People: Apr. 3, 1964

Their Liverpoodle hairdos looking even doggier than ever in dinner jackets (three rented, one owner-worn), The Beatles were all poshed up for a fancy do at London’s Empire Ballroom. Also present for the loudest cheers of the evening: the Duke of Edinburgh, who struck an I-want-to-hold-your-hand pose with Ringo while flashbulbs plopped like jelly beans. Then the talk turned to books. “I’ll swap you one of mine for one of yours,” said Author Philip (Seabirds in Southern Waters) to Author John Lennon (In His Own Write). Gulped Lennon: “Surely, sir.” . . .

Only three hours after he had been stabbed by an astigmatic fanatic, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer, 53, felt chipper enough to reassure the Japanese that the attack in no way changed his “deep regard” for them. But Reischauer’s diplomatic nonchalance was not enough to reassure the mortified Japanese government: the Home Affairs Minister, who had lost more face than Reischauer had blood, resigned. Next day Premier Hayato Ikeda so-sorried in Japanese (with English subtitles) directly to the U.S. via Relay II satellite. As far as Ambassador Reischauer was concerned, the whole affair was just another opportunity to cement Nipponese-American relations. The blood transfusions during surgery, he insisted, had made him a “true son of Japan, a mixed-blood child.” . . .

“No, they haven’t chosen Baby’s name yet,” sighed Lady Douglas-Home to a cluck of newshens. “They’ve tried everything. They’ve even been through the ‘Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names and found nothing.” Asked when the infant daughter of Diana Douglas-Home Wolfe-Murray would be christened, Granny Douglas-Home, chuckling at her own fun, replied: “I don’t know—she can’t be christened until they’ve got a name for her, can she?” At week’s end the Big Problem at 10 Downing Street was resolved: the Prime Minister’s granddaughter will be called Fiona Grizel. But of course!

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After taxes, Britain’s bestselling novelist has been pocketing a few measly pence in the pound, and dash it, Ian Fleming decided it was time to take action. For a $280,000 tax-free capital gain, he sold 51% of the royalties from his James Bond thrillers to Britain’s Booker Bros., a worldwide investment group. Though “all of me from the neck up” is now in Bondage to Booker, Fleming could at least afford a spot of Beluga caviar. Said the new boss, Sir Jock Campbell: “We’ve acquired a business with minimal management worries.”

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“Sometimes I feel like an actress myself,” allowed Lynda Bird Johnson, 20, during a backstage visit with Elizabeth Ashley, star of Broadway’s Barefoot in the Park, “even if I forget my lines once in a while.” Lynda Bird, sympathized Actress Ashley, is just a “normal girl who’s been thrown into something she’s not rehearsed for. She’s a marvelously girl-girl person.”

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Chicago is not the sort of place to take an insult lying down, particularly when the slur has crossed the Atlantic. “Injustice has been done to a great city,” roared Chicago’s Mayor Richard J. Daley, 61, when he heard that the city of Reading, England, has gone and changed the name of its Chicago Road to Sandcroft Road. Explained Reading’s Mayor J.C.H. Butcher: “Residents of the street have nothing against the city of Chicago. They say they just got tired of being asked by visitors where they could check their guns.”

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“He must have flown it in,” marveled a California highway patrolman. “You can’t drive in there.” The crumpled silver-grey Ferrari was wedged between the pines in a canyon in California’s High Sierras, where Singer Vic Damone, 35, crash-landed after skidding on a patch of snowy pavement. The car was a total wreck, but Damone and Wife Judy escaped with only minor dents. Alas, Groaner Damone had bought the Italian sports car only five hours earlier for $15,000, which is about what he earned during a ten-day engagement at the Reno nightclub owned by Bill Harrah—who is also Reno’s Ferrari dealer.

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A new presidential profile joined those of Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt on U.S. coins as the first John F. Kennedy half-dollars appeared. The new 500 piece (it replaces the Benjamin Franklin coin of 1948 mintage) was such a sellout that banks were forced to ration first-day collectors. Britain’s government announced meanwhile that an acre of historic Runnymede, where Magna Carta was signed in 1215, will be given in perpetuity to the U.S. as a memorial to the late President; a simple stone plinth will be placed on it.

. . . On water, she is a skillful skier. On snow for the first time, Jacqueline Kennedy found that there’s many a slip ‘twixt slope and slalom. At Stowe, Vt., with Fellow Tyro Caroline and a watching clutch of Kennedys (John-John, Bobby and his family, Teddy and his wife, and Eunice Shriver), Duffer Jackie took her tumbles in good form. Her instructor, former Olympic Ski Coach Pepi Gabl, said diplomatically: “She was very good, but it’s hard to say about a skier’s ability the first time.”

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