People: Jun. 2, 1961

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Although the medium has made him famous, Dr. Frank Baxter, 65, bald, genial lecturer on Shakespeare and science, had some scornful words for television. "The idiots who run TV ... think people are best pleased at the low, hypnotic and opiate level," he told his last Shakespeare class, as he prepared to retire from the University of Southern California. Said Baxter: "There is no law in America which deprives people of reading."

"For the past ten years I've been on the air doing a great deal of talking," said TV's soft-spoken Dave Garroway, 47, announcing his resignation as host of NBC's Today show. "I want to start looking, thinking, and listening.'' Burdened by his wife's death (TIME, May 5), he also wants to be a good father to his three children "during a critical period in their lives." Said he: "Our family needs each other now more than ever."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai E. Stevenson won a couple of diverse honors last week, accepted both with cool aplomb. Named "National Father of the Year" by the National Father's Day Committee, he spoke out in defense of that "butt of the comic strips" and "boob of the radio and TV serials," the American father. Said Adlai, father of three and grandfather of three: "Life with father seems to have degenerated into a continuous sequence of disrespect, or tolerance at best . . . Even though we don't want him to be the autocrat of the breakfast table, I think we might consider giving him at least a polite seat at the table." Earlier in the week, Adlai received a more noteworthy tribute from ex-Senator Herbert H. Lehman, who announced the creation of an Adlai E. Stevenson Foundation to provide scholarships for 60 Jewish Theological Seminary students. "I have received many honors," said Adlai at a fund-raising dinner that quickly tapped 24 well-heeled guests for $625,000 of a $1,500,000 goal, "but none have moved or pleased me more than this."

Winner by three-quarters of a length in the Winston Churchill Stakes at suburban London's Hurst Park last week was the 5-to-4 favorite, a four-year-old named High Hat. Owner: Sir Winston Churchill. Purse to winner: $5,714.

Two of the best catches in the British Isles caught each other last week. Married in rural Devonshire were rich, handsome Anthony Nutting, 41, once a rising Tory who quit as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in 1956 in protest against the Suez invasion, and Anne Gunning, 30, elegant, mint-cool Irish model and onetime LIFE cover girl (Aug. 10, 1953).

She claims remote descent from Ireland's famed Gunning sisters, Maria and Eliza beth, who went to London 200 years ago and made some pretty fair catches themselves: Maria hooked the Earl of Coventry; Elizabeth got the Duke of Hamilton and later the Duke of Argyll.

After four years as a widow, during which she started and then scrapped a book on the stormy career of her late husband, Communist-hunting Republican Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Mrs. Jean Kerr McCarthy, 36, former college beauty queen, disclosed plans to wed a widower whose wife also died four years ago. Her choice: G. Joseph Minetti, 53, Brooklyn lawyer, Civil Aeronautics Board member and confirmed Democrat.