People: Hyde Park Double Take

Vacationing Eleanor Roosevelt watched Broadway Producer John Golden finish his portable stage in Hyde Park’s library. U.S. Army actors were ready to give the five one-acters, written by Army men, which had recently tickled Broadway on a one-night stand. Settling down for the show, Franklin D. Roosevelt grinned back at Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, Vincent Astor and assorted gold braid. The President shed his coat, advised others to do the same. The third play was a well-sustained gag by First Class Private Irving Gaynor Neiman about a barracks butt who was kidded into thinking that Myrna Loy was coming to see him. In Broadway’s version the kidders did not expect Myrna Loy to appear—but she did. In Hyde Park’s Version, no one expected Eleanor Roosevelt to double for Myrna Loy—but she did.

Present and Accounted For

Because King George VI was there, it was the sword of the Sovereign of all the British Orders of Knighthood which touched the shoulders of British Air Marshal Francis John Linnell (see cut), Deputy Air Officer in command of Middle East Headquarters. From the North African sands, as King George completed the accolade, rose Sir Francis Linnell.

Because the King was not there, it was Queen Elizabeth, in a plain grey dress prettied with orchids, who from the dais of Buckingham Palace’s Grand Hall be stowed decorations on Empire heroes—first among them R.A.F. Wing Commander Guy Gibson, leader of dam-destroying planes over Germany. Possessor of letters patent making her one of five Councilors of State during the King’s Mediterranean tour, the Queen said to Gibson: “The King has asked me to say how sorry he is not to be able to give the Victoria Cross to you personally.”

Because Winston Churchill was not there, he missed the returning King, who had arrived from Africa before schedule at an airdrome somewhere in England, gone off to the airport’s officers’ mess ten minutes before Churchill arrived. Back into his car climbed the Prime Minister to drive off to the mess, receive a royal joshing.

Investigators

Studying tropical diseases, tobacco-golden Doris Duke Cromwell worked without pay from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the laboratories of the University of North Carolina’s public-health school.

To work on mathematico-physical problems, Albert Einstein, no landlubber, sharpened his pencil for the Ordnance Bureau of the U.S. Navy. Without specific rank, he will be stationed at his home base, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

Hatters

In Manhattan on business, lean, red-mustached Liverpool shipowner Major Leonard Cripps, taller, elder brother of tall Sir Stafford Cripps, waved away midsummer heat with his handkerchief, waved away his brother’s socialistic notions as well. Of his brother, Social Security Planner Beveridge and their “sentimental” followers, the Major remarked: “In the country of mad hatters, I mean Britain, they’re destroying civilization by giving away all this blasted money.”

Truth and Beauty

One elastic girdle in good condition was found among the personal effects of the late John (“The Great Profile”) Barrymore.

A cuff that reaches five inches up the arm was reported by exquisite Lucius Beebe as the latest notion on the proper attire for carving a steak: “Fashioned of gleaming white pique … the seemingly endless cuff . . . never disappoints its owner by revealing the shirt sleeve proper.”

Castle in Spain

Safe in Spain from summer bombings (so said Radio Moscow) was Magda Goebbels, wife of the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. With Goebbels-propagated Helga (10), Hilde (9), Helmuth (7), Holde (6), Hedda (5), she will have at her disposal the castle her husband is said to have purchased near Seville.

Berth for “Bunk”

In San Francisco, Harry Bridges, fiery, Australian-born longshoremen’s union leader, was pleased to announce that under his auspices fellow jazz addicts could now regularly hear the resurrected, 63-year-old New Orleans trumpeter Willie (“Bunk”) Johnson and other barrelhouse veterans who played with him at a San Francisco jazz concert in May (TIME, May 24). Time: every Sunday afternoon. Place: the C.I.O. hall. Admission: six bits and a membership card in the Hot Jazz Society. Said Bridges: “That Bunk is an American institution.”