Before Cavalry Captain Mark Phillips married Britain's Princess Anne he made it clear that he did not mind if she did the driving. A good thing too Last week a dithered Phillips climbed into a 17,500-lb. Scorpion tank at the Royal Armored Corps driving school in Dorset, started up, signaled left and turned right. Granted, it was his first week of training to be a tank-driving instructor, and he soon gained mastery over the 14 gears. "I'm starting to enjoy this," he said. When the three-week course is up, however, Mark will not mediately be able to use his skills as he is under marching orders to proceed to Canada with Wife Anne on an official visit, then to muster with Queen Elizabeth (to whom he was made a personal aide-de-camp on New Year's Day) in the Antipodes for a tour of New Zealand.

The grande dame of the American stage, Katharine ("Kit") Cornell, is now 80. And since she cannot get out much these days, the American National Theater and Academy decided to stage the presentation of its National Artist Award at her Manhattan town house. An actress-manager, producer, and Broadway star until she retired over a decade ago, the legendary Cornell was renowned for her romantic roles (the star-crossed Iris March in The Green Hat, long-suffering Elizabeth in The Barretts of Wimpole Street). She also looks back with satisfaction on her talent- scouting. Among those who won early recognition on the boards with her were Tyrone Power, Gregory Peek, Or|son Welles and the "rather shy and un-happy" Marlon Brando, who in 1946 played Marchbanks to her own favorite part, the witty, warm, older-woman heroine of Shaw's Candida. Not about to be upstaged at home, Kit jauntily raised ANTA'S gold medal to her eye like a monocle while a telegram from the only previous winners of the award was read to "We're so proud," cabled Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, "to be at last in your Company."

Less than 24 hours after the operation, both patient and doctor were doing fine. Jazz Vibraharpist Lionel Hampton, 59, underwent cataract surgery on his right eye and then, together with his ophthalmologist, amateur saxophone player Dr. Charles Kelman he played a gig in Harlem. Besides blowing sax, Dr. Kelman is writing the score for a projected Broadway show and trying for a breakthrough pop song. So far he is ahead in the eye department: he developed a pioneering procedure for cataract surgery (applicable only in special cases) that shortens recovery time from seven weeks to a minimum of four hours. Charlie's always tried for a hit record," said Hamp. "Now he's got a hit operation."

"Mmmm," purred an ecstatic Zero Mostel, 58, dipping his tongue into a lemon meringue pie topped with whipped cream. Then his face congealed in horror: 'I never eat this glop," he growled Picky-Eater Mostel was not indulging a tad: he was acting first "yummy" and then 'yucky" for Poet/Novelist George Mendoza's The Sesame Street Book of Opposite--, a picture book being put together at the same time Mostel was taping 26 segments for the show itself. Letting Zero choose his own gear--a union suit, size 50, plus diapers--Mendoza collected the props: pie, fruit, pliers, top hat, sneakers, jug, orangeade and an assortment of lollipops. Let loose among them, Zero gripped his nose in the large pliers for "big," and pinched a nostril with a tiny pair for "little." "Empty" and "full" prompted him to suck in a quart of orangeade until his cheeks were taut as a wineskin, then squirt it all out. Mendoza's favorite opposite, however, was unscheduled. Lunching with Mostel in a Manhattan restaurant, a startled Mendoza heard Zero cry "Wet!" and saw him empty a glass of water over his head. Then he mopped himself up with a napkin, murmuring thoughtfully, "Dry."

"Pasha peeked between crossed paws and saw that the big white house was still bathed by the flood of bright spotlights." Thus, in Little Lord Fauntleroy cadences, Julie Nixon Eisenhower starts her first published work, Pasha Passes By, in February's Saturday Evening Post. Now a Post assistant editor, former Jacksonville Schoolteacher Julie, 25, is inaugurating a children's "Read Aloud" section with the story (based on the real-life presidential Yorkshire terrier Pasha). The plot: Pasha's unsuccessful attempt to escape from the White House and the gaucheries of Irish setter King Timahoe, who jumps up on pinstriped dignitaries. "What is the Julie secret?" gushed the Post in a foreword. Love of life, they decided, awarding her "a loving editorial escutcheon inscribed Amor Vitae." In a note of her own, Julie confessed that her childhood love of books sometimes overcame scruple. She would fake illness in order to skip school and hear her lessons "come to life through my mother's voice."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.