Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

The ailing King of Nepal, Makarajadhiraja Tribhubana Bir Bikram Jung Bahadur, 48, who with a name like that deserves to have (and has) two Queens, got official word that he will be welcome in the U.S. Polygamist Tribhubana, in Switzerland for repairs on his heart, had earlier mentioned that he might go to the U.S. for further treatment. A Zurich busybody started an international ruckus by warning a royal aide that U.S. immigration laws would prevent the King and his wives from so much as getting off the boat. After a chorus of hospitable noises arose from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. consul general in Zurich last week proclaimed that Tribhubana and his exotic entourage may enter the U.S. any time, provided they don't arrive as immigrants seeking to set up polygamous housekeeping. On getting the news, the King beamed, muttered that he was "pleased." His portly "Senior" and "Junior" Queens, both 48 and anonymous (in keeping with the Nepalese tradition of royal privacy), were reported to be smiling in sweet silence.

Novelist Taylor (This Side of Innocence) Caldwell, who with her husband had to kick in $47,696 in income-tax arrears last year, popped up in the revenuer's office in Buffalo. Unhappy topic of discussion: $40,987 which the Government claims she still owes on her past income from royalties and a partnership. Taylor collapsed on the revenuer's floor. Whisked off to a local hospital, she was pronounced in "good" shape at week's end.

Out in Hong Kong, where he is starring in a movie called Soldier of Fortune, adventurous Cinemactor Clark Gable, a handsome 53, bumped into some pretty Oriental competition, Li Li-Hwa, durable top queen of the Chinese film world. They started the usual flurry of Gable fables by taking a congenial cruise around Hong Kong Island together.

A lawyer named Adlai Stevenson, jobless for almost two years, out of law practice for seven, was retained by Radio Corp. of America to fight a patent monopoly suit (for the past six years fought mostly with press releases) brought against RCA by Zenith Radio Corp. Rusty, perhaps, but always game, Attorney Stevenson filed a petition seeking a delay of the trial with the U.S. Supreme Court, whose Associate Justice Sherman Minton at week's end turned Stevenson's brief down cold, also denied Stevenson's request for a hearing.

In Houston, one of the biggest rich (estimated fortune: $200-$300 million) in the land of the big rich, Oilman-Philanthropist (University of Houston) Hugh Roy Cullen, flanked by his wife, three daughters and three grandchildren, sat down at a luncheon to hear himself eulogized by grateful city fathers. The fitting occasion: the publication of a Cullen biography (Hugh Roy Cullen: A Story of American Opportunity; Prentice-Hall; $4). Orated Houston's Mayor Roy Hofheinz: "Houston is so proud to have been the place where the touch of the hand of Cullen's has been permitted to fall by Almighty God." Then Cullen responded to the praise: "I feel humble. I am sorry the good Lord didn't give me a little more ego so I could feel great." After minimizing himself, Oilman Cullen put in a plug for his biography: "I became convinced that the only way to counteract some of the false theories abroad in the land would be to meet these with the true story of an American boy who by hard work, faith, honesty and courage, pushed obstacles aside and succeeded in life only because he lived in a land which permitted individual initiative to prosper. If this biography should in some small measure impart to the youth of America that they also can succeed . . ." Humble Roy Cullen had bought a rumored 250,000 copies to spread the word; Houston's Texas Medical Center (total Cullen endowments and gifts: $7,367,00) planned to pass around 108,000 more.

Caught in legal crossfire from his two most recent wives, John Jacob Astor, 43, took the easiest way out. He conceded to the claim of wife No. 2, mousy blonde Gertrude Gretsch Astor, 31, that their Mexican divorce of last July was no good. This cleared the way for a Manhattan judge to hand Gertrude an easygoing stipend from Astor's easy-come $70 million-$2,500 a month, plus $7,500 for lawyers' fees. It also marooned Dolores ("Dolly") Pullman Astor, 26, very blonde Miami Beach divorcee who married Astor in August, ditched him in September, sued him last month for support money. Dolly, who had guilelessly fancied herself No. 3, was left, according to the court, still a lonely grass widow, never legally married to Astor and apparently powerless to take anything out of his heritage.

In Buenos Aires, 300 gate-crashers tried to jam into a with-credentials-only press conference held one morning in a hotel. The star attraction: Italy's full-blown Cinemactress Gina (Bread, Love and Dreams) Lollobrigida (TIME, Aug. 16), in the Argentine as an official guest of one of her fans, President Juan PerOn. Hearing the restive tumult from those barred at the door, Gina melted the newsmen by asking: "Why do they love me so much?" After visiting the presidential mansion, Gina purred: "I realize now why people love PerOn so much."

In Callander, Ont., word leaked that Marie Dionne, 20, smallest and quietest of the four surviving Dionne quintuplets (TIME, Aug. 16), who a month ago came home from a Montreal college for a holiday, had neither gone back to school nor been seen outside the big Dionne mansion since her return. At Marguerite Bourgeoys College, officials claimed that Marie had been sick. But Oliva ("Papa") Dionne said no, Marie was not ailing, just lonely and sick of the school.

Oldtime Speedboat King Gar Wood, 73, was still having the sort of woe that most romantic gentlemen his age only remember. Five years ago he tangled in court with a resolute young thing who claimed that she was "more than a secretary" to Wood in his $100,000 Miami home. After he learned that she was mar ried and threw her out of the mansion, she cried that it was hers as a gift, along with $25,000 in bonds and cash. Wood kept the house; she kept the negotiables. Last week spry old Wood had employee trouble again, this time with his most recent secretary, an ex-model named Lucille Stiglich, 23. She charged that she paid a surprise visit to his Biscayne Bay castle, found him there with a new lady friend, and got soundly beaten up by him as a reward. Nonsense, retorted Wood, Lucille came around with blood in her eye and threatened to kill him.

Peace was busting out all over around the Kremlin. At a party in the Yugoslav embassy, where Soviet bigwigs came to assure their hosts that they now love Yugoslavia, Soviet Premier Georgy Malenkov sounded as if he had hired a so-Soviet gagwriter. Offered a cigarette by a foreign newsman, he politely declined. Quipped he: "Now don't go and write that the Soviet constitution forbids smoking!" Marshal Georgy Zhukov genially ribbed other correspondents about stories that he had ominously disappeared. Chortled Zhukov: "While I was reported missing, I was enjoying a swim down south!"

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