People: Strikers

Vivien Kellems, Connecticut cable-grip manufacturess, would-be striker against Federal income taxes (TIME, Jan. 31) wrote to Buenos Aires’ Count Frederick von Zedlitz in 1943 (according to Washington’s solemn-faced Democratic Representative John Main Coffee), addressed him as “My Darling Boy,” told him she had been promised a high place in international affairs by an astrologer. Added she: “. . . how could that be if I am not married to you?” Revealing a few additional morsels of her billets-doux to the House, Coffee remarked: “. . . the rules of etiquette and the spirit of fair play prevent me from including any more excerpts from Miss Kellems’ correspondence with the Nazi Count of Argentina.” Miss Kellems, 48-year-old parson’s daughter, who last January briefly denied she had ever known Zedlitz, raged in a statement for the press: “The perfect coordination . . . among Secretary Morgenthau, Mr. [Columnist Drew] Pearson and Mr. Coffee is a joy to behold. . . . Come off the floor of that House, Mr. Coffee, where you are protected by your Congressional immunity. . . . Before the New Deal destroyed the last vestige of decency . . . any man who would do what you have done would be publicly horse whipped.” She said she had already given the State Department valuableinformation on the Count. The State Department said it could not find her information in its files.

William Hale (“Big Bill”) Thompson’s widow, at the opening of the onetime Chicago mayor’s safe-deposit boxes, fainted as highly compressed wads of $20, $50, $100 and $1,000 bills sprang out. His closer chums guessed that Thompson, a son-of-wealth, had accumulated some $3-to-4,000,000 before he became mayor. But his estate was preliminarily evaluated at only $150,000. His safe-deposit box hoard to date: $1,500,000.

Joan Fontaine, 27-year-old Hollywoodienne, said she would sue for divorce against pipe-smoking, 42-year-old Brian Aherne within two weeks. Their full-dress wedding was one of the handsomer scenes on Hollywood’s 1939 calendar.

Guardians

Wayne Lonergan’s young-old face seemed older as he rose to hear the verdict. (“Guilty of murder in the second degree”) which ended the homosexual’s trial for strangling his wife. Lonergan faced a sentence of from 20 years to life. The state had tried for a first-degree (electric chair) conviction. Before the jury reached its decision, cigar-gnashing Lonergan Counsel Edward Broderick explained why he had not put Lonergan on the stand: “I saw the weaknesses in the state’s case.” Lonergan’s conviction was also a legal milestone in the life of Wayne William Lonergan, the convict’s 22-month-old son -— heir by his mother’s will to her personal fortune of some $230,000 and her share in a $7,000,000 trust fund. Already Mrs. Lucile Burton, his chic grandmother, was preparing a petition for her appointment as his guardian.

Maury Maverick, fluent, fiery but literate Texas talker, railed against what he called Washington’s “gobbledygook” language. To employes of the Smaller War Plants Corp. Chairman Maverick wrote: “Let’s stop ‘pointing-up’ programs, ‘finalizing’ contracts that ‘stem from’ district, regional, or Washington ‘levels.’ There are no ‘levels,’ Washington local government is as high as Washington government. . . . Anyone using the words ‘activation’ or ‘implementation’ will be shot.”

Greta Garbo, three years after her last movie Two Faced Woman, signed for a part in a film about the convoy-valiant Norwegian Merchant Marine. She took the otherwise undescribed role at the urging of Norwegian Ambassador to the U.S. Wilhelm Morgenstierne.

Censors

Ernest Taylor (“Ernie”) Pyle, famed war correspondent now in Italy, gave careful directions of how to act Ernie Pyle in the cinema’s forthcoming version of his book Here Is Your War: “[The actor] must weigh in the neighborhood of 112 pounds and look anemic. He must not be glamorized nor have any love interest in the picture. He must write on a typewriter and absolutely never be shown with a pencil or notebook.”

Elena (“Magda”) Lupescu, red-haired mistress to Carol of Rumania, had her face lifted in Mexico by a Manhattan plastic surgeon—said to be lifter by previous royal appointment to Rumania’s Queen Marie and the Duchess of Windsor. His 13 stitches were removed after eleven days, were reported to have restored the old Lupescutaneous charm.