting My Fair Lady, and plopping gamely into the puddles went Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, that "so deliciously low, so horribly dirty" flower girl who gets brought indoors by Professor Higgins. Audrey and Co-Star Rex Harrison were not the only ones getting soaked: the movie rights ran to an all-time high of $5,500,000 and production will cost an estimated $15 million, a record for the studio. Audrey herself will collect a splashy $1,000,000.

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The Australian, Belgian, Greek, Italian, Peruvian and Spanish ambassadors to the U.S. were among the 800 or so guests attending Newport's top summer spectacular: the debut of winsome Janet Jennings Auchincloss, 18, daughter of Investment Broker Hugh D. Auchincloss and half sister of Jacqueline Kennedy (who sent a bouquet, insisted the party go on despite her own recent tragedy). The Auchincloss estate, Hammersmith Farm, was done up in Venetian style, with colored lanterns, a pink marquee on the lawn overlooking Narragansett Bay, Meyer Davis' orchestra in gondolier garb, gondolier hats for the young men and golden masks for the young ladies. Janet, in a white strapless gown by Dior, looked like a cinch to get invitations to the season's best parties.

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"Hollywood has gone from Pola to Polaroid," she declared not long ago. But a real star always saves up a twinkle or two for her twilight years, and last week sometime Actress Polo Negri, 65, femme fatale of many a silent movie, was back in the news. In San Antonio, Texas, it was announced that the late heiress Margaret West had willed Pola, her longtime friend and house guest, jewels, furniture, lifetime use of a San Antonio mansion and an income of $1,250 a month. Then, in Los Angeles, Walt Disney Productions announced that Pola is going to make a movie comeback in a suspense drama called The Moon Spinners, to begin filming this September on the island of Crete.

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Merchants in Cairo's sprawling Khan-el-Khalilee bazaar selected the winner of their Best Customer of the Year award: former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, 50, who visited Egypt in June. "He did not bargain," explained Shopkeeper Ali Farag. "He seemed concerned with the appearance of things, he was not interested in the materials of which they were made." Nixon's reward: an inscribed silver tray. Back home in Manhattan, the puzzled winner recalled only that he did "lots of handshaking" at the bazaar. "Mrs. Nixon and the girls did most of the buying."

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