Betty Bloomer was not only a Powers model and a Martha Graham dancer before she married Gerald Ford in 1948; she had also been married. In 1942 Betty had wed a Grand Rapids neighbor, Furniture Salesman William Warren. Then in 1947, the couple were divorced on grounds of incompatibility, Betty being granted a token settlement of $1. A year later, she and Jerry Ford were married in a Grand Rapids church with the blessing of an Episcopal bishop. There has been no effort on her part, or on anyone else's, to conceal this historical footnote. The Vice President's wife told TIME'S Bonnie Angelo: "Everybody in Grand Rapids knew about it. A lot of people were at both weddings." And how did the press miss it? Explained Betty: "They've asked me every other question imaginable--but nobody ever asked me that."

"At first they looked at us, looked away and then acted like we had knocked the breath out of them." The speaker was George Wallace Jr., 22, a history major at Montgomery's Huntingdon College. With Evelyn Bradford, 18, a black student, he undertook a project for their social problems course. Posing as an engaged couple, they went apartment hunting in Montgomery. George reported to the class that three out of four landlords slammed the door in the couple's faces. Then he added: "I thought attitudes would be worse, but times are changing." Asked about his son's exploit, Governor George Wallace, who in 1963 physically tried to block integration at the University of Alabama, replied, "No comment."

Looking pale and drawn, Artist Edith Irving, 39, was paroled last week from a Swiss jail. She had served 14 months of a 24-month sentence, which was slightly less than the sentence imposed by a U.S. court on Husband Clifford Irving for masterminding the Howard Hughes hoax that put them both in the pokey. Edith was met by Emil Stengele, a wealthy Zurich art-gallery owner who has bought the many paintings she made in prison for exhibition later this month. Her time behind bars revealed Edith's tough side: she disarmed an inmate who was attacking a guard with a knife. In June, she plans to pick up her two sons from Clifford, who is on parole in Manhattan, and take them to live with her in Ibiza. "Clifford and I plan to get a divorce," she said. "It has nothing to do with the Hughes affair but is a normal end to an unhappy marriage."

Taking time out from preparing his next thriller, Director Alfred Hitchcock, 74, attended a gala in his honor given by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in Manhattan. Accompanied by his wife of 48 years, Alma Reville, who was one of his first scriptwriters, the master sat in a box while 2,800 admirers, who had paid up to $250 each, enjoyed three hours of celluloid suspense. Clips from many of Hitchcock's 56 movies were interspersed with personal appearances by French Director Franc,ois Truffaut, Joan Fontaine (Rebecca), Janet Leigh (Psycho). Cyril Ritchard (Blackmail) and Monaco's Princess Grace (Rear Window, Dial M for Murder). Grace, whose career was made in Hitchcock movies, quoted one of Hitch's quips. After being stuffed into a tightfitting gold lame ballgown for To Catch a Thief, she was greeted by him with "There's hills in them thar gold." As for Hitchcock, he emphasized that there is protocol even in murder. "Nothing more revolts my sense of decency," he said, "than an underground character being able to murder people to whom he has not been properly introduced."

Despite the promise of her voice, there were those at Milan's La Scala in 1956 who wondered if Madame Butterfly should be 5 ft. 10 in. in her zori. But American Soprano Anna Moffo went on to make a dazzling operatic debut, and since then Cio-Cio-San has been one of her favorite parts. Last week Anna had a chance to restudy the role in Butterfly's homeland. On her first visit to Japan, she wasted no time becoming acclimatized. To the delight of the tourists, she tripped through Tokyo's Chinzanso Gardens in a silk kimono, white makeup and the elaborate coiffure of a geisha. After which Anna, who a couple of years ago was advocating opera in the buff, recorded her first impression of covered-up Japan: "I have discovered that it's the back of the neck that really counts."

It seemed a storm in a stirrup cup. "Columbus was overridden and possibly even terrified," declared an outraged TV viewer of the Badminton horse trials in Gloucestershire. Animal Lover Jean Pyke was attacking Captain Mark Phillips for his handling of the hunter that had been lent to him by his mother-in-law for the grueling three-day contest of dressage, show and cross-country jumping. A big gray, Columbus had galloped off with the Whitbread Trophy to the delight of Winner Mark and Owner Queen Elizabeth, and the wifely acquiescence of Princess Anne, who placed fourth in the event. Mark had his defenders, however. Said Dorian Williams, a veteran equestrian and BBC commentator at Badminton: "The horse was pulling like a train throughout."

In 143 one-reelers and 52 feature films, she played the kind of waifs and orphans and ingenues who broke America's heart. And after Mary Pickford married Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in 1920 at the peak of her career, they reigned at "Pickfair" for ten idyllic years, entertaining foreign royals. But behind the simper, Mary, who went into show business at the age of four, possessed the brain of a Harvard Business School graduate. In Sweetheart, the first full-length biography of Pickford, published this week, Author Robert Windeler tots up Mary's present fortune to more than $50 million, the result of astute salary bargaining and real estate investments. At 81, Mary has a long memory about money. She got really mad at Old Friend and Rival Charlie Chaplin only when, in 1956, he sold his share of United Artists (the company formed by Mary, Doug, Charlie and D.W. Griffith) without giving her first refusal. Told recently that Charlie had mellowed, Mary was unforgiving. "That's all very well," said America's sweetheart, "but he's still a son of a bitch to me."

The Oakland A's Reggie Jackson, 28, was hitting well over .400 six weeks into the baseball season. In fact, he was aiming at a year's average of .400--last achieved in 1941 by Ted Williams. But last week Jackson, the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1973, limped to the dugout at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium with a painful nerve in his right leg. Saying "My leg may hurt, | but I can still swing the wood," Jacks son, one of the most feared hitters in I the game, saw his average sink to a still sizzling .390. He acknowledged I a little sadly, "I probably won't hit -- .400 this season, but I'm still the greatest in the game."

No sooner had the Royal Ballet's prima ballerina Antoinette Sibley, 34, been given the plum of her career--a three-act version of Manon created especially for her by Choreographer Kenneth MacMillan--than she fell sick. A victim of frequent illness during her 18-year career, including tuberculosis and glandular fever, Sibley could not even start rehearsals last year because of an inflamed hip. Medication put her back on pointe, but she promptly irritated a nerve in her leg. Offstage again, she got the flu. When she finally opened in Manon last March in London, her personal triumph seemed as much one of survival as technique. And on the eve of making her U.S. debut in the role at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House this week, Sibley described what she went through. She said, "I kept feeling like Judy Garland."

Most Blatant Promotion Gimmick: Warner Brothers proudly announced that The Exorcist had brought two people together. Spinster Doris Davey fainted when she first saw the movie at a Chicago cinema eleven weeks ago, falling into the arms of Theater Manager Larry Watts. The couple were married last week. Still under the spell of The Exorcist, the bride wore the same suit she had collapsed in. Director William Friedkin, perhaps hoping to swell the movie's gross of over $19 million so far, made an appearance as best man.

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