People, Dec. 30, 1957

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

A fond dream of Playwright George Bernard Shaw, popular adoption of a king-size phonetic alphabet, is finally to get some development and promotion. Though G.B.S. left a tidy sum to his proposed ''alphabet trust," institutional beneficiaries under his will fought against relinquishing a farthing to further Shaw's idea (TIME, March 4); even his old friend Lady Astor dismissed it as "ridiculous." Last week's compromise in court: the public trustee of Shaw's estate announced that a maximum of $23,240 will be set aside for the project. A first prize of $1,400 will be offered for the best design of a "proposed British alphabet" concocted under Shavian rules. Later, Shaw's play Androcles and the Lion will be transliterated into the new letters, then printed and distributed throughout the English-speaking world for its enlightenment or mystification.

One of the U.S. Air Force's most eligible bachelors, rocket-sledding Colonel John Paul Stapp (TIME, Sept. 12, 1955), 47, now head of the Air Force's "Man in Space" Committee, is scheduled to crash through the matrimonial barrier. The bride: attractive ex-Ballerina Lillian Lanese, 33, who helps run an El Paso ballet school. Though noted for his amateur cookery (mostly steaks), Space Surgeon Stapp was not sure who will preside over the kitchen: "Just say we'll manage to eat!" Long billed as "the fastest [632 m.p.h.] man on earth," Dr. Stapp allowed that he began romancing Lillian only three months ago.

After artfully staying out of the public eye most of the time since their marriage nine weeks ago, Old (53) Groaner Bing Crosby and his bride, Cinemorsel Kathy (Operation Mad Ball) Grant, 24, ventured forth in Sunday best for the Hollywood premiere of The Bridge on the River Kwai. Brainy Kathy, a qualified cook by virtue of a college home-economics course, disclosed that she is now studying chemistry because, "I was a fine arts major [University of Texas], and I feel I have neglected the physical sciences. It's very good mental discipline."

On the 54th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, the National Aeronautic Association honored one of the airplane's best friends: Missouri's Democratic Senator Stuart Symington, first (1947-50) Secretary of the U.S. Air Force. For his "distinguished career of public service in the field of aviation," Stu Symington took a bow and got the annual Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy.

Japan's Crown Prince Akihito, 24 this week, reported to his three humble tutors on his studies of fish psychology. First, he had trained some salmon, bass and carp to associate their feeding time with the lighting of a red lamp. Having established a conditioned reflex which led the fish to expect food whenever the light was switched on. Akihito then impaired their vision by tinkering with their ophthalmic nerves. His scientific conclusion from the experiment (no surprise): the delicate operation caused the fish to "lose their previous ability to connect the lamp's red glow with food."