The New Acapulco

Mrs. Bruno Pagliai--Merle Oberon, that is--padded prettily across the rug, with its fanciful design of chimpanzee, parrot and elephant, on her way to the telephone ringing in the bookcase behind a Chinese print. "Yes, darling, I know," she cooed happily. "They say the weather is simply frightful just about everywhere in the world."

It certainly was. But outside her big glass doors the warm sun sparkled on azure water under a cloudless sky. This, in fact, is why Merle Oberon, an actress whose beauty persists, and her husband, a Mexican industrialist, built their new palazzo in Acapulco, the mountain-rimmed bay on the southwest coast of Mexico that claims to have better year-round weather than any place anywhere. And this is why Acapulco is currently in the throes of transition.

The Best People. Always popular with Mexicans--former President Miguel Aleman has a palatial villa and is a faithful weekender--the resort is becoming the new sun spa for the international big rich and their attendant swingers, and the easygoing oldtimers are uneasily sniffing winds of change in Acapulco's famous breezes.

Already, Baron and Baroness Guy de Rothschild have bought a house, the Loel Guinnesses have just built one, the Clint Murchisons are just finishing one, the Samuel Newhouses are renting one, and the Douglas Fairbankses Jr. are looking for one. Mexican Millionaire Melchior Perusquia Jr. is spending $5,000,000 to build a private development for what he calls "the best people in the world," including Walt Disney and Frank Sinatra, who last month bought another Acapulco house.

The season is only now beginning to swing. So far, Acapulco vacationers have included Lynda Bird Johnson (relaxing), Anne Ford (honeymooning) and ex-Mayor Wagner (recuperating). Last week the chic league was further congested by Italian Designer Emilio Pucci, who arrived bringing the season's first rainstorm and leading a glossy swirl of journalists and society's beautiful people--Mary Cushing, Caterine Milinaire, Aurora Hitchcock--on a swinging junket to celebrate his new perfume, Vivara. All of this, on top of a regular tourist season that will probably see 1,560,000 visitors stream in and out of a resort town of 100,000, has Acapulco full to bursting, with hotels now booked through March.

Wrap-Around Masts. For those who were lucky enough to have booked early, there is deer and jaguar hunting in the jungles nearby, marlin off the coast, and for jaded water-skiers the sport called "water-parachuting," in which a skier, hanging onto a rope behind a speedboat, is lifted into the air a hundred feet or so by a special parachute, then is cut loose to settle gently into the water again. And for all, from morning till night, there is the sun. When it sets, there are the parties, two and often three a night. They begin late (Acapulco dinners start at 9:30, often last until midnight), and host and guests wind up at Tequila `a Go-Go, which stays open until 5 a.m. The Rothschilds dodge the crowds at the less fashionable Aku-Tiki on the beach.

The houses of Acapulco's new jet-setters, like Merle Pagliai's gleaming white villa, are almost all on the eastward side of the bay. This places them away from the older, shabbier part of the harbor town, with its cluster of old streets and peninsula boulevard busy with buses and horse-drawn surreys. Developed haphazardly, with a strong flavor of claptrap and ticky-tacky, the magnificent sweep of beaches has seen the tide of tourism rise, then ebb. Now it is rising again, to fill the well-appointed hotels for the average tourist --El Presidente, Acapulco Hilton, El Elcano--sitting on the beach, surrounded by well-stocked shops.

Oldtime Acapulcanians are beginning to regret the passing of the old days. "It used to be kind of schleppy," explains one expatriate American blonde. "Now it's getting jetty." Chances are it will get even more so. "Where else could you find this climate in a country that's politically safe?" asks Count Jean de la Bruyere, 37, who made his fortune in Canadian real estate. "I follow the sun, and this is the place. And the informality! Here you may wear anything, but always no socks. That's very important. Jamais les socks."

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