Roller Mania
Guess who skated onto the top of my list of all-time great PEOPLE covers? Olivia Newton-John can roll into my house anytime (PEOPLE, July 9).
Steve Howell
Jeffersonville, Ind.

Giving celebrity roller-skating parties is no new "in thing." May I remind you who gave the first roller-skating party in Hollywood? Look in LIFE, March 22, 1937. It was Ginger Rogers and Alfred G. Vanderbilt. And she still skates!
Roberta Olden
San Carlos, Calif.

"Bully for Ginger" (pictured above at the party with actor Jack Oakie), says Alfred Vanderbilt, now 66, who confesses he hasn't roller-skated since that evening 42 years ago.—ED.

To my horror, there was Cher skating along in her see-through top and living up to the old cliché, "If you've got it, flaunt it." I am willing to bet that if everybody's Uncle Charlie walked the street flashing his wares, he would be apprehended and fined.
Karen T. Spencer
Atlanta

Pedola & Harper
A hearty thank-you to models Lyne Pedola and Ann Harper for glamorizing "big is beautiful." I've been fighting the "guilties" and "inferiors" for years, but have recently made peace with the fact that I will never be Halston-skinny. After all, if I don't love me the way I am, no one else will.
Priscilla Chunowitz
Phoenix

If you had announced that the medical community had reversed itself and was now endorsing overweight as healthy, I might have been impressed. As it is, I consider the "stout is stunning" trend a slap in the face to every woman who has traded self-indulgence for a longer, healthier life.
Anna Winslow
Boston

Isaacson & Schuster
I read the six chapters of I & II Samuel and saw only a deep friendship between Jonathan and David. But in Leviticus, Romans, I Corinthians, God leaves no room for interpretation. He calls homosexuality an "abomination."
Ray Cruse
Battle Creek

Finally we get a picture of a homosexual relationship void of stereotypes. However, I'm bothered by the judge's words that "the mothers have shown stability, integrity and openness, despite their homosexuality." Despite? How about because of it? Neither marriage seemed to contain the emotional bond that forms the basis of "traditional" marriage. The kids are better off in a home with love, understanding and emotional closeness, regardless of the gender of the parents.
Susan Kaplan
Columbia, Mo.

Ronnie Franklin
Your article on the 19-year-old jockey Ronnie Franklin brings to mind an equally young jockey, Steve Cauthen, who seems to handle very well a lifestyle Franklin can't.
Robin Kunz
Princeton, N.J.

Bernice Mann
Film students across the country (myself included) will continue to refer to Shampoo's Oscar-winning script by Robert Towne for its expertise, dramatic genius and film sense. For a jury to believe that a manicurist's 22-page outline based on a "hip hairdresser" was turned into Beatty and Towne's film is ludicrous.
Richard Martini
Los Angeles

The $185,000 jury award to Mrs. Mann has been overturned in L.A. Superior Court. "Of course we plan to appeal," says Phil Mann, Bernice's husband. "And this time we're going after the film's pro fits."—ED.

Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin is 100 percent correct in his assessment of modern education. There are far too many crabby educators inhabiting the classrooms of America. Perhaps teachers should audition instead of being interviewed—with the most humorous being hired. Arkin's right: Who needs high school, college, a diploma? If all else fails, one can become an actor.
Phil Tisi
Social Studies Instructor
Suffern High School
Suffern, N.Y.

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