People, Apr. 19, 1976

Flying Down to Rio is more than an old movie to Singer-Actress Raquel Welch, 33. It’s becoming a habit. During her nightclub tour of South America in February, Raquel showed up at Rio’s carnival on the elbow of Paulo Pil-la, 32, a former public relations man. Recently she ventured south again to spend eight days with Paulo in Buzios, a few more in Petrdpolis, followed by a final fling on the Copacabana. Raquel, said observers, appeared to be apaixonada. In rough Portuguese, that means bonkers about Pilla. The twosome evaded publicity until their last day together, when photographers spotted them at Rio’s airport, bidding farewell before Raquel’s trip home. –

That leggy lady is Actress Charlotte Rampling, 30, former darling of the love-and-leather set. “I was labeled ‘decadent’ because of The Night Porter, but that’s not my personality at all,” stressed Rampling last week, recalling her 1974 movie role as the willing captive of an ex-Nazi. Actually, says Charlotte, she is a homebody whose heart belongs to her husband, Writer Bryan Southcombe, 38, and Son Barnaby, 3. From the looks of it, her present image is Hollywood wholesome in every respect. In Charlotte’s latest TV movie—titled Sherlock Holmes in New York—she portrays sleuth’s mysterious lady friend. Offscreen, Rampling is negotiating to adopt a young French orphan. “I’ll want to spend more time with my children, especially as they need me more,” says Mom. “My ideal now is to make about one film a year.”

Mix one swinging Senator, a couple of dancin’-fool actresses, a Russian-born ballet star, and what have you got? A floor show—if the principals are Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli and Mikhail Baryshnikov, who went into action last week at the Iranian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The occasion: a raucous, boozy party by Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi in honor of the American

Ballet Theater. Zahedi’s groupies included Ballerinas Alicia Alonso and Natalia Makarova, Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. But it was Taylor with her emerald-and-diamond baubles that caught the lights. It hardly mattered that pre-party rumors had erroneously linked Liz and Kissinger as dates for the evening. Sniffed Taylor imperially: “The important thing is that I came. Right?”

One measure of a person’s importance is the distance between the radiator and his statue in Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. Last week Lord Snowdon, returning to London for the first time since the announcement of his separation from Princess Margaret, discovered another yardstick. His Tussaud statue has not been melted. But it has been carted up to a storeroom above the exhibition hall. Tony will have some company in exile. Among his companions in the closet: former President Richard Nixon, who was removed from view after his resignation in 1974. –

After half a century in politics —capped by a five-year run as Prime Minister of Israel—what could be left for Golda Meir? Broadway, of course. At a meeting with agents of the New York Theater Guild in Tel Aviv last week, Golda, 77, signed over dramatic rights to her life story based on her 1975 autobiography, My Life. A nonmusical version of the book will hit the boards some time in 1977, said Guild President Philip Langner. Four Israeli actresses are already under consideration for the starring role, but Langner insists that the casting call will be strictly catholic. Said he:

“You don’t have to be Jewish to be Golda.”