People, Sep. 19, 1955

Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

After her tempestuous, two-continent romance with Bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguin seasons ago. perfervid Cinemactress Ava Gardner was again building castles in Spain with a toreador. In the bull ring of the ancient town of Alcala de Henares, slight, curly-haired Cesar Giron, 21, was so inspired by Ava’s presence in the stands that he dispatched his bull in high style, won both ears and the tail, presented his bloody trophies to Ava, who clutched an ear to her lips for a long kiss as the crowd cheered. But in another fight last week at Aranjuez, near Madrid, more sober-minded aficionados seemed less happy about Ava and the toreador. Ava was dazzling as ever in a yellow frock, but Cesar was peaked and off his form; he fought only a fair fight and won neither ear nor tail for his lady.

At the seaside resort of Blackpool in industrial Lancashire, Soviet Ambassador Jacob A. Malik found an unlikely path to the heart of the British masses. He pulled a silver-handled switch, turning on 450,000 colored lights that run for seven miles and cause illuminated tableaux, moving figures and patriotic portraits to glitter brilliantly against a background of 50 miles of electric bulbs. The lights are the pride of the working class of Lancashire, and the wily Soviet ambassador praised lights, people, town, county, and even allowed that the celebration was not unlike certain Soviet celebrations, before crying, “Long live light!” to the cheers of the crowd.

As they posed together for news photographers at the Michigan State Fair in Detroit, it was not easy to tell who looked prouder, Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson or Windrow Helene, his prize four-year-old cow. Windrow Helene, who produced 10,658 Ibs. (4,956 qts.) of milk in 305 days, was crowned grand champion female of the Ayrshire breed.

After starring as a wanton in NBC’s two-hour TV version of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth, peripatetic Musi-comedienne Mary Martin flew to Jamaica to rehearse with Noel Coward for CBS’s Ford Star Jubilee to be telecast next month, meanwhile telling one and all of her projected winter trip with husband Richard Halliday to the remote state of Goias, in Brazil. The spot she is dreaming about is 14° south of the equator, 600 miles from the coast, 2,500 ft. up a mountain on a lush plateau full of monkeys, birds and wild flowers, where the temperature ranges from 68° to 78° the year round. She bought the Brazilian Shangri-la for peaceful, isolated vacations after a visit to her friends. Couturier Adrian and his wife, oldtime Cinemactress Janet Gaynor, who have a home across the valley. To begin with, Singer Martin will build a small house (bedroom, kitchen, bath) on the plateau, which is 250 miles from the nearest telephone, and is reachable only by plane and a final bruising 30-mile drive over roads that would discourage a jackass, let alone an uninvited guest.

At the New York State Fair in Syracuse, Michigan’s Democratic Governor G. Mennen (“Soapy”) Williams smiled into news cameras after Iroquois Indians made him a blood brother, crowned him with a plumed headdress and handed him a small pillow picturing him on his way from Lansing, Mich, to the White House.

Dead these 85 years, General Robert E. Lee became a red-hot issue when the U.S.

Post Office put his sad-eyed, bearded face on a 30¢ stamp and decided to issue it at Norfolk, Va., where the American Philatelic Congress convenes this month. Virginians and Southern patriots with long memories raged that Norfolk was an insulting choice: it was in Union hands during most of the Civil War.

Having been a U.S. resident for more than the five-year minimum legal requirement, British Novelist Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, creator of Jeeves, filed a naturalization petition in Riverhead, L.I., in order to become a U.S. citizen.

The late Novelist Thomas Mann never worked on the projected sequel to his last novel, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (see BOOKS). When Mann finished the novel, his widow disclosed last week, he wrote an essay celebrating the i Soth anniversary of the death of Schiller. “Krull can wait,” the novelist said after he finished the essay. “I shall write a drama about Martin Luther instead; now the time is ripe for it.” Before he died, Mann had found the working title: Luther’s Wedding Day.

Gregory Ratoff, the actor with the unbreakable Russian accent, returned to Manhattan after producing, directing and starring in The Royal Bed, a movie shot in ex-King Farouk’s Egyptian palace about a skirt-chasing monarch. In an expansive mood, Ratoff reminisced about the time a U.S. publisher wanted him to write a book: “I say, ‘Why do you want to do my story? I come from the country where

Tolstoy ts a writer; he did War and Peace. I come from the country where Dostoevsky is a writer: he did Crime and Punishment. I come from the country where Gogol is a writer; he did Dead Souls. I am ashamed to write my story.’ But they offer me a contract. Now all I need is a good writer for my autobiography.”

After being a dead duck in Moscow for 15 years, Novelist Ernest Hemingway was transformed into a live pigeon with the translation into Russian and publication in full of The Old Man and the Sea. Looking cool and beautiful, Cinemactress Grace Kelly invited local police to her Hollywood home to search for a discriminating prowler who had startled her on the grounds. The police found no one. Meanwhile, French Actor Jean-Pierre Aumont, rehearsing in Manhattan for

Albert (My Three Angels) Husson’s new comedy, The Heavenly Twins, was in touch with Grace over transcontinental wires, purred to inquisitive reporters, “I weel talk to you about anything but Grace Kellee.”

In Denver, Colorado’s Democratic Governor Edwin C. Johnson, 71, longtime (1936-55) U.S. Senator, suffered a coronary thrombosis, but his condition was described as “satisfactory.”

At her home near Eagle Bridge, N.Y., Anna Mary Robertson Moses, the kindly old lady famed as the U.S.’s liveliest “primitive” painter, celebrated her 95th birthday. “As soon as all this fuss is over.” said Grandma, “I am going to sit quiet and think and remember and imagine. Then I’ll get an inspiration and start painting. Then I’ll forget everything except how things used to be. and how to paint so people will know how we used to live.”