The Pulchritude-Intellect Input

Hubert Humphrey bounces into the Oval Room of the White House, exuding more than his usual good spirits. "By golly, by gum, gee whillikers, don't you look wonderful, Mr. President!" Lyndon Johnson replies with his usual frankness: "All right, cut the crap, Hubie. I got somethin' to tell ya." Thus the President informs the Vice President that he does not intend to run for reelection, that the way is now open for a Humphrey candidacy. "Hello, Muriel Bird," the Veep burbles into the phone five minutes later. "Have I got good news!"

That at least is how the dramatic moment at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was envisaged by Broadway Playwright Neil Simon (The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite) and Comedians Tony Randall and Larry Blyden, who performed the skit before 19,000 cheering Eugene McCarthy fans in New York City's Madison Square Garden last week. As the star-fraught spectacular showed, politics this year has attracted an extraordinary input of pulchritude and intellect. In no other election have so many actors, singers, writers, poets, artists, professional athletes and assorted other celebrities signed up, given out and turned on for the candidates.

Dividing Equity. Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy have, in fact, just about divided Actors' Equity between them (see box). There have been some notable crossovers. Gene has lured Rob ert Vaughn (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) from touch-football games at Hickory Hill, while Bobby has corralled Carol Channing, who warbled her way into the White House with Hello, Lyndon! in 1964. Artists, writers and other intellectuals are also pretty evenly divided between the two. Bobby has a corner on famed athletes. With just the names he has now, he would probably sweep both the World Series and the football Super Bowl--though he might have trouble in the National Basketball playoffs.

If Beautiful People had their way, no one but McCarthy and Kennedy would be in the race. Though the Sinatras--Frank and Nancy--have for reasons of their own renounced the Kennedys for Humphrey, the Vice President's supporting cast is far shorter and markedly less sexy. H.H.H.'s leading B.P.: Tallulah Bankhead, Roberta Peters, Sarah Vaughan, Jack Dempsey, Joseph Wood Krutch, Isaac Stern, John Steinbeck, Ralph Ellison and James T. Farrell. Couturiere Mollie Parnis is on the list --though of course Muriel makes almost all of her own clothes.

Richard Nixon's celebrity roster is also brief--but heterogeneously charming. Its stars include Ray Bolger, John Wayne, Bart Starr, Ginger Rogers, Joe Louis and Rudy Vallee, who adjudges Nixon "the most qualified man in this country, intellectually and emotionally." Oddly, none of Ronald Reagan's former Hollywood colleagues have yet agreed in public that the Governor should move from Sacramento to Washington. To date, the only Beautiful Person who has declared for Nelson Rockefeller is Happy.

Simon for President. Does it really matter what the Beautiful People think? Yes, in a way. McCarthy might have brought many people to Madison Square Garden all by himself, but a mass of other entertainers helped make the night a smash: the $300,000 take provided more than a third of the entire budget for his California campaign.

In addition, famous names have helped make successes of the "Eugene" cabarets in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. For $5-a-head admission, plus drinks, nightclubbers, besides engaging in lively intertable political repartee themselves, can watch top entertainers and other talent. Some of the acts could not be duplicated anywhere else. The L.A. branch, for example, featured Novelist William Styron, Negro Actor Ossie Davis and Writer James Baldwin in a crackling debate last week on the merits of Styron's novel The Confessions of Nat Turner. So successful have the cabarets been ($11,500 a week to the McCarthy treasury) that a fourth opened in St. Paul ($3 a head) at week's end.

While a star can help--and hardly hinder--a campaign, it is too early to say what campaigning does to stars, who are aware of the celluloid sell that helped propel Reagan and Senator George Murphy into office. In time, the Beautiful People may decide there is a better way of putting ideas into practice--and begin recruiting other B.P. for their own candidacies. Simon for President? Garfunkel for Veep? And who would be better attuned to defense than the Jefferson Airplane?

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