Bing Crosby and Bob Hope have had one for years, Andy Williams gets his next year, Dean Martin is lined up for 1969, and Frank Sinatra is so anxious to acquire Hollywood's latest status symbol that he doesn't even bat an eye at the $175,000 price tag. Well what is it, for heaven's sake? Nothing less than their own golf tournament, with the boys and their pals putting up the cash and getting the whole thing named after them. It's all two-bit Nassau, though, compared with what Jackie Gleason, 51, has in mind for 1970: an annual $500,000 Jackie Gleason Open to be played at his $15 million Miami "golf stadium," which will have terraced, three-level walkways beside all fairways and greens to accommodate as many as 36,000 spectators on every hole. Winner's purse: $150,000.

Texas Republican Senator John Tower, 41, is as much at home in a smoke-filled room as any other politician, but this time the predawn billows in his $42-a-day Sheraton-Dallas Hotel suite were accompanied by a nasty little fire. All but blinded by the smoke, Tower groped his way to the bathroom, wrapped a wet towel around his face and yelled for help. The hotel's soundproofing tabled that motion, so the 5-ft. 5 1/2-in. parliamentarian resourcefully slammed the table right through the window and down into the street 26 floors below.

Gulping air, the Senator then dashed to the phone to summon firemen, who found him safe but sooty. The $1,000 blaze was caused, firemen guessed, by a smoldering cigarette--left over from an earlier smoke-filled session between Tower and Texas Republican cronies.

"It's purely a private family ceremony in memory of Her Majesty my mother," the Duke of Windsor, 72, had explained politely to reporters. Yes and no. As 300 Londoners looked on along the Mall outside Marlborough House, Queen Elizabeth pulled a golden tassel drawing back the curtains over a small plaque on the garden wall: "Queen Mary, 1867-1953." Then she stood on the sidewalk for a few moments chatting with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Earl of Harewood.

That was all, but it marked the first time that Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, 70, had been invited to a royal function in the 30 years since the Duke, as Edward VIII, had abdicated his throne to marry the nonroyal divorcee. The ceremony over, the Queen left for the Derby at Epsom, and the Windsors flew home--to Paris.

Arriving in Manhattan to commence a three-week trip through the U.S. and Canada, Thailand's King Bhumibol, 39, and his lustrous Queen Sirikit, 34, paid a first call at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the museum's trustees and Time Inc. jointly sponsored a reception attended by some 700 members of New York's business, publishing and art communities. By happy coincidence, the museum was exhibiting a 5,000-year panorama of royal objets d'art and artifacts entitled "In the Presence of Kings," to which the young monarch presented an exquisite 18th century gold sword. "The Thai people are a fighting people," said Bhumibol. "We have kept our liberty and independence for hundreds of years. We are not militant. We just have to fight to keep the most essential thing for a man. And that is freedom."

He seemed impervious to the battering and strain of more than seven months alone at sea, but the elements had obviously taken their toll. Less than a week after his triumphant arrival home, Britain's Circumnavigator Sir Francis Chichester, 65, was hurried to Plymouth's Royal Naval Hospital with a hemorrhage of an unsuspected duodenal ulcer. With Sir Francis berthed for as long as a month, this week's two superceremonies--his formal knighting by the Queen with Sir Francis Drake's sword, and his pandemonious reception by the City of London--have been postponed until he is shipshape again.

"There's nothing doing at City Hall anyway," cried New York's Mayor John Lindsay, 45, by way of explaining his presence at opening-day rites of the 14th annual New York-Is-a-Summer-Festival festival. Bubbly high spot of the ceremony was to be the christening of the good ship Festival Queen, a commercial sightseeing barge borrowed for the day. On hand to do the honors was Nancy Davison, 24, a somewhat younger, prettier festival queen. She swung the champagne. Bonk! Nothing happened. Thrice more she smote to no avail until the kindly Mayor said, "Give me that please." Whereupon he swung from the toenails, lost his grip, and hurled the champagne into the Hudson River. "Forget it," sighed Lindsay. "At least I hit the ship," said Nancy.

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