People, Mar. 12, 1979

Faster than a speeding bullet? Not likely, when Superman's bright blue leotard bulged from a paunch that was bound to blunt the man of steel's airstream in flight. Actually Texas Senator John Tower, 53, never did get airborne, but otherwise the conservative Republican performed nobly in a Superman spoof mounted in Dallas by a drinking club of politicians and newsmen. "I was born to play Superman," acknowledged Tower, flipping his cape for dramatic emphasis.

For Pope John Paul II it was a curiously connubial week. First, in the Vatican's stately Pauline Chapel, the Pope kept a promise to a Rome street-cleaner's daughter...