Commandeered for the annual benefit gala of the Union des Artistes (a sort of French Equity), Paris' one-ring Cirque d'Hiver acquired a second center of attention with the midnight entrance of Brigitte Bardot, 27. Combining the Empire look with what copycats in New York's Garment District currently push as the "proffered bosom," the tiara-topped screen queen was the focus of all eyes--save those of Playwright Marcel Achard, 61, an Academy "immortal" who was ensconced next to her in what appeared to be a state of stunned euphoria.

. . .

"Darling fat girl, anyone who has given so many people such pleasure and fun is doomed to go on doing it." Thus encouraged by Fellow Worldling Noel Coward, Cafe Society Mixmaster Elsa Maxwell, 78, rose from the Manhattan bed to which a heart attack confined her three months ago and began once again to share her doom with the readers of her syndicated, confidences. Though her ordeal had modified her physique--on doctor's orders she had already reduced from 200 to 165 lbs.--it had not mitigated her relentlessly chatty columnar style. Opening gambit in her first post-illness column: "You may recall . . . the Marchioness of Blandford (she is the former Tina Livanos Onassis, the loveliest little friend, so pretty and gay) . . ."

. . .

In a rare departure from conventional political behavior, California's frisky Dalip Singh Sound, 62, turned sheepish (and turtle) over an enlargement of the federal payroll in his district. The occasion, in lamentation for which the India-born Democrat sportingly submitted to an initial symbolic shakedown: a beefing-up of the Internal Revenue Service staff in the city of Riverside.

. . .

After proving himself a consummate good-will ambassador during the first month of a seven-week trade-drumming tour of South America, Britain's Prince Philip stumbled into a veritable gaffe-and-a-half at Paraguay's Government House. "It's a pleasant change," offhanded His Royal Highness to President Alfredo Stroessner, "to be in a country which isn't ruled by its people." As the continent's sole surviving dictator glowered around the room and underlings intently began to contemplate their fingernails, Philip quickly sought to recoup by implying that he was merely expressing his pleasure at temporarily escaping Britain's Lord's Day Observance Society, which perennially criticizes the royal family for attending sports events on Sunday. "Here," beamed the peripatetic prince, "the government decides what is to be done, and it is done . . ."

. . .

Latest to make the split parade in sunny, sundering California were Hollywood's golden couple--Bernard Schwartz,* 36, and Jeanette Morrison,* 34. Announcing a trial separation that they hoped would be temporary considering their ten years and two children together, the pair surprised almost no one. While Jeanette was explaining "No matter what you may hear, there is no other man or any other woman," Bernard remained incommunicado--the cinema euphemism for being on circumlocution at Palm Springs.

. . .

Scrubbed as pilot of the U.S.'s next orbital shot because of "erratic heartbeat" was Astronaut Donald ("Deke") Slayton, 38. Aware of his condition since 1959 and subject to fortnightly recurrences ("I get rid of them by running two or three miles"), the tenacious Air Force major was belatedly--and perhaps only temporarily--grounded by an Air Force medical board last week. The decision was clearly motivated more by fear of bad publicity if Slayton's flight should go amiss than by doubts over his capacity, and understandably left the astronaut "damned disappointed." Sympathized his replacement, Navy Lieut. Commander Scott Carpenter, 36: "I hate to be part of such a disappointment to Deke."

. . .

Passing on an appeal from a West German political prisoner who claimed to have been "unfairly and wrongly" convicted by her countrymen in a 1951 war crimes trial, members of the European Commission on Human Rights not only rejected the plea but also damned it as a "manifest abuse" of their time. The appel lant: Lifer Use Koch, 54, better known during World War II as the "Bitch of Buchenwald."

. . .

Her intuition telling her that the Russians would have a woman in space by the fall, Jane Briggs Hart, 40, aviatrix wife of Michigan's Democratic Senator Philip Hart, hoped to beat them to the launch. After getting nowhere with NASA brass, the zingy mother of eight (who has logged some 2,000 flying hours and last summer passed the astronauts' screening physical) decided to go to what she thought was the top. To no avail. "He was very interested," sighed Janie Hart after 30 minutes with National Aeronautics and Space Council Chairman Lyndon B. Johnson, "but he said he doesn't have the authority to make any decision."

. . .

After a careful weighing of all criteria, including time and distance traveled, experts on congressional expense accounts somewhat dazedly acclaimed a new record holder: Maryland's Democratic Congress man Richard E. Lankford, 47. On a 38-day junket that carried him from Honolulu to Scotland "to see how our military assistance program ties in with our defense effort," the eleventh-ranking Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee managed, by his own account, to spend $3,597 on meals, hotels and "miscellaneous." When a reporter incredulously noted that all this averaged out at better than $11 a meal and $28 per night's lodging, the Annapolis lawyer-farmer conceded that "my answers don't sound too good," but stoutly insisted: "I spent every penny I say I spent."

. . .

Having won the approval of both the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches for her prospective May marriage to Spain's Prince Juan Carlos, Greece's fetching Princess Sophie, 23, came to grips with Mammon. In an atmosphere of high drachma and low politics, the National Radical Union majority in Greece's Parliament argued--correctly--that the royal family was "not rich" and pushed through over the loud protests of a not-so-loyal opposition a bill granting the princess a dowry of $300,000.

. . .

Lashing out at Britain's most bilious and best-read columnist for his gibes at the parlous state of Soviet farm production, Radio Moscow suggested that Cassandra, pen name of the London Daily Mirror's William Connor, should be traced to botanical rather than mythological roots. Snapped a Soviet commentator: "If Mr. Connor had even a small knowledge of agriculture, he would know about a poisonous weed also called cassandra . . . on which not even the most stupid goat--let alone level-headed people--would think of feeding." Cooed Connor in reply: "Come, come, you earthy machine-gunners of kulaks. Cassandra (C. calyculata) is a rather beautiful evergreen shrub. It has white virginal flowers (how I warm to the theme) . . . I warn you Muscovite fellers, keep your great Cossack boots off my white, virginal, bell-shaped flower."

. . .

Convalescing from his second stroke in four months, Michigan's Republican Congressman Clare E. Hoffman, 86, finally resolved to wind up his 28-year House career when his present term ends next January. Last recorded on a House roll call in September, the implacable old isolationist seemed considerably more concerned about whether the shad were running down in Fredericksburg than about the pretty kettle of fish on Capitol Hill, which, according to his son, he had "about given up as a bad job."

. . .

Safariing through Uganda "to help convince the tribal people that it was necessary to preserve game," The Netherlands' sports-mad Prince Bernhard, 50, gunned down a near-record roan antelope and a rare sitatunga, came close to cremating some bigger prey. Beating their way down from the heights of Mount Debasian, Bernhard and two companions grew fearful of the tall grass ("We could have fallen 50 feet or more down those slippery rocks"), decided to burn a passage out. Unexpectedly, the wind changed, and the accident-prone prince (who has survived four automobile crackups, several forced landings in planes, a motorboat collision and a near skindiving drowning) was trapped in a ring fire. Chirped Bernhard, saved this time by a fortuitous retreat to a rocky outcrop: "We almost kippered."

* For Bernie's and Jeanette's movie monikers, see SHOW BUSINESS.

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