People, Mar. 18, 1974

Singer Pearl Bailey was displeased with her accompanist. When he tried to resign, saying "I probably don't know any songs you know," she shrugged, "Mr. President, anything you play, I know—however old." But when he broke into a stilted Home on the Range, she withered him with "I came here to sing a song, not to ride a horse." Finally, Pearlie Mae and President Richard Nixon harmonized. With 41 Governors and guests at the White House dinner last week, they chorused My Wild Irish Rose and God Bless America.

First, Cher kept putting down Sonny on their TV show. Then Sonny sued for a legal separation. Cher countersued, claiming she was sold into "involuntary servitude" to Sonny by a craftily written contract. Now Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour producers are having their downer. The show's rationale, the joys of marital strife, has vanished. But impervious to the show's doom and the feelings of their fans, Sonny and Cher seem content to rest on their considerable commercial success. That is to say, Sonny is. Cher's ambitions are already focused elsewhere. At the Grammy Awards, she showed up on the arm of Elektra-Asylum Records President Dave Geffen, humming.

A veteran of more than 1,000 Wagner performances, Heroic Soprano Birgit Nilsson, 55, is understandably cautious around the holes, traps, platforms, rising elevators, special effects and other hurdles that wait in ambush on the operatic stage. But last week, as she carefully felt her way through a dress rehearsal for the Metropolitan Opera production of Götterdämmerung, the singer was ensnared by a shaky staircase. As she stepped from a stage platform onto the stairs, the structure collapsed, sending her tumbling four feet to the floor. Hospitalized with a dislocated shoulder, face cuts and multiple bruises, Good Trouper Nilsson dismissed her injuries with "I did not hurt my teeth, which would have affected my ability to sing," and though in pain, appeared triumphantly on opening night. She also dismissed set-happy stage directors, who, she said, "think more elaborate sets will make opera better. But it's dangerous."

"There's no doubt about this one," declared a delighted Mrs. Mona Frost, 71, at her Suffolk home. "I knew the second I saw her." In fact, Mrs. Frost was so convinced that New York Cover Girl Karen Graham was going to be her daughter-in-law that she gave her some of Son David Frost's favorite recipes. "He likes my lemon meringue pie very strong, tart and lemony," advised Mum. As it turned out, Frost, 34, never got a chance to try Karen's culinary skills. Just two days before they were to be married by Evangelist Billy Graham in a Manhattan ceremony, Karen slipped away to Chicago and married Las Vegas Investor Del Coleman, leaving Frost, whose engagement to Actress Diahann Carroll ended last year with her marrying a Las Vegas haberdasher, once again a frustrated fiancé.