To everyone else, the engagement may have seemed whirlwind, but Peter Sellers, 38, has been searching for six months--ever since his favorite clairvoyant said he would marry a girl with the initials B.E. Then he spotted Swedish Starlet Britt Elclund, 21, who was showing clairvoyance herself by checking into the Dorchester in London, right where Peter was staying. Before anyone could say "Love that Bomb," Peter had invited her in "for a friendly drinkie." After that it was 16 days of soft-Sellers--"Restaurants and little corners, I'm good at those"--before she flew off to Manhattan. And three days later he popped the question during a $168 phone call "via Telstar." Smiled the smitten bridegroom-to-be: "I've only known her for a few weeks, but I don't think that matters. She is un spoilt and also very dishy."

Since last July when Pole-Vault Champion Brian Sternberg, 20, lost control on a trampoline and plunged 14 ft. to a broken neck and complete body paralysis, he has never given up hope of regaining muscle-control. Last week, with partial arm movement restored, he traveled from Seattle's University Hospital to San Francisco to see his first track meet since the accident. "I don't know whether it's going to be fun or punishment," he told reporters. And the news he would go home for good in March also prompted mixed emotions. "I promised myself I'd never leave except under my own power. The doctors never have told me I will walk again. But it's my body; I know what I feel. They'll be saying the same things when 1 walk away from that chair."

For the longest time, The Game (that's charades, to non-swells) has been the In sport at society dos. But Florida's best-dressed Jean Harvey Vanderbilt has a new one, a sort of pin-the-tag-on-the-horsy. "Naming a yearling can be a wonderful icebreaker," says the wife of Horseman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. And they already have quite a collection of monikers for their just-named two-year-olds. There's Kiss of Death, a daughter of Femme Fatale, Gone Goose, by Crafty Admiral out of Sitting Duck, and Shakedown Cruise, by Sailor out of Plucky Maid. But the game has one drawback: like any horse owners, the Vanderbilts are the final arbiters. Smiles Jean: "I must admit most of the names we finally select are the ones my husband thinks up."

ABC-TV proudly firmed up its commentating team for the July Republican Convention at San Francisco--and the middle linebacker will be Dwight Eisenhower. Appearing at least twice daily, Ike will report G.O.P. goings on from a special studio down the hall from his hotel suite. The whole slightly astonishing deal was, of course, swung with the help of ABC Vice President James Hagerty, Ike's former press secretary. An effort to line up Harry Truman for the Democratic Convention brought out the Missouri mule. The role of political commentator, said H.S.T., "is an unsuitable one for a former President."

Bang, said Rudolf Bing, and for the first time in the 81-year history of Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House the only ones standing were the ushers. The Met general manager, 62, blames standees for pepping up applause with "uncontrolled shouting, screaming and crazy yelling," and says: "I will not have a Beatle-type performance going on." Moreover, they don't know how to dress. "I don't want them to come in white tie or in black tie. But I do want them to come in a tie." Still, the Met without standees is like Yankee Stadium without bleacherites. So only one performance after imposing his ban, Bing caved in, said the noisy, tieless, bossy, hard-core opera buffs could return forthwith.

Arnie's Army is physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. And now it's going to be clean too. Along with his 20-odd other ventures, Golfer Arnold Palmer, 34, is going into the laundry business in New York. It's called Arnold Palmer Laundries, Dry Cleaning and Maid Service Inc., is really the brainstorm of former Wimbledon Champion Sidney Wood, who's been in the business a long time. All Arnie has to do is be board chairman and collect the dough. Like the company slogan says: "Suits you to a tee." Hee.

Midst laurels stood: Hyman Rickover, 64, awarded a gold star in lieu of a second Distinguished Service Medal for "exceptionally meritorious service" as the Navy's atomic top kick; Atlanta Constitution Publisher Ralph McGill, 66, given the annual $1,000 Fiorina Lasker Civil Liberties Award for "cour age and integrity in defense of civil liberties"; NBC-TV Newsman David Brinkley, 43, presented with the 1964 Golden Key Award at a convention of the American Association of School Administrators for significant contribution to the national welfare.

The Sun Valley cottage was the same one Happy Murphy, now Rockefeller, stayed in, and the same judge handled the proceedings. While her husband presided over a board meeting in Detroit, Anne McDonnell Ford, 44, ended her six weeks in Idaho with a 20-minute divorce court appearance that terminated her 23-year marriage to Henry Ford II on grounds of mental anguish. The settlement, according to friends, was a staggeringly generous $16 million plus, along with custody of their son Edsel, 14. Daughters Charlotte, 22, and Anne, 21, were not at issue, since they are not minors. With the marriage finally sundered, Ford was free to wed his friend of four years, Italian Divorcee Christina Austin, 34, who now lives in Manhattan.

She went to Miss Hewitt's in Manhattan, 1'Academie Maxim's and the Sorbonne in Paris--and debuted at Newport in 1960. He went to the Royal Naval College, Oxford's Brasenose College, and was a Coldstream Guardsman. Now that, as they say in the set, is "the right sort," and everyone was delighted that pretty Durie Desloge, 22, will marry Briton Roderic lain Bullough, 28, in late May. The couple met in Bangkok last summer, and right now they are in Palm Beach visiting her mother, Durie Malcolm Bersbach Desloge Shevlin, who hit the prints last year when longtime, but never proved, rumors that she had once been secretly married to John F. Kennedy stirred a minor sensation.

Jack Benny last week celebrated his 39th birthday for the 32nd time.

Here, he said, grandly, and gave it to the March of Dimes. Thanks, they said, but we can't afford to keep it. Awright, he said, and gave it to a Miami Coast Guard Auxiliary. Sorry, said Coast Guard headquarters, but they can't keep it either. That left Elvis Presley, 29, with one large white yacht named Potomac. The vessel used to be F.D.R.'s pleasure craft, and Elvis had bought it for $55,000 at auction, thinking to donate it to a worthy cause. At last Danny Thomas came steaming to the rescue and accepted it on behalf of Memphis' St. Jude's Hospital for children. "It seems sad that we are playing pingpong with a memento of history," said Danny, who then announced still one more ping. The hospital will sell the yacht to raise funds.

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