"Oui, Out"

From Carson City to Kabul, the audience sighed pleasurably and started feeling for its shoes. The chase was over. In sunny France last week, the son of the Prophet finally did right by little Rita.

As usual, not all the reviews were favorable. "The civil union of an Indian prince and his girl friend by a Communist functionary," sneered Los Angeles' Father Thomas J. McCarthy in his tabloid Tidings. Moaned A.P.'s Hal Boyle: "A strictly grade B script . . . how bad can times get?" The script was no worse than Rita's touted The Lady from Shanghai; like the film, it was expensive, pointless, and covered a lot of geography.

In a Suite. A year ago in Cannes, Elsa Maxwell introduced Rita Hayworth (ne'e Cansino in New York) to Prince Aly Khan, a demigod to five million Moslems of the Ismaili sect, and heir to one of the biggest fortunes in the world.* Though Rita was still the wife of onetime Wonder Boy Orson Welles, and Aly had not yet severed his marital tie with British-born Joan Yarde-Buller (exwife of Brewing Heir Thomas Loel Guinness), the lovers showed all the symptoms of sophomores in the throes of their first passion.

After a motoring trip through Spain and a brief stopover in Hollywood, Rita and Aly flew down to Mexico City. For two days the couple remained barricaded in a suite in the Hotel Reforma. From Mexico the lovers flew to Cuba, attempting the arch pretense that they were barely acquainted. To reporters' questions, Swiss-educated Aly replied: "Look here, old boy, I'd like to answer your questions, but how can I when they are so embarrassing?"

Embarrassing questions kept following them. In December Rita's divorce from Orson became final; two weeks later, in New York, she hustled aboard the Britannic with her daughter Rebecca, 4, firmly in tow. Aly Khan was also aboard. Mother & daughter spent Christmas at Aly's County Kildare estate near Dublin. From Ireland, Rita and Rebecca went via London to Switzerland, where they visited with Aly and his two sons, Karim Aga, 12, and Amyon Mohammed, 11. After two weeks of skiing, the party pulled up again on the Riviera. There the engagement was announced, two months before Aly's divorce. As the wedding date appreached, the press descended on Cannes' Hotel Carlton like love-crazed locusts.

In a Dream. Behind the walls of Aly's green and white seaside villa, "L'Horizon," Aly and Rita prepared for the day. "I'm so excited," Rita said in one of her rare statements, "I can hardly think. I'm sort of lost in a dream world. When someone asks me a question, I bring myself to and grunt." The word got out that Aly Khan had given her a swell diamond ring, an emerald-cut job. Bar-side reports had it that it was 32 karats--"As big as a belt buckle." (It turned out to be only twelve karats.)

The press played with rumors about the wedding festivities. Fifty turtles, each bearing a lighted candle on its back, would paddle around L'Horizon's swimming pool at the reception. A submarine would surface near the 30-room villa, and a name band would crawl out to play Here Comes the Bride. Hank Wales of the Chicago Tribune had his exclusive shocker: Rita and a guest had been rehearsing for the wedding on the chateau lawn when Rita spied a dead man washed up on the rocks. She screamed, said Wales, and was unable to go on with the rehearsal.

Original plans for the wedding called for it to be held at L'Horizon. Instead, the French government got into the act: it ruled that the ceremony, like any other, would have to be run off at neighboring Vallauris' small, shabby mairie. A press conference called by slender, afiable Communist Mayor Paul Derigon degenerated into a battle royal, with swarms of journalists making out their own passes to the wedding, then shoving them under the mayor's nose for signature and stamping.

For Twelve Children. On the great day last week, the hastily redecorated Vallauris mairie began to fill up early with local pottery workers, reporters and photographers. Mayor Derigon had thoughtfully passed out about 20 copies of the little speech he was going to make to the bride & groom. There was not a party line in it. Packed along a staircase commanding a view of the entrance, the reporters began chanting the speech in French: "This is a sensational event, as well as an unhoped-for honor for our little city . . ."

At 11 o'clock, the old Aga Khan and his wife the Begum arrived. Aly turned up next, nodding approvingly but grimly, muttering over & over: "Perfect, perfect." Then a new cream-colored Cadillac pulled up. Out stepped Rita. The crowd in the street waved, cheered, yelled "Rita, Rita!" Rita turned, waving a white handkerchief clutched in her black-gloved hand, then faced the cameras and smiled. Dressed in an ankle-length light blue crepe dress made for her by Jacques Fath, with a large, matching blue-veiled hat riding securely on her dark red hair (showing brown at the roots), she faced slowly right & left. Nervously she moved her fingers about the bouquet in her hand, then turned and walked into the room where guests and groom waited.

Rita and Aly, opposite the tricolor-girt mayor, listened nervously as he mumbled the brief ritual. "Oui," said Rita faintly. "Oui, oui," said Aly. After an exchange of gold bands, the mayor pronounced them man & wife. Aly donated half a million francs ($1,587) to the local poor, received a "Livret de famille" or official family record book with space for twelve children.

On One Knee. The ceremony over, bride, groom, family and guests headed for the chateau about three miles away. There the reception was beginning. A singer's throaty voice came faintly over a faulty public-address system. Servants busily gave the cold buffet luncheon last-minute touches as the hungry Aga Khan, at a center table, began to eat on his own. The newlyweds walked hand-in-hand down to the sea, to the serenading of six musicians (see cut). (Two days later there was a Moslem ceremony.)

The couple were vague about their future plans. A honeymoon? Well--Aly volunteered that he hoped to attend the Derby at Epsom Downs on June 4. Rita planned to start work on a new film by the end of the year. Back at the party, Rita sank down next to the old Aga Khan. "Too much caviar, Rita," he murmured, "too much caviar." International News Service's starry-eyed Louella Parsons heaved a final sigh. The groom, she reported, "wearying but still buoyant, dropped on one knee and, with old-world gallantry, kissed her [Rita's] slipper."

In an even older world, far-off Karachi, members of the Aga Khan's religious sect paraded, singing, through the streets, to honor the wedding. One Ismaili Moslem suggested that Rita take the local name of Rehmat Khanum, which means Lady of Blessings from the Almighty.

-Generally accorded the courtesy title of Prince, Aly will in fact have no official status till he succeeds his father as the Aga Khan. He will then have in British protocol the rank of first-class Chief, entitled to a salute of eleven guns.

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