People: Jan. 1, 1965

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Her qualifications for the secretarial job on the Washington staff of Maryland's Senator-elect Joseph Tydings, 36, were pretty impressive. She was an ultraloyal Democrat who had worked seven days a week for Tydings during the election campaign, could type 90 words a minute, take dictation at the stopwatch speed of 100 words per, and seemed a cinch for the job. But a girl can't have everything. It came out that leggy, blonde Mary Ellen Terziu, 23, also moonlighted her nights away as a bunny at the Baltimore Playboy Club. Up went the chances of the 200 other applicants for the job, and down went Mary Ellen's. To make her Christmas unforgettable, her Playboss fired her for having "political affiliations." Oh, Tydings of comfort and joy.

"Making 70 is no time for congratulations," boomed Australia's Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies as he celebrated his threescore and ten last week. "It's the end of the road, and nobody will be very excited if I live to be 71." But the acid old statesman with the snow-white mane and beetling black brows did seem to be mellowing after 16 years as Down Under's chief of state. He surprised newsmen with a rare birthday interview, chatted breezily for half an hour, even posed for cameramen before shooing them away with word that on doctor's orders he will take the month of January off for a vacation "on the bosom of the deep-where there are no telephones, no interviews and no speeches."

"Hi," beamed the pretty young thing, "I'm Mowena Glunch." Well, she wasn't, of course. She was Inez Chapin Mutton, 18, and she was one of 98 white-gowned young ladies being presented to society at the Debutante Cotillion and Christmas Ball at Manhattan's WaldorfAstoria. The very In thing this year was to introduce yourself to the postdebs and Ivy Leaguers trudging down the reception line as another girl entirely, so everybody had the most awful time sorting out Elizabeth Funston, 18, Virginia Guest, 18, Jocelyn Kress, 18, and Fernanda Kellogg, 18. But then the ritual began as always with the Coming Out Waltz, followed by the Garland Dance, the Polka Sleigh Ride and the Christmas Star, in which the gals kneel in the dark, hold candles and sing carols. Meyer Davis' band struck up Every thing's Coming Up Roses, swung into rock 'n' roll for the watusi, frug and monkey lovers. And before anybody realized it, it was 3 a.m. -and Good Night, Ladies.

Had he chosen law, his famous father could have greased the ways a little. But Thomas E. Dewey Jr., 32, wanted to make it himself in finance. Make it he did. A vice president of Wall Street Investment Banker Kuhn Loeb & Co. at 31, he has now been elected one of the youngest general partners in the firm's 97-year history. All this after his Princeton graduating class (1954) made him its second choice for "least likely to succeed."

"Well, it's Sunday, and what else can you do on a Sunday in New York?" asked Ethel Kennedy, 35, as she whirled round Manhattan's Rockefeller Center ice-skating rink with the Senator-elect and five (Michael, 6; Courtney, 8; Kathleen, 13; David, 9; Joe, 12) of their eight children. What else, indeed?