By Richard Stengel

The original Mercury astronauts seemed like seven identical slices of Mom's apple pie. Posing for LIFE, they were wholesome and squeaky clean, they were the True brothers, the select elect, they had it--you know--the right stuff. Now seven relatively unknown actors are portraying the real thing in a movie of Tom Wolfe's 1979 bestseller, The Right Stuff. Striking a version of the LIFE cover, they are, from left to right and top to bottom, Lance Henriksen as Wally Schirra and Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard; Ed Harris as John Glenn, Charles Frank as Scott Carpenter and Scott Paulin as Deke Slayton; Dennis Quaid as Gordon Cooper and Fred Ward as Gus Grissom. Said Quaid: "I get to be a national hero for six months." Hardly up to the public relations performance of the True Originals. At their press conference, a reporter queried, "Could I ask for a show of hands of how many are confident that they will come back from outer space?" Nine hands shot up like rockets. Glenn and Schirra raised both of theirs.

Royalty is bound by snoblesse oblige to obey the tenets of U and non-U, the sacred set of English rules that separates upper class from lower, proper from gauche. Lately the House of Windsor has been demonstrating both sides of U usage. At Badminton competing for the Whitbread Trophy, Princess Anne's horse Stevie B was decidedly non-U as he made a shambles of a jump and a splash of his royal rider. Both walked away safely, everything dampened but their spirits. Meanwhile, Fleet Street speculated that Princess Margaret would marry an Old Eton ian and wealthy widower, Norman Lonsdale. He would be an atypically U choice for Margaret. Asked whether he would rule out any chance that he would wed the Princess, Lonsdale was gallantly U in his reply: "I think it would be rather rude if I said there was no possibility." Mum was not the word, however, for Queen Elizabeth's press secretary, Michael Shea, whose normally tight lips loosened at a banquet. According to a journalist who was present, he revealed that the family nickname for the Queen when she was bored or displeased was "Miss Piggyface." His indiscretion was so unwisely non-U that Shea might soon be persona non grata. It remained for the new Princess of Wales to set matters right. There was an unconfirmed report last week that a routine medical scan revealed Diana's royal infant-in-waiting is male. Nothing is more U than a princess bearing a prince.

"Direct from the Motor City, the soul capital of America, the man of the hour, the man with the power, the hottest soul sensation since Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson; introducing the wonderful, the marvelous . . . Lily Tomlin!" Lily Tomlin? In her upcoming television special, Tomlin eerily metamorphoses into Purvis Hawkins, "the Messiah of Soul." Purvis is one of three new characters who will join Tomlin's company of creations. The other newcomers: Holly Oneness, a burned-out '60s folk singer, and Agnes Angst, a manic-depressive deeply into the "heavy mental" new wave sound.

-- By Richard Stengel

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