What woman do Americans most admire? For the twelfth year, according to Gallup pollsters, the answer is the same: Eleanor Roosevelt, 75, by her customary wide margin. The distinguished others, in the order of their mention: Mamie Eisenhower, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, Clare Boothe Luce, Helen Keller, Madame Chiang Kaishek, Patricia Nixon, Maine's Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Singer Dinah Shore. Tied for tenth spot in the survey: Monaco's Princess Grace, Britain's Princess Margaret, India's Madame Pandit. Gallup pulse takers announced the results of their similar quest for the world's "most admired" man. The most--for the seventh straight year: Dwight D. Eisenhower (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Next nine in the procession: Sir Winston Churchill, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Harry S. Truman, Pope John XXIII, Evangelist Billy Graham, cancer-stricken Jungle Physician Thomas Dooley (TIME, Aug. 31), Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.

A special detail of gendarmes held lensmen at bay before the Paris apartment of French Cinemorsel Brigitte (Babette Goes to War) Bardot. Two cradles had been delivered to Brigitte's home, giving rise to speculation that she might imminently give birth to twins.

Monocled British Actor Martyn Green, 60, who lost half his left leg in a Manhattan garage-elevator mishap (TIME, Nov. 16), hobbled on uncertain crutches from his hospital room, bumped smack into the embraces of Broadway friends on hand for his coming-out party. Especially famed as a Gilbert and Sullivan singer and dancer, Green was soon informed that the Actors' Fund will provide him with an artificial leg so that he may again "bring joy and laughter to the stage." Having recalled recently that Actress Sarah Bernhardt carried on her career for some years with an artificial leg, Actor Green fought back tears, assured all: "As soon as I can, I will dance on that new leg for you!"

Well in advance of next spring's summit palaver, who should flit into Paris from Moscow but Izvestia's Editor in Chief Aleksei Adzhubei and his buxom wife Rada, daughter of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. If their general air of good will was any portent, the summit itself should be festooned with olive branches. To an Air France greeter, Newsman Adzhubei joked (in Russian): "You ought to have two classes on your planes -- one for the thin ones, one for the fat." Then he grabbed a microphone, glowed: "I wish everyone a good year and, since I don't know French, I will try to finish in Eng lish to mark our better understanding --'Thank you very much!'" As for Rada, she showed almost a cosmopolitan deviationist's hunger for the exotic attractions of the West: "I want to see your cities and how your people live. I want to see the shows! The museums! No. No couturiers. I haven't the time."

At Los Angeles' annual Las Madrinas debutante ball, 33 debs were thrown into the maw of Old Angeleno society. Few father-daughter couples were as dashingly smooth, however, as the old hoofer him self, Fred Astaire (who hates to wear tails), and winsome Ava, 17.

One of the world's greatest personal-publicity experts, Spain's Surrealist Salvador Dali, made his regular winter pilgrimage to Manhattan, managed to make sure that everybody knew of his arrival. Dressed in a gold leather space suit, Dali looked a trifle Martian while posing inside his latest brainchild, an "ovocipede," a transparent plastic sphere that rolls merrily along while its operator sits comfortably (says Dali) encapsulated. For newsmen, Dali climaxed his performance by letting the ovocipede get out of control, wound up sublimely supine.

After steaming into Manhattan to begin a U.S. concert tour, Britain's mellowing (80) Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, accompanied by his 27-year-old bride of five months, showed further signs of gaining on the famed terrible temper that he once lost daily. He even waved a tiny U.S. flag, mustered an almost benign expression.

As Author Vance Packard saw it in his bestselling The Status Seekers (TIME, June 8), most Americans of Anglo-Saxon ancestry like to sentimentalize their forebears by living in Early American, white clapboard houses. On Christmas Eve, Homeowner Packard took his ease with his wife Virginia and their three children in their 45-year-old, 12-room, two-story, fairly Early American (Federalist), white clapboard house in New Canaan, Conn. At about 7:30 p.m., Packard abruptly learned that such throwback houses also have a drawback: they can be authentic, antique tinder heaps. Sparks from the Packards' roaring Yuletide log rose up the chimney, removed all chance of a visit from Santa by setting fire to the wood-shingled roof. Before the Packards (plus some 40 volunteer firemen) quenched the blaze; damage from the flames, axes and water amounted to about $20,000. But in the best Early American tradition, the Packards retrieved their Christmas present packages, opened them next day in their Federalist garage apartment.

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