People, Jul. 12, 1954

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Egypt's pudgy ex-King Farouk, never a man to conceal his liking for girls, was busy beating down one of the most start ling rumors about himself to arise since his dethronement and divorce. The hot word: he plans on marrying his current traveling companion, a voluptuous Nea politan named Irma Capece Minutolo, 20, whose right to be called a marchioness was recently disputed when two Italian newsmen declared that her parents were a chauffeur and a janitor's daughter. At the newsmen's trial for slander, Irma's father had indignantly complained: "To doubt my daughter's aristocratic descent is to slander the father of the fiancee of Farouk, whose wedding is imminent." At week's end, however, Irma herself hastened to restore Farouk to full bachelor status. "I prefer not to marry," sighed she. "Farouk is sensible and tender, but marriage is the tomb of love."