That Old Feeling

With all the excitement of a 19-year-old girl looking forward to her second wedding, Cinemactress Elizabeth ("I have a woman's body and a child's emotions") Taylor flew from Hollywood to London to marry 39-year-old British Actor Michael Wilding. Caught between planes in Manhattan she flashed her violet-blue eyes and gave the press a bubbly preview of a bride's bliss: "Michael is a mere child at heart. I think everything about him is wonderful. I adore him."

For the next few days, the tabloids avidly reported the course of true love. Arriving in London "tired and in a tizzy" Liz was nevertheless ready with a bit of philosophy: "Happiness is a fragile thing and we have so little time for it." For a while it seemed as if happiness could hang on such a fragile thing as poor memory. Liz had forgotten to bring along her divorce papers, but science came to the rescue. Confirmation that she was legally divorced from Conrad ("Nicky") Hilton arrived from California by cable in time for the ten-minute civil ceremony in Westminster's old Caxton Hall, where it was witnessed on schedule by Producer Herbert Wilcox and his actress wife Anna Neagle.

Outside the musty old building, a crowd of some 1,000 fans gathered to pay near-riotous respects and to shout congratulations to "Liz" and "Mike." Delayed for several minutes, pawed, mauled and aided by burly policemen, the newlyweds finally got to their limousine and rolled off to a champagne reception at Claridge's. While Mike straightened his twisted clothes, Liz had the strength to give the panting crowd a farewell quote: "This is the beginning of a happy end."

The Younger Generation

Topping the early spring rumors in Hollywood, 41-year-old Brandon Brent, business manager for the past year and a half for Cinemactress Gloria Swanson, 52, announced that he would marry his client "within the year." Reporters scurried to Gloria for confirmation. Was she really going to take husband No. 6? Grandmother Swanson threw up her hands in a gesture of pretty confusion. "Why don't you wait until it happens?" she said. "Who knows? I might."

In Gstaad, Switzerland, 15-year-old Karim Khan, son of Aly Khan, won the junior-class giant slalom race. His prize: the Rita Hayworth cup, first offered three years ago when his father and stepmother visited the course.

From Newburgh, N.Y., Mickey (My

Gun Is Quick) Spillane, 33, World War II fighter pilot whose sexy blood-and-thug detective thrillers have netted him handsome royalties, announced that he had become a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. He had discovered a greater story in the Bible, he said, "than you or I will ever find in fiction." Convinced that the type of books he has turned out have contributed to the "moral breakdown of the present generation," he intends to clean up his writing.

A New York Times reporter asked Author Truman (The Grass Harp) Capote, 27, to describe himself. Said Capote: "Well, I'm about as tall as a shotgun, and just as noisy. I think I have rather heated eyes ... I have a very sassy voice. I like my nose . . . Do you want to know the real reason why I push my hair down on my forehead? Because I have two cowlicks. If I didn't push my hair forward, it would make me look as though I had two feathery horns." What about the charge that present-day fiction is decadent? "If what some young writers are writing today is decadence, then let's have more of it."

Profit & Loss

During his installation address as the new rector of Edinburgh University, Sir Alexander Fleming recalled a memorable moment: It was on a morning in September 1928 that he noticed some mold on a bacteria culture plate. The mold seemed to be destroying the bacteria. "That was very unusual. Instead of casting out the contaminated culture with appropriate language, I made some investigations. The more I investigated, the more interesting it became. I found that the mold made a powerful and nonpoisonous antiseptic. I christened it penicillin."

In Washington, Madame Wellington Koo, wife of the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., paid an income-tax lien claim of $1,278 on some overlooked stocks & bonds income. It was not the money but the implication that bothered her, she said: "It was less than what a dress costs. But now with all the tax scandals . . . people think it must have been over a hundred thousand dollars."

Italy's ex-Field Marshal Rodolfo ("The Lion of Neghelli") Graziani, 69, who served part of a prison term for World War II collaboration with the Nazis, suffered a still further fall from honor. A government decree in Rome stripped him of four military medals for valor awarded between 1921 and 1928.

In Manhattan, where he is still technically on active duty and maintains an office, Old Soldier Douglas MacArthur acknowledged orders from Secretary of the Army Frank Pace Jr. to trim his staff of eight aides down to three, the usual number for a five-star general not on specific duty.

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