When TV's foremost up-from-the-ranks production tycoons, Cinemactress Lucille Ball and Bandleader Desi Arnaz, were married in 1940, acquaintances of the volatile lovebirds gave their union six months at most before an inevitable explosion would send them on separate ways. Lucy herself doubted that the match was good for six weeks. Last week, after more than 19 years of sometimes hectic marriage, and two children (Lucy, 8; Desi IV, 7), Lucy and Desi, co-bosses of Desilu Productions, Inc. (grossing more than $20 million a year) and co-stars of TV's longtime rating-topper I Love Lucy, called quits to the marriage but announced that Desilu Productions would still link them. Both feature players at RKO studios when they first met, Lucy, 48, and Arnaz, 43, seemed to pose a very American example of a romantic partnership that could not stand financial success. Filing for divorce in Santa Monica, Calif., Lucy, whose home-loving inclinations have not jibed with Arnaz' night-prowling habits for several years, sadly allowed: "I've tried so hard to be fair and solve our problems, but find it impossible to go on."

Everybody in the know in Iran was broadly hinting that pretty Queen Farah, 21, the Shah's third wife and his bride of two months (TIME, Jan. 4), is expecting. From the royal palace in Teheran came a wave of unofficial tidings, all affirmative. Said one court official: "From the Shah's smile, you can get the best confirmation of the good news."

The editors of Who's Who in America opened their 31st edition, stuffed with some 56,000 bigger and lesser wigs, for a sneak preview. Making a unique father and daughter debut in Who's Who's pages are Actress Susan (The Diary of Anne Frank} Strasberg and Director-Teacher Lee Strasberg, chief methodologist of Manhattan's Actors' Studio. At 21, Susan has bumped Cinemactress Margaret (Journey for Margaret) O'Brien, now 23, out of the juniority honors that Margaret held in the current edition.*

At a press confab last year Harry Truman wished aloud: "The thing I'd like to do if I ran a newspaper would be the telegraph editor and the blue-pencil man. And then I'd sure get what I wanted in the paper!" In Miami last week Harry got his wish, muffed his opportunity. Invited by the Miami Herald's Republican Publisher John S. Knight to try out a blue pencil, Truman accepted, but first he visited the Democratic-angled afternoon News, where he sat at the telegraph editor's desk and did little but doodle and smile for a News photographer. Then he adjourned to the Herald's city room. Asked if he would like to edit the paper, Truman backed off with a grin: "That's your job, not mine." He had passed up his big chance, but he advised Knight and all his men: "The more we print about what Republicans are doing the better!"

It was a banner week for dreamboat groaners, modern and ancient. First off, winsome Nancy Sinatra, 19, daughter of aging (44) Crooner Frank Sinatra, got herself engaged to curly-topped Tommy Sands, 22, one of the few new voices with any detectable talent. Glowed Papa Sinatra approvingly: "I'm very pleased. It's good to have another singer in the family, because I'm getting tired." Then Nancy winged east to New Jersey, where she was on hand at McGuire Air Force Base early one morning, when Mr. Rock 'n' Roll himself, Sergeant Elvis Presley, got off a plane from West Germany to be mustered out of the Army after a two-year draftee stint. Nancy was indulging no secret crush on Elvis, just helping build up a TV singeroo slated for early May. By then, Elvis will again be supporting himself in the civilian style to which he is currently unaccustomed, collecting a cool $125,000 for a network appearance with Frankie. Elvis, proudly wearing medals for good conduct and marksmanship, promised that he will soon climb back into his gaudiest working mufti, agitate his pelvis as of yore ("If I stand still, I'm dead") and "never abandon rock 'n' roll as long as people keep appreciatin' it." But Army rigors had at least one benign effect upon him: he won't regrow his crazy sideburns.

In their first public outing since proclamation of their engagement, Britain's radiant Princess Margaret and her handsome fiance, London Photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones, showed up at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for a charity ballet performance. After crowds outside cheered and shouted, "God bless you both!" the couple moved inside to the royal box and a two-minute ovation from some 2,000 ballet goers. Trailing Margaret by the protocol-prescribed three paces, Tony showed that he had learned his lessons well. There was indeed a clear hint of who his tutor might be: acknowledging the applause, he kept his hands clasped behind him in a typical pose of Prince Philip's on such occasions. On the evening's program, set long before the engagement was announced: a folk dance called Princess Margaret's Fancy, plus a French ballet titled The Badly Guarded Girl.

* The youngest person ever listed: Cinemoppet Shirley Temple, who crashed the roster in 1936 at seven.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.