The taxi fare (38¢) seemed reasonable enough, but not to the passenger, who was singularly belligerent for 10 a.m. "Go to hell!" she roared. "I have no money." The cabby summoned a bobby, who steered his charge to Liverpool magistrate's court, needed help from three more lawmen to lug the copper-tressed spitfire before the judge. The clerk asked her name. "To your regret and my pride, Sarah Churchill." In the box, Actress Sarah, 44, did nothing to help her cause by snarling ad-lib comments on the testimony, made an unconvincing plea of innocence on the stand: "I thought I was monstrously overcharged." Thinking otherwise, the judge fined her $5.60 for being drunk and disorderly. That afternoon, hiding any signs of a hangover, Sarah gave a stunning performance in the title role with the road company of Peter Pan.

On a tour of Rome. Everest-conquering Nepalese Guide Tenzing Norgay squeezed in a Vatican visit and a papal audience. "So this is Tenzing, the famous Sherpa," said Pope John XXIII, beaming. "Bravo, bravo, we all need to ascend more and more." Later, Buddhist Norgay summed up, imprecisely, the brief encounter: "The Pope is very likable, a very holy person, but it's hard to explain what a man feels in his presence."

With a mind to the comfort of his country's barristers, Premier Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana called for an end to a solemn heritage of British common law: the traditional curled lawyer's wig. Scoffed Nkrumah: "ridiculous headgear," considering Ghana's sweltering climate.

Puckered up for an irresolute buss were Red Hot Mama Sophie Tucker, 75, and effervescent Boulevardier Maurice Chevalier, 70, who wowed the throng at the Golden Globe Awards dinner of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with a nimble rock 'n' roll rendering of Sophie's old show-stopping Some of These Days.

Just to see that all was fair and square, jowly Playboy John Jacob Astor III notified a New York court that he would exercise his right to inspect the will of his half-brother Vincent Astor (TIME, Feb. 16), who left $2,000,000 to his widow, bequests of $827,500 to friends and relatives, the bulk of a great estate (at least $100 million) to charity. To nightclubbing John, whose easy-go ways have barely dented an easy-come $70 million or so, Philanthropist Vincent left not one cent.

Swathed in yards of bandages, mop-haired Pianist Van Cliburn, 24, walked shakily from a Manhattan hospital, an operation on the infected third finger of his right hand a success. Barred from the keyboard for at least two months, tireless Van, who has pounded away at some 90 concerts since his return from Russia last May, seemed almost resigned to trying a slower pace: "My doctor is trying to make me realize I must be more selfish, conserve my energy. If I don't, I won't be able to give anything to anybody."

In Buenos Aires, Nelly Rivas, 19, onetime teen-age mistress of Argentina's ex-Dictator Juan ("Just call me Pocho") Perón, announced that she and husband Carlos Ramil, an accountant at the U.S. embassy, expect a baby in April.