Queen Mother

Robert A. Beck,71, former chairman and chief executive of Prudential Insurance Co. of America, died Sunday in Vero Beach, Fla., of cancer of the esophagus. Mr. Beck became the company's 12th president in 1974. He was elected chairman and chief executive officer in 1978, holding those positions until his retirement in 1987. He was named chairman emeritus and served on the Prudential board until 1995.The Rev. Billy Joe Clegg,69, who ran for president for more than two decades, died Thursday in Biloxi, Miss.

From Highlandtown to Art Museum Drive, Baltimore's non-theatrical movie venues come alive with singular events this weekend, starting with a unique chance to sample the cream of recent African moviemaking. The Baltimore Museum of Art holds "The New York African Film Festival Traveling Series," two programs unspooling from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Today's slate includes Si-Gueriki: The Queen Mother, the story of a Benin filmmaker who discovers that his mother has been made the monarch of his village; Alex's Wedding; a Cameroon-set drama of polygamy; Me and My White Pal, the surprising chronicle of a Burkina Faso student in France who stumbles onto a drug stash; and, from South Africa, A Drink in the Passage, about the controversy that erupted in 1960 when an African sculptor took a prize in an art contest restricted to whites.

LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth II and her son and heir, the Prince of Wales, will begin paying the top tax rate on their personal income in April, Prime Minister John Major announced in Parliament yesterday.Treasury officials indicated last year that the queen would pay tax at the top rate of 40 percent.The question is 40 percent of what; estimates of the queen's fortune range from $135 million to $9.8 billion.The agreement was disclosed after almost a year of negotiations among the Inland Revenue department, the British Treasury, and the Royal Household -- in the face of popular pressure that the queen should pay taxes.

ELKTON - Ever since she showed up here in a skimpy sundress, fishnet stockings and a red feather boa, Gertie has been the talk of this cozy, old-fashioned town. Fans admire her flamboyant sense of style. Detractors call her a floozy. She made newspaper headlines when she fell (or was pushed) and needed plastic surgery. And she won a local popularity contest. It's quite a bit of buzz for a statue of an elk. Then again, Gertie is an attention getter, a large piece of public art, by far the most conspicuous of eight elk statues on display in this community at the northeastern tip of Maryland.

Paris.-- Personal moral responsibility was starkly affirmed Monday with the conviction in Berlin of two former East German border guards for killing fugitives at the Berlin Wall. Moral responsibility is also an issue in quite another affair today, in London, where it is much less comfortably confronted.The two young guards were acknowledged to be mere agents of a policy far beyond their power to change. However, the Berlin Superior Court told them their duty had been to disobey their superiors.

LONDON -- Once again, here is the story of the vain, love-struck king, who gave up his throne for the plain-looking, twice-divorced woman from Baltimore.The saga of King Edward VIII and Wallis Warfield Simpson has been written, filmed and acted nearly every way possible over almost 60 years. But yesterday, the royal love story of the century was told with a twist when Prince Edward -- Edward VIII's grand-nephew -- unveiled his own take on the couple's love during a media screening of a two-part television documentary.

With two native New Yorkers on trial and the community mayor of Harlem on hand to take a stand against what she called racial profiling, a Baltimore County District Court judge delivered his assessment yesterday of a traffic stop that left a police officer and a black motorist struggling on the shoulder of Interstate 95 within inches of the traffic. In the end, Judge Edward P. Murphy convicted the two men of most of the charges against them, sentencing one to a year's probation and the other to 30 days in jail and probation.

BILL BLASSHe was there, doing that uptown style to perfection, when Anna Wintour was still in knee socks. Ladies who can never be too rich or too thin continue to flock to his shows because a Blass design beautifully covers untuckable trouble spots.Blass doesn't make waves or launch trends; he just continues to make beautiful clothes.This spring, as other designers flirt with Sixties influences, Blass polishes his repertory of the American classics he invented. hTC Double-faced wool coats over matching dresses are seam stitched to enhance the shape.

These details of Princess Diana's funeral tomorrow at Westminster Abbey were released yesterday by Buckingham Palace:The service begins with organist Martin Baker playing music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni, Antonin zTC Dvorak, Johann Pachelbel, Edward Elgar and William Harris.The members of the Spencer family are received at the Great West Door by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.All stand as they are conducted to places in the North Lantern and then sit.All stand as the Procession of Visiting Clergy moves to places in the Sacrarium and then sit.Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Princes William and Harry are expected along with other members of the royal family to be received at the Great West Door by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster and conducted to St. George's Chapel.

Those who never had the pleasure of dining at Haussner's in East Baltimore missed the experience of fine German cuisine in the company of a vast collection of artwork. Original paintings in gilt frames filled almost every inch of the walls while marble busts on pedestals were close enough to the tables to be silent dinner partners. All of these works were from the Haussner family's private collection. A similar display can be found in the Mount Vernon home of Phil Baty and Ron Peltzer.