"For me, the damage is incalculable," said Director Federico Fellini, after learning that color negatives from his current film had disappeared from Technicolor's vaults near Rome. The negatives, from which final prints of the movie had not yet been made, represented Fellini's first three weeks of shooting on Casanova, with Donald Sutherland and Margaret Clementi in leading roles. "There are sets that have been dismantled to make room for other ones, actors who have finished their work and left for heaven knows where," lamented the director. While police began an investigation, Italian reporters tried to estimate the size of the anticipated ransom demand. Best guess: $1.5 million.

"That was the most frightening moment of my life," said British Rock Star Elton John, after fighting his way through a crowd of glitter groupies and onto the tennis courts at Forest Hills, N.Y. Armed with a sparkling forehand and pink, star-shaped sunglasses, Elton had joined Ted and Ethel Kennedy, plus some 40 celebrity racket wielders for the fourth annual Robert F. Kennedy charity tournament. While Jackie Onassis and Daughter Caroline watched, along with 13,000 other spectators, Tennis Pro Tony Roche collected first prize (a $12,000 BMW car) in the doubles competition with help from his partner, Comedian Alan King. "That's it, I'm retiring as the champion," joked King afterwards. "I'm never playing tennis again."

With most of the world's shipping industry struggling to keep afloat, one of its captains is getting along swimmingly. Millionaire Shipowner Stavros Niarchos, 66, has welcomed a new deck-mate aboard his luxury yacht. She is Pia Giancaro, 30, a still-aspiring actress whose credits include such best forgotten films as The Red Woman Kills Seven Times and When Men Were Armed with Clubs. At least one observer, however, thinks Niarchos may not exactly be thinking of his new flame as his seventh bride. "I don't think you could call it anything serious," he says. "Niarchos might enjoy having such a beauty on his boat."

Even in his Houston hospital bed, Astronaut Donald "Deke" Slayton, 51, was flying high. Shortly after his July 24th return from the Apollo-Soyuz space flight, during which Slayton and fellow Crew Members Thomas Stafford and Vance Brand had inhaled poisonous fumes, doctors spotted a tiny lesion on Deke's left lung. Because of Slayton's age and past history as a chain smoker, a better than 50-50 chance of malignancy was predicted. "He's an extremely lucky man," said Dr. Charles Berry after announcing that Slayton's tumor was benign. Not only will Deke regain his flight status, predicted doctors, but America's oldest active astronaut should be well enough to join Stafford and Brand on a tour of the Soviet Union later this month.

As a Jesuit priest, John McLaughlin once characterized priestly celibacy as "obsolete." As a $30,000-a-year White House speechwriter, he also predicted that Richard Nixon would go down in history as "the greatest moral leader of the last third of this century." Now a freelance writer and lecturer, McLaughlin, 48, has received a release from his Jesuit vows and last week married Ann Dore, 33, a public relations adviser and manager of McLaughlin's unsuccessful 1970 campaign for the Senate from Rhode Island. Explained McLaughlin: "I want to share my life with the gifted and lovely person who, surprisingly, wants to share her life with me."

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