Though it may seem like it at times. Rome, after all. is not Hollywood--a fact that Cinemactress Sophia Loren, 27, rudely learned last week. Scheduled to receive her Academy Award Oscar for Two Women at a black-tie do in Rome. Sophia was snubbed by some of Italy's foremost politicians, and the affair had to be canceled. Left-Wing Socialist Pietro Nenni, unhappy that Sophia's sister married a Mussolini, sent his regrets; Entertainment Minister Alberto Folchi, aware that Sophia is living in sin with Producer Carlo Ponti (since bigamy charges brought against Ponti forced them to disavow their 1957 marriage early this year), developed a diplomatic cold. Finally, 1961's best actress had to accept her Oscar at a small reception in her own apartment. "I didn't expect a state reception," said she, "but I had hoped to be honored as an Italian receiving a high international prize."

"I have been crying for joy." said Mrs. Barbara Powers, 27, when Moscow released her husband Francis Gary Powers, after a 21-month imprisonment for his U-2 spy flight. Last week, two months after resuming her eight-year marriage (no children), raven-haired Barbara Powers swallowed 28 Nembutal sleeping pills--a near fatal dose--and lay unconscious for several hours in Washington's Georgetown University Hospital before she was removed from the danger list.

Turning up at West Point for a two-day visit, Nobel prizewinning Novelist William Faulkner, 64, confessed himself "pleasantly astounded" at the sharpness of the G.I. types. At Princeton and the University of Virginia, said he. the queries had been "a little soft." but the cadets. having boned up on The Hamlet and Light in August for days past, were "up" for the meeting. Is a writer ever satisfied? asked one. If he is, replied Faulkner, he should "cut his throat and quit." Which of his books was his favorite? The Sound and the Fury, because, like a crippled child, it caused him the most grief. Unaccountably. Faulkner drew the greatest applause when, to a question on nationalism, he replied: "If the spirit of nationalism gets into literature, it stops being literature."*

Thirty-six years after he started out as a sidewalk sweeper for the St. Louis Zoo, R. Marlin Perkins, 57-onetime moderator of NBC-TV's popular Zoo Parade, goes back on Oct. 1 as its $22,500-a-year boss. A herpetologist who once missed a TV show because a rattler bit him on the hand during rehearsal. Perkins has directed Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo since 1944. accompanied Sir Edmund Hil lary in a fruitless Himalayan hunt for the Abominable Snowman in 1960. St. Louis should prove almost as lively. Among the charges passed on by retiring (after 40 years) Zoo Director George P. Vierhel-ler, 79: a troupe of dancing elephants, a joint lion-tiger-leopard training act, and Mr. Moke, the talking chimp (com plete vocabulary: "mamma" and "no").

Convinced that nuclear war is "an even greater fear than despotism." Cellist Pablo Casals, 85. last week launched in San Francisco what he describes as a two-year, worldwide "personal crusade for peace." Taking up the baton for his first public concert in the U.S. in 34 years.

Casals conducted his own El Pescbre (The Manger), a Christmas oratorio that he first swore would not be performed until the occasion of Francisco Franco's downfall (it had its premiere at Acapulco, Mexico, in 1960). Proceeds from the tour, which may carry him as far as Moscow and Prague, will be "dedicated to the preservation of human dignity, love and fraternity." As the only woman president in the history of Poughkeepsie's 101-year-old college for young women. Vassar's energetic Sarah Gibson Blanding, 63. has since her arrival in 1946 nearly tripled endowment (to $33 million), doubled professors' salaries (to a median of $10,000), and boosted annual gifts 1 7-fold (to $1,439,310 in 1961 ). Last week Vassar's trustees, only too well aware that they will not find another administrator like her in a hurry, announced that they were already hunting for her replacement a good two years before her mandatory retirement in 1964.

Joining the affluent society as a lawyer and bestselling author with an income estimated at $250,000. Richard M. Nixon moved into a $135,000 Beverly Hills ranch house with a swimming pool, three fireplaces, four bedrooms, six baths, and Groucho Marx for a neighbor. Established in his new domain, the ex-Vice President even had a sly gag about just missing out on a roomier, rent-free setup across the country. As Presidential Aide Ted Sorensen told it last week, he met Nixon at a recent Junior Chamber of Commerce luncheon, and the conversation came around to J.F.K.'s inaugural address. "I wish I had said some of those things." commented Nixon. "What part?" asked Speechwriter Sorensen, swelling with pride--"that part about 'Ask not what your country can do for you . . .?'' "No," deadpanned Nixon. "The part that starts, 'I do solemnly swear . . .' " When his wife Mary impulsively bought an $8,400 gold bed in London (TIME, April 6), Ghana's Minister of Industries Krobo ("Crowbar") Edusei flew off the handle. Such luxury was just "not socialism," cried he. Nor was it what President Kwame Nkrumah meant when he ordered government officials to "set our own house in order." Piqued by the purchase, Ghana's newspapers began examining Crowbar's living conditions, discovered that he had set no fewer than five houses in order, among them a three-story pad outside Accra, which cost some $200,000, with swimming pool, marble mosaics and a fountain. To Nkrumah, who recently spent $1,000,000 to face-lift his 120-room palace, such high life was too much. Last week, he crowbarred Crowbar from his Cabinet.

Photographers' stools clattered to the floor, women screamed, and Japan's pocket paparazzi crawled all over one another for a better shot. In the eye of the storm at Tokyo International Airport, the dapper figure stood unruffled, not even clenching a tiny fist. "Too much has been written about me being difficult and obstinate," crooned a newly mellow Frank Sinatra, 46, on the first stop in a two-month world tour to raise money for children's charities. "There's no new Sinatra. The difficulty has been on the other side." To prove it, Frankie actually chatted amiably with "the other side"--newspapermen--explaining that he was making the trip because, "as an overprivileged adult, I would like to help underprivileged children."

Beyond the age when most women mark even one birthday, Britain's Queen Elizabeth cheerfully celebrates two each year. Last week, with peripatetic Prince Philip back at anchor and her three children at her side, the Queen held a quiet family party at Windsor Castle on the occasion of her 36th birthday. The pomp and pageantry come on June 2, official birthday of British monarchs.

Laid low by a lump in his neck, ebullient Comic Jackie Gleason, 46, underwent surgery in Manhattan last week, rebounded with rotund resiliency and was soon eating and talking and eating.

Having zipped over the U.S. at 17,750 m.p.h. during his 17-orbit spin last August, Soviet Cosmonaut Major Gherman Titov, decided it was time for a more leisurely look. Titov, whose 25-hr. 18-min. flight remains the world's record, requested a visa to attend an international space conference that opens in Washington next week. There he may get to meet a fellow space traveler, who is scheduled to talk about his own three-orbit flight: U.S. Astronaut Lieut. Colonel John H. Glenn Jr.

*War and Peace? Henry V?

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