People: Brickbats & Bouquets

Mrs. D. Leigh Colvin, national president of the W.C.T.U., could scarcely believe her eyes. There in the newspapers was a picture of General MacArthur taking time out during a Korean tour to sip some champagne from a water glass. At a time like this, fumed Mrs. Colvin, “his mind ought to be clear, rather than drugged with anesthetics. It’s an old trick of the wets, trying to get pictures of that kind.”

The post office felt that Bernarr (“Body Love”) Macfadden’s mail-order books on home treatment for cancer, heart trouble, arthritis and hay fever had a faintly phony odor. Called on to show cause why his books should not be barred from the mails, the 82-year-old musclebuilder, now in California, said the challenge had made him “feel ten years younger.”

Britain’s oldtime music hall Comedienne Grade Fields put a “for sale” sign on her big Santa Monica house, announced that she was fed up with California and was going back to England. “Los Angeles is a cockeyed town … I can be sure of success in nearly every other town, but not Los Angeles.”

Vatican City unfurled its gold and white state banners in celebration of Pope Pius Xd’s 75th birthday and the twelfth anniversary of his election to the papacy. After the day’s work was over, there was a family visit with his three nephews, Carlo, Marcantonio and Giulio Pacelli.

For his 52nd birthday, Denmark’s Queen Inqrid designed a special present for King Frederik: a breakfast table for twelve, with an electric-powered revolving center which guests may start or stop by pushing a button.

For the best literary work of 1950, the U.S. book industry gave the second annual National Book Awards to William Faulkner for his Collected Stories; New-Ion Arvin for his biography, Herman Melville; and Poet Wallace Stevens for The Auroras of Autumn.

Private Lives

Before leaving for a vacation in Spain, Poet-Playwright T. S. Eliot checked into a London hospital for a “minor” operation (hemorrhoids).

Out hunting for quail in South Carolina, Elder Statesman Bernard M. Baruch sprained his left leg when the stirrup broke as he dismounted from his horse. He flew north to see his Manhattan doctor, then snorted at inquiring reporters: “No, ’tain’t broken, just swollen.”

At a West Palm Beach driving range photographers paused to take some action pictures of lean, wiry old Connie (Cornelius McGillicuddy) Mack. At 88, still limber as a pitcher’s glove and lean-flanked as a rookie outfielder, “Mr. Mack” had decided to improve his golf game. With a little coaching, he was already smashing out 175-yard drives, had plenty of time, having closed out a half century as manager of his Philadelphia Athletics (Connie Mack, president) to learn the finer points of the short pitch and the downhill putt.

In Cuernavaca, Mexico, Dime-Store Heiress Barbara Mutton, 38, filed papers to divorce husband No. 4, Prince Igor Troubetzkoy. The prince hired a San Francisco lawyer to fight the case.

“Never has our family been so united as now,” said Anna Maria Mussolini, youngest daughter of the late Benito. In Buenos Aires, on an extended visit with brother Vittorio, who moved to Argentina four years ago and now owns a textile mill, Anna announced that elder sister Edda, widow of Count Ciano, is also thinking of joining them.

Pen in Hand

Working from notes and an outline left by his father, Elliott Roosevelt, in Miami, was almost through his first out & out job of fiction-writing: a novel about John Paul Jones.

In Manhattan, Anita (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’) Loos explained why she had changed the title of her new novel on Hollywood life from Sex Doesn’t Last to A Mouse Is Born. The first choice, she said, “is a lousy title. What I mean is the principle of the title is simply not the truth. And I never deal in anything but the truth.”

Cartoonist Al (Li’l Abner) Capp started it by reviewing Albert Rapp’s The Origins of Wit and Humor for the New York Times Book Review. Author Rapp, professor of classical languages at the University of Tennessee, is no credit to the joke business, wrote Capp: “He has a way with a joke, like Use Koch had with a tattoo. He skins ’em alive.” Last week the Times let writer and reviewer scrap it out in Dogpatch style. Capp, wrote Professor Rapp, “has obviously not heard of the psychological experiments on wit . . . and of the 2,400-year history of the study of laughter . . .” Answered Cartoonist Capp: “I (gulp!) guess I am an amateur. I guess I have been so busy for the last 18 years creating humor (effective enough at least to hold the daily attention of 40 million people) that I just ain’t had time to study up on how to do it.”

Hollywood autograph dealers listed some spring bargains. Signatures of Cinemactresses Betty Grable and Virginia Mayo were in stock at 40¢ each, William S. Hart at 50¢. Lily Rons and Buster Keaton were tagged at $2, Joe DiMaggio at $3. Charles Chaplin, Greta Garbo, the late Rudolph Valentino, John Barrymore and Director D. W. Griffith were $10 items; George Gershwin, $15; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, $30; Harry Truman, $35.

Thoughts for Today

Dr. Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution and World War II boss of scientific research, assured a Washington audience that if the Reds should start a war in Europe now, U.S. atomic bombs “would destroy Russia. We could do it without question as matters stand today . . . We could destroy not only the key centers from which her armies would be supplied, but also political centers and the communications of her armies on the march.” For this reason, the doctor concluded, “no all-out war is in sight for the immediate future unless they or we make some serious error indeed.”

To the question, “When does a boy become an adult?”, Draft Director Lewis B. Hershey had an answer: “Remember, a boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does.”

A wry comment on the current value of the dollar was made at a Neiman-Marcus fashion show in Dallas. Instead of using the conventional costly flowers and bows, an enterprising milliner trimmed a green straw frame with a spray of thirty-two $1 bills. After it was modeled, the chic number was presented with the compliments of the store to a visitor: U.S. Treasurer Georgia Neese Clark. Said she, trying it on: “I’m sure this is one hat that’s worth the money.”