Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

At his home in Erlenbach, Switzerland, German-born Author Thomas Mann, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature, paused on the eve of his 80th birthday to look back on his first novel, Buddenbrooks, penned 54 years ago. The book was, submitted Mann modestly, "the finest success of my life." He recalled that it had sprung not from literary ambition but from a wish to amuse a few intimates. Said Mann: "Late in life, when a writer realizes that he is producing what is called 'art,' he tends to break off his contacts with society and turn into an isolated Bohemian. It takes decades to realize that . . . one has oneself become an integral and not altogether uninfluential part of [society]."

In his fight to escape deportation to his native Argentina, Crooner Dick Haymes at last won a big round. A federal judge ruled that Hawaii is "a geographical part" of the U.S., thus Alien Haymes did not re-enter the U.S. illegally after a visit to Honolulu in 1953, when he was wooing his present, fourth wife, Cinemactress Rita Hayworth. The harassed Haymeses, however, had only a brief surcease of sorrow. Two days later, bad news broke: Columbia studios had sued Rita for default on a $17,844 note she signed last December. Day after that, the Justice Department, still determined to give Haymes a one-way ticket south, indicated that it will appeal the federal court decision.

Theatrical Master-of-all-Trades Noel Coward sighted Cinemactress Jean (Desiree) Simmons at a cocktail-drenched Hollywood party in his honor, affectionately gave her a platonic squeeze. This week Coward will begin a month's run in a Las Vegas pleasure dome at a reported $40,000 a week (a figure which probably, like many in the Nevada resort, is not entirely real). Entertainer Coward, 55, was "enchanted" by the prospect of bringing British culture to the Wild West. Burbled he of Las Vegas: "It's a combination of a gold rush and a honky-tonk." . . .

Newsmen tried to pump the Democrats' No. 1 eligible bachelor, New Jersey's handsome Governor Robert Meyner, 46, about a recent visitor at his seaside house in Island Beach, N.J. His guest: the Democrats' No. 1 eligible bachelor girl, Soprano-Comedienne Margaret Truman, 31. Far from hinting at romance, Bob Meyner snorted: "I don't publish my guest list."

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In San Francisco, Major General William F. Dean, 55, Medal of Honor winner for his bravery in Korea and staunch defier of brainwashing through almost three years as the Communists' top-ranking prisoner of war, confirmed reports that he had asked for retirement. Now deputy commander of the Sixth Army, Dean, still feeling the effects of his solitary imprisonment, plans to leave the Army at the end of October.

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Glowing with holiday anticipation, Britain's Prince Charles, 6, and his sister, Princess Anne, 4, with their pet Corgis waddling glumly beside them, entered Euston station to board a train that took them to Balmoral Castle in Scotland for Whitsuntide. At week's end, the royal children were caught at Balmoral by Britain's railway strike (see FOREIGN NEWS).

Plans to break their usual traveling routine and whisk them back to London on their first plane ride went awry when Anne, suffering from an ear infection, was, along with Charles, taken off the flight's passenger list.

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Banging out a guest column in Hollywood, TV Comedienne June (Willy) Havoc, 37, a serious student of men since her first marriage at 13, decided that there's no fool like a young fool, took a dogmatic stand in favor of elderly gentlemen : "There are very few interesting men under 65 ... When at dinner--instead of quickly appraising the younger men present--I always search for the shiny head, the silver hairs and the twinkling eyes . . . I learn things I couldn't possibly learn from younger men . . . through my good luck at being a chosen companion and friend of ... cavaliers in that age group . . . such dream boats, such apple tarts, such lamb chops as they."

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Fined $14 for speeding near Brady, Neb., while driving from the capital to her Utah home: Treasurer of the U.S. Ivy Baker Priest, a director of the speed-deploring National Safety Council. Said she: "Is my face red!"

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Streaking back and forth in the blue on a 9-mile course near Paris, Aviatrix Jacqueline Auriol, 37, daughter-in-law of France's ex-President Vincent Auriol, became the world's fastest lady. Her souped-up Mystere jet fighter plane hit a 708-m.p.h. average speed (an unofficial mark because the plane did not carry officially required recording instruments), eclipsed the 675-m.p.h. record set by the U.S.'s Jacqueline Cochran Odlum in 1953.

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