Monday, Apr. 05, 1971

Peking has known him as "the Great Helmsman" and "the Reddest Sun in the Hearts of the People." But even in the heart of the Forbidden City no one really pictured well-upholstered Mao Tse-tung as much of a clotheshorse. From afar, he looks different; London's influential Tailor and Cutter magazine has declared Mao one of the world's 100 best-dressed men and notes that the Mao jacket made him "the only statesman since Churchill to have created a fashion trend throughout the world." To compound the anti-imperialist's triumph in the ancient seat of empire, Gerald Scarfe, the British artist- satirist, unveiled a leather chair constructed in Mao's image. The Chairman thus becomes the chair man as well.

Barry Goldwater a sex expert? It seemed an unlikely role. He was, in the book-review section of the Phoenix (Ariz.) Republic, praising a book called Bediquette for the "pure humor" that readers "will find between the covers. The covers of the book, I mean." Then, on a TV show, he spent a good deal of his time telling interviewers Barbara Howar and Joyce Susslcind just about everything they wanted to know about sex but hadn't thought of asking a conservative U.S. Senator. Sample: "I think any man in business would be foolish to fool around with his secretary. If it's somebody's else's secretary, fine."

Being wed to Actress Samantha Eggar has its obvious pleasures. It turns out that being divorced from her has advantages too. In Los Angeles last week, Samantha, 31, was granted a divorce from Actor-Producer Tom Stern, 36.

Alimony? Only $1 a year for five years, and she will support their two children. Nor was there cause for grief in their division of property: when they separated in June 1969, Samantha gave Tom $25,000.

"Can a King go to a discotheque?" the lady reporter wanted to know. "Good Lord!" replied Crown Prince Carl Gustaf of Sweden, "I don't see why not. I've known some who did." Despite Gustaf's current status, the question was not academic. On April 30 he will be 25, legally eligible to succeed his 88-year-old grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf. And the Prince enjoys doing the shake in Stockholm and London nightspots. Of more interest to the Swedes is the woman Carl Gustaf will pick to shake through life with. The gossips have been betting on Marie-Christine, daughter of Belgium's ex-King Leopold and his second wife, a commoner. "Do you think you'll wait to be King before you marry?" Carl Gustaf was asked. "It's a question of finding someone," he replied. It is also a question of royal prerogative. As Crown Prince, he needs palace approval of his selection. As King, the choice will be completely his.

The fee of $2,500 seemed high for tiny Central Oregon Community College (fulltime enrollment: 950), but it is not often that the town of Bend, Ore., attracts so illustrious a speaker as Ralph Nader. The consumer advocate was duly paid for his appearance last fall, but now C.O.C.C. is crying foul. On the same day Nader also dropped in at a number of other schools in the state, accepting only token payments in some cases, or none at all. Confronted with what his agent had wrought, Nader lamented: "God! I'm being hoisted on my own petard!" The explanation was that the C.O.C.C. audience got a fullblown address while the others heard only the briefest of talks.

Nostalgia about dear old Siwash is all very well, but the basic purpose of alumni magazines is really to help academic fund raisers track down and put the arm on contributors. Editors of the current issue of the University of Chicago alumni publication must have had something else in mind when they noted that mail to Weatherlady Bernardine Dohrn (A.B. '63, I.D. '67) was being returned as undeliverable. Bernardine, now underground, has made the FBI's most-wanted list, the magazine observed proudly. "We're sure," it added, "that her gratitude to any classmate who can furnish her current mailing address would be unbounded." That sort of information might even pry a contribution out of J. Edgar Hoover (George Washington University, '16).

Poor old Humbert Humbert met a host of problems during his pursuit of Lolita, but they were nothing compared with those faced by the optimists intent on adapting Vladimir Nabokov's novel to the musical stage. Dropped as "too ripe" was Annette Ferra, 15 (TIME, March 1). Into the role went Denise Nickerson, 13, who opened as the nifty nymphet in Boston last week. "I can play a sexpot as well as anybody," she told an interviewer, but first-night critics had their reservations. Said one: "She smiles and speaks and sings like a sweet ten-year-old, and so when John Neville [the lead actor] makes love to her, or suggests it, he is made to seem no more than a ghastly child molester." Question: If a 15-year-old is too old, and a 13-year-old too young, will Boston be crowded with 14-year-olds this week?

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