For her birthday she received nearly 800 telegrams and, among other things, "some lovely roses" from Princess Grace. But best of all, declared Elsa Maxwell, "Yesterday my doctor gave me a clean bill of health. Life begins at 80, I say." Whatever she says, Octogenarian Elsa--tireless doyenne of international society--is seldom short of listeners, can proudly claim: "I have more friends than any living person." Nijinsky has danced atop her piano; De Gaulle awarded her the Legion of Honor ("I was a great Gaullist during the war. I always liked what he said--whatever it was, I forget now"); and years ago, a young Briton named Winston Churchill taught her a card game called bezique ("When I complained about the stakes, Winston told me, 'Always play for what you can't afford to lose, and you will learn the game' "). After a lifetime of parties, "around 10,000," her favorite Manhattan revel remains the annual April in Paris Ball for charity, created by her in 1951. "We hold the ball in the fall," she explains, "because April is a bad time to have it--everybody's in Europe."

His weekly radio-TV chat gave New York's Republican Senator Kenneth B. Keating, 63, an opportunity to remind constituents of "the hazards of public life." From an upstate community, said Keating, "I received an invitation to make a Memorial Day speech. However, the program described gave me quite a start." The sentence that bothered Keating: "This year's program will include a talk by the mayor, a recitation by a student, your speech, then the firing squad." Having commitments elsewhere, the Senator declined.

A study in contrasts were Dwight D. Eisenhower, 72, and British Ambassador to the U. S. Sir David Ormsby Gore, 45. The invitations to a Waldorf-Astoria dinner specified "Decorations," and titled Sir

David--who is used to that sort of thing --appeared in full regalia, all sashes and sunbursts. Honor Guest Ike showed up wearing plain white tie and tails, though he probably owns enough beribboned pins, medals and sundry fruit salad to set ten suits ablaze. Later he picked up another award: a gold medal from The Pilgrims of the United States "for great contributions to the cause of Anglo-American unity."

Still flip, flapperish, and decidely brunette--some 38 years and 2,000,000 copies after the first appearance of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes--Satirist Anita Loos, 70, celebrated its 42nd edition by confiding a secret about Lorelei Lee--that diamond digging doll from Little Rock. The book came about, says Anita, "because I had a terrible mash on H. L. Mencken. He liked this ga-ga blonde, so I wrote this as revenge . . . Mencken was a terrible Puritan, you know. But he went right on annexing blondes." And though Lorelei turned out to be a girl's best friend, Author Loos is not resting on her royalties. Next project: a play (for Carol Channing) about Anne of Cleves and Henry VIII. "It's about a new kind of blonde that gentlemen did not prefer. We don't yet have a composer, but we've got some very good dirty lyrics--right out of Chaucer."

Ill lay: King Paul of Greece, 61, recovering from an appendectomy, at Evan-gelismos Hospital, Athens; Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, 67, reportedly hospitalized with flu and complications, in Moscow; Representative Francis E. Walter, 69, Pennsylvania Democrat, chairman of House Committee on Un-American Activities, stricken with leukemia, but "up and about," in Georgetown University Hospital.

"When you've lived 63 years, you're bound to pick up a bit of sophistication here and there. But I was probably sophisticated when I was five," quipped theatrical Man-for-All-Seasons Noel Coward. Wearing a green felt hat rakishly atilt, Coward flew into Sydney, Australia --out of Beirut, Bangkok and Hong Kong --to steer his musical Sail Away through its opening in Melbourne. Full sail with plans for two new musicals, two plays, a book of stories, and more of his autobiography, the playwright flatly admitted success. "Nothing has adversely affected me," said he, "except my oil paintings. They've given me an allergy to turpentine."

Glamorous Maria Callas, 39--long the favorite diva of Greek Shipping Tycoon Aristotle Onassis--stepped onstage at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, and her audience succumbed to love at first sight. Not so German critics, who ungallantly complained about the sound. "The passion has disappeared," said Die Welt's man on the aisle. "One gets the impression she has bidden farewell to art." Groaned another:

"Of the three octaves her voice once covered, only the middle range remains unchanged." After the blitz, Callas remained incommunicado. Said her manager: "We don't argue with critics," though it did seem pesky of them to count up "the notes that went wrong, and not the thousands of notes that went right."

Party loyalty swept Washington, most of it for a series of farewell shindigs honoring Tish Baldrige, 37, dynamic White House social secretary, who leaves in June to take a job at Joe Kennedy's Merchandise Mart in Chicago. One well-attended bash, arranged by an aide of Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, had all those Texas trimmings--including a garden display of some high points in Tish's career. Later, L.B.J. helped whoop it up for a set of lyrics (to the tune of St. James Infirmary Blues) dedicated to the capital's favorite blonde:

She'll shine like a Tiffany jewel

In Chicago's set.

They're in for an urban renewal

The big town won't forget!

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