Male chauvinism may be too strong a term, but the word from Pope Paul VI hardly endorsed Women's Liberation. Reaffirming the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to abortions ("abominable crimes"), the Pope took a cold look at "feminine emancipation" and "socalled sexual liberty." True emancipation does not lie in "materialistic equality," he said, but in "recognition of that which is essential and specific in the feminine personality--the vocation of the woman to be a mother."

Someone had this great idea for Holland America Cruises: for $1,400 per person, the 650-bed S.S. Statendam would steam from New York to Florida for the Apollo 17 launching, then sail through the Caribbean while a band of intellectuals discussed what it all meant. Some never showed up: specifically Arthur C. Clarke, co-author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Rocket Titan Wernher von Braun. But Novelist Katherine Anne Porter (Ship of Fools) was on hand to describe the launching as "rather glorious." So was Norman Mailer, who argued that the space shots should have included experiments in magic and telepathy. The problem: only about 40 people bought the premium tickets; the remainder were various "guests," including travel agents, some Philadelphia clothing-store executives and 15 fashion editors. Estimated loss on the great idea: $250,000.

Ali MacGraw is a movie star, and a movie star ought to have her hands and feet stuck into concrete. So decided Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, picking Ali as the 158th celebrity to get the concrete treatment outside its doorway (the last person so honored was Gene Kelly in 1969). To her dismay, Ali found the site crowded not only with fans but with demonstrators, who greeted the heroine of Love Story with rude placards. Urged one: LET US GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE. ALI MACGRAW, WHO ARE YOU!! Ali knelt anyway, pressed her extremities into the mush, also inscribed, "Peace & Love, Ali MacGraw," and then departed, her place in movie history secure.

Was it true that Manuel ("El Cordobes") Benitez, the recently retired bullfight star, had promised to marry his girl friend if she bore him a son? Not exactly. It was undeniable that pretty, young Marline Rayasse last month did bear him a son, Manuel II (they also have a four-year-old daughter). At the baptism, the 36-year-old ex-matador said that the birth of his son "has persuaded me that I must marry." As to the date, however, he was skittish. "If one morning when I get up," he said, "I have mischievous ideas and she feels the same, we will go to the church."

Somebody at a Manhattan cocktail party had the audacity to ask whether Martha Graham, now 78 and no longer dancing, had any plans to retire. "Retire!" she exclaimed. "What would I do? We must all go on, and I am going on." That settled, Miss Graham, a frail figure in black and turquoise pajamas, said nice things about Israel's Batsheva Dance Company, which has been performing some of her works on its current American tour--"beautifully." Then back to her own plans: "I'm pulling back my dancers from all over the world so we can get the company together again for a season in early spring. I'm going through rebirth!"

"I could hardly credit what I heard," wrote Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger after a mere railway conductor decided against him. Somewhere between Manhattan and Washington, D.C., Burger had complained to the conductor that the first-class club car on the high-speed Metroliner was being "polluted by three cigar smokers." The conductor replied that Burger and his wife could move to the coach nonsmoker. "This turns common sense and common decency on its head," argued the Chief Justice in his appeal to Transportation Secretary John Volpe (newly named Ambassador to Italy). Result: a decision in Burger's favor, and no more cigars (cigarettes are still permitted) in the Metroliner's first-class cars.

When the leading lady suddenly falls ill, the kindly old character actor always turns to Ruby Keeler or whoever and says: "You're going out there as a nobody, but you'll come back as a star!" In Toronto when Debbie Reynolds got a strep throat and couldn't sing in the Broadway-bound musical Irene, the producers turned to Understudy Janie Sell--and Janie said no thanks. She had been studying her own part, and she hadn't yet learned Debbie's. So the voiceless Debbie went on, dancing and pantomiming while Director Sir John Gielgud introduced each scene by giving a synopsis. The audience was not amused. No sooner had the stratagem been announced than one spectator shouted, "Outrage!" and some 300 (out of 1,500) patrons began filtering out into the night. The day after, Debbie muttered: "Next time, I'll stay in bed."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.