People: Sep. 14, 1970

Whither a Supreme Court judge goes, so goes his justice—even on a summer vacation. Last week two lawyers and a law clerk hiked six miles up a mountain trail in central Washington to where William O. Douglas was camping. They presented him with a petition requesting a temporary injunction against the Portland police. The iconoclastic judge told them to come back the next day, promising to leave his decision on a tree stump. Two of the petitioners, suffering from blisters and fatigue, failed to make the return trip. The third, locating the petition, found that he had indeed been stumped. Petition denied.

“I am never quite sure whether I am one of the cinema’s elder statesmen or just the oldest whore on the beat,” said Joseph L. Mankiewicz last week, contemplating his 41 years in Hollywood. Mankiewicz, who won Academy Awards for both screenplay and directing in two pictures—Letter to Three Wives (1949), and All About Eve (1950)—ruefully admitted that big-budget movies, à la his Cleopatra, which cost $40 million, are now out. “What they would like my next four films to be,” he said, “are Easy Cowboy, Midnight Rider, Cowboy Rider and Easy Midnight.” Mankiewicz has apparently got the message. His latest film is a low-cost western called There Was A Crooked Man.

Grace Slick, throaty lead singer of the acid-rock group Jefferson Airplane, is expecting. According to the latest issue of Rolling Stone, her husband Jerry doesn’t know anything about it because he’s not the father. Guitarist Paul Kantner, another Airplane, is. Grace admits that she is “a little worried, what with all the weird drugs we’ve been taking.” Anyway, the happy parents-to-be have already picked a name for the child—God. God Slick. Due in December.

In Venice, where his new movie was shown last week, Author Norman Mailer staunchly came to the defense of Maidstone, which he wrote, directed and, naturally, starred in. Set in a brothel for girls, the film had been criticized by female viewers on the grounds that it exploits women. Retorted the former candidate for mayor of New York: “Exploitation of woman? But it is impossible to exploit her because she has magic powers. I am against the emancipation of women just because I respect them.”

The bard of the boxing world, Cassius Clay, otherwise known as Muhammad Ali, last week made it back into the ring, although still barred from professional competition for evading the draft. The former world heavyweight champion won all three of his short exhibition bouts in Atlanta, but three years of battling the courts had obviously taken its toll. The speed of his punches and his Ali-shuffle were somewhat slowed, as was his tongue. Admitted the usually loquacious Clay afterward: “I’m not in shape.”

Jane Fonda, champion of the oppressed, last week came to the defense of another minority group. In Manhattan to film Klute, in which she plays a call girl, Jane accompanied an authentic prostitute to pick-up bars to observe the action firsthand. She quickly developed empathy for women who work the streets. “They are the inevitable product of a society that places ultimate importance on money, possessions and competition,” said Jane. “These ladies are saying out front, ‘We want the goods too; so we’ll do what other women do, but we’ll get paid for it.’ ”

He didn’t lift a bat on behalf of his old teammates, but the standing ovation he got from 20,980 fans at Yankee Stadium made it clear that they were delighted to have him back anyway. Wearing his old No. 7 uniform, Mickey Mantle last week began his new career as batting, outfield (and sometimes first-base) coach with the team he helped lead to twelve pennants in 18 years. What brought the 38-year-old Oklahoman—now a restaurant and clothing-chain executive—back into the pinstripes? Mantle simply missed baseball. “If I could still play,” he sighed, “I’d be out there making $100,000.”

“No, I never see Princess Margaret,” said the former R.A.F. fighter pilot, “just like I think a lot of people never see their old girl friends, you know.” Retired Group Captain Peter Townsend, now married and living outside Paris, was in London to promote Duel of Eagles, his newly published book about the Battle of Britain. But he spent most of his time fielding questions about his old romance with Margaret, which flourished although he was a divorcé until the Princess—under pressure from the Church of England—announced in 1955 that she would not marry him. What would he do if he met her by chance during his visit? “I’d just say hello, like anybody else. What would you do?”