seg fault somewhere cannot find

i have

Code:

<<<FILE1.CPP>>>
#include <string>
#include "Customer.h"
using namespace std;

//in a functino somewhere

Customer * person1;
char name[50];
cin.getline(name, 50);
person1->setName(name);


<<CUSTOMER.CPP>>
#include "Customer.h"

void Customer::setName(string x) {
  Name = x;
}

-----------------
this is giving me a seg fault, this code looks fine to me??
and this is all i get from gdb
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00216a43 in std::string::assign () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
(gdb) where
#0 0x00216a43 in std::string::assign () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
#1 0x00215d26 in std::string:perator= () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5
#2 0x08049149 in Customer::setAdd ()
#3 0x0804987a in FILE1::menu ()
#4 0x08048cdb in main ()
(gdb)

i found that when i go to do
cout << Name; (in setName functin)
that gives me a segfault./. so do i need to initialise it to something?

> Customer * person1;
This doesn't point anywhere

> person1->setName(name);
So this blows up.

Try beginning with
Customer * person1 = new Customer;

they really should explain this better in the tutorials...everyday it's the same question