People have suspected for years that somewhere in that grand French personality there was a touch of fighting Irish blood. Now French and Irish genealogists can prove it. And who should it be that Charles de Gaulle, 74, hails back to but Rudricus the Great, who ruled Ireland with might and main for 70 years before he died in 219 B.C. His descendants took the name MacCartan, and in 1711, a MacCartan emigrated from the Auld Sod to France where he married convent-educated Susanne Decoetlogon, who bore him five children, one of whom turned out to be De Gaulle's great-great-greatgrandfather on his mother's side.

It was the kind of award that can wreck a girl's image in the movies these days. So no wonder Elke Sommer, 24, said she was "very surprised" when the California Fashion Designers decided to name her the "best-dressed star of 1965." Elke recovered quickly enough to say graciously that she was also "very flattered and very thrilled. I like pretty clothes like every woman does." However, she continued thoughtfully, "I got all the publicity when I didn't wear them."

Up into New Mexico's Sandia Mountains went three forest rangers, a local lawyer, and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 66, there for a quick refresher course in outdoor living. At 10,000 ft., the view from the top was "splendid," but on the way down through Cibola National Forest, bitter cold, high winds and 15-ft. drifts from a sudden snowstorm turned the nightwalk into a nightmare. It took them nine hours instead of the usual five to negotiate six miles on snowshoes, edging their way down the steep switchback trails sideways like crabs. "We all had spills," said a weary Douglas when the party reached safety. "You learn to walk that canyon with great respect." But just the same, "Mrs. Douglas and I are coming out in the summer."

"I guess it was 1961 or 1962," monotoned Marlon Brando, 40, "when all of a sudden I was awakened by the girl I was with. Then I saw Anna." Anna, of course, was Actress Anna Kashfi, 30, his recently divorced wife, and she had broken into his house. "She started pulling the girl's hair out," drawled Brando. "I let her do it. I thought it would be good for her to get it out of her systern." Now Brando wanted to get their son, Christian Devi, 6, out of Anna's hands and was fighting her in a Los Angeles court for custody of the boy. Under crossexamination, Marlon readily admitted that both Anna and his second wife, Mexican Actress Movita, were pregnant when he married them, and that he also had a son by a Tahitian beauty whom he didn't marry. The judge decided that Marlon's methods were mere "shortcomings" compared to Anna's "reliance on drugs and alcohol," therefore awarded custody of the youngster to Brando. Cried Anna, dashing from the court in tears, "I bore this baby! Where the hell was Marlon Brando when the child was being reared?" Rhetorical question.

Moving down the list of notables at Lord Jim's London premiere, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother fetched up for a smiling vis-a-vis with Peter O'Toole, 31, the film's talkative star. "I think I brought it up," mused O'Toole later, "but we suddenly found ourselves talking about horse racing and the Grand National next month. I was hoping to get information. I didn't get any." The Queen Mother did, though, when O'Toole told her he'd once bet 10 quid on one of her horses, which didn't win. "Our horses hardly ever do, do they?" she laughed.

Whoever said the New York Yankees had hearts of flint? Infielder Phil Linz, 25, drew the wrath of management and a $200 fine for tootling a few off-key bars on his harmonica after a particularly galling loss to the White Sox last August. Now the Yanks want to start the new season on a high note. Fixed to the $13,000-plus contract Linz signed for 1965 was a $200 check, with a warming little message from General Manager Ralph Houk that the dough is to be used for harmonica lessons. That wasn't all. Linz is negotiating a second contract with Hohner Harmonicas to plug mouth organs coast-to-coast, which he can do on any of 50 harmonicas given him on the banquet circuit this winter, including a 2-ft.-long job presented by the Maryland Professional Baseball Players Association "for his baseball and cultural achievements."

Ill lay: Hotelman Conrad Hilton, 77, in Santa Monica's St. John's Hospital with a respiratory infection; Heiress Barbara Mutton, 52, in San Francisco's Presbyterian Medical Center with an intestinal ailment; Belgium's King Baudouin, 34, in the royal palace in Brussels, suffering from infectious hepatitis; Richard Cardinal Cushing, 69, in Boston's St. Elizabeth's Hospital, following surgery for removal of a portion of his intestines; David Oman McKay, 91, President, Prophet and Seer of 2,000,000 Mormons, in Salt Lake City's Latter-day Saints' Hospital for the third time in eight months for treatment of a weak heart and congested lung; Actress Patricia Neal, 39, last year's Oscar winner as the housekeeper in Hud, in critical condition at Los Angeles' U.C.L.A. Medical Center after emergency surgery for massive brain hemorrhages.

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