"I like for people to call me Sir Larry. It makes me feel popular." Very popular indeed after 42 years on the screen, Laurence Olivier was giving a rare television interview in London to Dick Cavett. He clearly relished showing off a souvenir of his long movie career: an arrow wound on his left shin from the filming in 1956 of Richard III, but the old veteran was feeling his years when Cavett asked how he would play Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew, as he did when he was 15. Olivier, 65, quickly replied: "I'd play it older."

Who was the blonde dancing with Richard Nixon (TIME, Jan. 29)? The national photo services were flooded with calls. The mystery Cinderella with the 38-in. bust line turned out to be Susan Snyder, 27, the 5-ft. 8-in. wife of a Xerox Corp. employee who intends to turn the famous photograph into the family Christmas card.

The U.S. gave Japan baseball and now Japan is giving baseball Nichiren Shoshu, a turned-on version of Buddhism and 20th century power of Positive Thinking. Nichiren Shoshu claims 200,000 members in the U.S., including Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Willie Davis, 32. "This religion is simply a must for sportsmen," said Davis while on pilgrimage to the head temple at the foot of Mount Fuji. "I was never a great home-run hitter. I hit only ten home runs in the 1971 season. Last year I suddenly ended up hitting 19 because I chanted my prayers every morning and night and before every game." Why did his batting average drop from .309 to .289? "I didn't pray hard enough." -

After winning a dizzyingly publicized "talent hunt" for just the right Daisy in David Merrick's yet-to-be-made film version of The Great Gatsby, Mia Farrow does not intend to rest on her laurels--or her pretty face. Be fore she starts filming, Mia, who is getting $200,000 for Gatsby, is spending the time as Irina in Chekhov's The Three Sisters, with London's Company Theater. Her take: $60 a week.

William F. Buckley Jr., editor of the National Review and talkative host of television's Firing Line, is usually as hard on his friends as his enemies. But for obvious reasons he was ecstatic about Federal District Judge Charles L. Brieant Jr.'s decision that Buckley did not have to be a member of a union to voice his acid views on television. "Brieant makes good sense and good reading," exulted Buckley. "Considering that the judge confesses to not ever having seen Firing Line, he is remarkably well informed."

Political rumors don't always get started from conversations overheard at cocktail parties. Take the one that emerged from the sixth birthday party for Happy and Nelson Rockefeller's second child, Mark. "Were his mother and father there?" one mother asked her son afterward. "Yes." "You know his father is the Governor?" Replied the six-year-old: "No, he's not. She's the Governor and he's the Assistant Governor." -

After 37 years of marriage to Sir Michael Redgrave and tumultuous years as the mother of Lynn and Vanessa, Rachel Kempson, 62, has learned to deal with difficult situations. And as one of the stars of John Osborne's latest play, A Sense of Detachment, which invites audience participation, she was not about to let the audience get the better of her. When she was treated to what she called "barracking" by "two gaily dressed chaps," Rachel jumped from the stage, pulled the hair of one man, slapped the other and demanded they leave the theater before she continued. "I just saw red," she explained. "They spoiled my important speech."

"Women are more stubborn than men. That's why they make good reporters." Oriana Fallaci, the tiny (5 ft. 1 in.) Italian reporter who takes on the big guys for L'Europeo magazine, was off for a tenth visit to Viet Nam to reinterview President Thieu and cover the American withdrawal. The way she explains her exclusive interviews with world leaders, however, gender has less to do with it than size. "I got Thieu to talk because we are both very short. Henry Kissinger didn't talk as much because he's slightly taller than I am." -

Actress Jane Fonda and Political Activist Tom Hoyden had been married only five days and already there was trouble--at least for the priest who performed the ceremony. The Rev. Richard York has received a "letter of Godly Admonition" from the Rt. Rev. C. Kilmer Myers, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California, suspending him from administering the sacraments. Reason: he had not obtained permission to remarry a divorced person (Fonda from Director Roger Vadim).

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