People: People, Jul. 30, 1945

The British Look

Anthony Eden, looking over the ruins of the Reich Chancellery with Winston Churchill, waved toward one bomb-blasted room and recalled, “I had dinner with Hitler right over there in 1935.” Growled Churchill: “You certainly paid for that dinner, Anthony.”

The Duke of Windsor, who has long been looking for a place to live, was reported headed for France by way of England. But when Washington reporters asked where he planned to light, the Duke replied: “Your guess is as good as mine. I have absolutely no idea.”

The Winston Churchills, dressed strictly for comfort, encountered photographers on the Hendaye beach, where they were vacationing between the British political campaign and the Potsdam Conference, together made a picture that looked startlingly like an old George Belcher cartoon out for a walk with one of the Elgin Marbles (see cut).

Explanations

Hedda Hopper, high-styled Hollywood gossip, had a breathless “exclusive” splashed all over Page 1 of the Los Angeles Times: Cinemadolescent Bonita Granville was engaged to a G.I. Next day Hedda had to take it all back: “Well, I’ve sure been had. … It never occurred to me the caller wasn’t Bonita. The girl who imitated her voice did a magnificent job. .. .”

The Very Rev. Hewlett Johnson, high-domed, white-thatched “Red Dean” of Canterbury, had a 50-minute audience with Joseph Stalin in Moscow, asked him: What about these charges of religious oppression? Replied Stalin: “Doubtless in a time of tension there were excesses. . . . The war, however, has created a new and different situation. , Religion cannot be stopped. . . . Religion is a matter of the conscience and the conscience is free.”

Comebacks

Marlene Dietrich, back after eleven months of USOing in Europe, greeted returning soldiers of the 44th Division by standing at the end of a Manhattan pier and waving a leg at them. She drew a deafening roar and a blizzard of coins. Then she had herself boosted to a porthole and really got down to cases (see cut). In Europe, she recalled, her most effective line was just, ” ‘Hello, boys’—I would just walk out on the stage, say that, and the house would come down. I don’t know why.”

Sidney Franklin, 42, Brooklyn-born Mexican bullfighter of the ’20s and never quite up to the Spanish big time, finally made it after nine years of virtual retirement. At Madrid’s Plaza de Toros he ably dispatched two bulls, was hailed with shouts of “Viva America! Viva Truman!”

Patrice Munsel, 20-year-old Metropolitan Opera soprano, was the principal tea leaf in a teapot tempest of publicity just before she made her West Coast debut at Hollywood Bowl. The United Press reported the Met aswoon with shame because pictures had been published of her in a bra-suit. Manager Edward Johnson denied it, peered at the picture, purred, “She looks nice.” Clucked Singer Munsel: “I thought it made me look a little bulky in spots.”

Money, Money

Mrs. William Kissam Vanderbilt, whose husband left her $35,000,000 last year, will have to get along on just $5,000,000 of it. A trust accounting revealed that the U.S. took $25,000,000 in taxes, New York State $5,000,000.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. had to shell out for a fast removal of his personal belongings from the Secretary of the Treasury’s offices, to make way for incoming Secretary Fred Vinson. Private movers refused to budge on a Sunday, so Morgenthau got two Treasury trucks and some Treasury workers on leave to make the haul to Fishkill, N.Y. He was charged at commercial rates, plus extra expenses, plus the pay the workers would have got at their own jobs.

Charles Chaplin at last had a mustache of his own—a black, grey-flecked, “foolish” thing he was raising for his forthcoming Bluebeard. He wore it to a Los Angeles court, where it was also evident that he could afford to resume paying Joan Berry $75 a week support until the appeal in his whiskered paternity case is heard. Asked by an attorney how much more than $1,000.000 he was worth, Chaplin replied: “Very little more.” The attorney suggested: “About $3,000,000?” Chaplin guessed that was about it. The judge told him to pay up.

Kudos & Yoo-hoos

Lieut. General Ben Lear, who sent troops on a 15-mile march for yoo-hooing lady golfers in 1941, walked off the troop ship Mariposa at Boston followed by a chorus of “Yoo-hoos.” The General, a deputy commander under Eisenhower in Europe, never batted a brow.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower was made an honorary bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, one of London’s four leading Inns of Court (others: Gray’s Inn, the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple), where law students are wet-nursed and barristers keep their offices. Attendance at frequent dinners is expected of benchers, but Honorary Bencher Eisenhower is excused.

Lieut. General Ira C. Eaker was awarded a title nearly as long as his famed speech at High Wycombe in England, in 1942. The title: Honorary Knight Commander of the Military Division of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath. The speech: “We don’t do much talking until we have done more fighting. We hope that when we leave you will be glad we came.”