People: Jan. 7, 1966

“In the beginning . . . No mountains, no valleys, No bottom, no topless, No symphony, no jive, No Gemini 5 . . .”

Thus spake Duke Ellington, 66, in the lyrics for his swinging Genesis, In the Beginning God. Putting on the “personal statement” in his Concert of Sacred Music with the full band in Manhattan’s 157-year-old Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, the Duke made a joyful noise indeed. So did torchy Lena Horne, who sang an exquisite Christmas Surprise, the Ellington song about the birth of Christ. In doing hip hymns for the concert, which CBS will televise Jan. 16, the Duke explained, “You have to believe very strongly yourself or else it doesn’t work. The pulpit is like to fall on your head.”

“A slur on my firm!” cried Herbert Hill. “We will get Mr. Wilson by the ears before long.” It took more than a year, but Hill’s Hardy Spicer, Ltd., car-parts manufacturing company in Birmingham, did at least get Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson, 49, by the tongue a bit. Wilson’s counsel appeared in London’s High Court of Justice to deliver a handsome apology from the Prime Minister after he was charged with “libeling and slandering” Hill during the 1964 general elections campaign by suggesting that the Hardy Spicer management had fomented a strike at its plant in an attempt to defeat the Labor Party. The party agreed to pay Hill’s legal costs of about $4,200. Case dismissed.

It’s bad enough trying to maneuver down the intermediate slopes at Sun Valley when you’ve only been skiing a few times before. It certainly doesn’t help to have your five-year-old boy riding along behind on the shoulders of your ski instructor and yelling: “Watch out, you might fall! Watch out, you might fall!” Still, Jacqueline Kennedy stood up very well during the clan’s winter ski outing, and it may not be too long before she starts riding up to the expert slopes with Bobby and Ethel. John-John was doing fine at lessons with his sister Caroline on the beginners’ run, although he much preferred just sliding down on his belly.

For the Nefertiti nose, they found some Bugs Bunny teeth. For the Brooklyn Jewish goil, they got a shikse from Alaska, and so after 708 performances and a gross for the show of $7,800,000, Barbra Streisand left Broadway’s Funny Girl, bequeathing the Fanny Brice part to toothsome Mimi Mines, 32. It was a tough act to follow, but Mimi grinned gratefully: “It’s easier to follow a good act than a bad one—it’s not like this show was a bomb.” Neither was Mimi. Everyone of course would think of Barbra, but after a few performances, Producer Ray Stark thought his new Funny Girl girl so humorous that he offered her and her husband Phil Ford, who now has the role of Eddie Ryan in the play, a $1,000,000 film, stage and TV contract.

At first Lyndon was grumpy about the idea. But Luci Baines Johnson, 18, gave him the treatment for more than two months, and he gave in. After inspecting the engagement ring, the President announced that Luci will marry Pat Nugent, 22, the tall, quiet boy now stationed as an Air National Guard trainee at Lackland Air Force Base, just 70 miles from the L.B.J. Ranch. With that announcement out, Older Sister Lynda Bird flew off with a chaperoning squad of Secret Service men to spend three days in Wyoming and Utah throwing snowballs at one of her beaux, Brent Eastman. Would they announce anything? Of course not, said Brent, a med student who met Lynda last summer while guiding her raft down Wyoming’s Snake River, but “I think you could call it a strong friendship.”

While John Lindsay was getting set for his inaugural bashes in all five boroughs, New York’s much-relieved outgoing Mayor Robert Wagner, 55, climbed into his old black Cadillac limousine for a trip to City Hall, and naturally, the machine broke down. Bob sighed, eventually made it in another car to meet his city council one more time and receive its last hurrah. As he said goodbye, a nostalgic Wagner drew on his twelve years’ experience as mayor of the world’s greatest city and told everyone what the new man would be in for, just in case he didn’t know: “blighted neighborhoods, educational retardation, high school dropouts, tensions, conflicts, fears, hates, the danger of disorder and riot.” And so on. Later, when someone suggested brightly that his son Robert Jr. might some day make a fine mayor, Wagner just muttered: “My God, the poor fellow.”

Midst laurels stood: Houston’s famed Surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, 57 (TIME cover, May 28), who received the Gold Medal Award of the nation al medical fraternity, Phi Lambda Kappa, for his achievements in cardiovascular surgery; Metropolitan Opera Soprano Leontyne Price, 38 (TIME cover, March 10, 1961), named for the 50th Spingarn Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, for her “divinely inspired talent and priceless contributions to the continuing crusade for justice”; General Earle Wheeler, 57 (TIME cover, Feb. 5), chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, honored with Thailand’s Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant, first class, by Premier Kittikachorn.