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

France's precocious (10) Poetess Minou Drouet was starring in a movie titled Clara and the Crooks, a sentimental tale about a lovable tyke who reforms a gang of bandits through her inexorable sweetness and innocence. During a recess at the suburban Paris studio, little Minou chirped excitedly about her film career: "We have had several scenarios offered to us, but I didn't like them. In one of the stories I was supposed to strangle a dog. Just imagine me hurting an animal! The Clara story is wonderful! What a nice idea to save bad men!" To busy herself off the set, Minou is grinding out a novel, The Reptiles of Light, a sad story of a little blind girl. Also, the heat and dust of the studio have made her yearn for the sea, with this result:

The sea is the wind's guitar, Strumming in the key of A minor And murmuring about the sadness of far-off plains.

My heart is the wind's guitar, Strumming in the key of A minor And whispering about the sadness of forgotten moments.

Speaking to a financial pow-wow in Chicago, Eugene R. Black, president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, made one of the more sanguine statements of the Sputnik period: "My first reaction to the earth satellites was to ask myself the question: If intelligent life is found on other planets, will the people there be borrowers or investors? Of course, if they are investors, there may lie the solution of all my money-raising problems."

In a rare mention of her erstwhile great and good friend, full-bloomed (49) Cinemactress Anna (Wild Is the Wind) Magnani updated her views of Italian Director Roberto Rossellini, in passing struck a blow for all who are weary of Don Juans in headlines. Simmered Anna: "He could still be a great director if he did not let himself be enveloped in family questions. It's a most depressing and boring story. It's about time for the papers to stop publishing so much gossip about Roberto and Ingrid."

In Manhattan for the windup of their genial father's U.S. visit, Morocco's veilless Princesses Aisha (TIME, Nov. n), Malika and Nuzha met local newsfolk, acquitted themselves well through French and Arabic interpreters. Their little sister Amina, 4. skipped the conference in favor of a nap. A newshen inquired: "Is the Princess Aisha engaged?" Ignoring her linguistic aides, Aisha snapped a prompt no in English. Then someone inquired whether dynamic Feminist Aisha is regarded by Moroccan women as her country's own Joan of Arc. "Certainly not!" she replied, eyes twinkling. "Wasn't she known as a liberator of men?" At week's end King Mohammed V and his daughters flew home to Africa in Ike's old SHAPE plane, Columbine I.

One of Communism's double-edged battle-axes was made an ambassadress in an appointment smacking strongly of nepotism. East Germany's first envoy to Yugoslavia: Lieut. General Eleonore ("Lore") Staimer, 51, dutiful daughter of East Germany's puppet President Wilhelm Pieck. She will probably take her Belgrade post next month, work hard at cultivating new amity between Tito and Soviet satellites.

France's Cinemacaroon Brigitte (And God Created Woman) Bardot, who won a 1957 Victoire (France's Oscar), proved the infinite ingenuity of the French in inventing new human relationships. She offered to be the godmother of a baby girl born to her ex-husband, Director Roger Vadim, and a Danish model one day after he and Brigitte were divorced.

Though customarily the fountainhead of the sound and the fury, old (88) Architectitan Frank Lloyd Wright found himself on the receiving end of a scorcher from Leon Chatelain, president of the American Institute of Architects. Just returned from a globe-girdling trip, Architect Chatelain candidly assessed Tokyo's famed earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel, designed by Wright, and finished in 1922. The verdict: "One of the most horrible buildings I've ever been in. It is dark and dismal and looks grotesque."

Twice after playing with the New York Philharmonic, Violinist Yehudi Menuhin mortified the Philharmonic management by responding to applause with Bach encores, a rash defiance of the Philharmonic's staid traditions. After a third concert for another full house at Carnegie Hall last week, both audience and some orchestra players mischievously sought to applaud Menuhin into another encore. Duly warned to stick rigidly to the program, Menuhin smiled and announced: "I am not allowed . . ." Applause broke out again. Finally, Violinist Menuhin made a little speech: "I am not at all sure you are allowed to applaud either! [Snickers from the gallery.] But I am sure that if Bach could realize what damage even two or three minutes of his music could do to the traditions and budget of this great orchestra, he would be very sorry!"

From Cuba, Gossipist Leonard Lyons reported upon a merry encounter with old friends: "The Havana tourist season hasn't started yet. 'That's why this is a good time for working,' Ernest Hemingway had told us earlier, at lunch at his home. On the wall was the mounted skin of the lion Mary Hemingway had shot in Africa. No bullet hole was evident. 'I'm almost embarrassed,' she smiled. 'I shot him while he was running away.' "

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