Elderly Hollywood breathed a little easier. By court order, the torch had been put to Actress Mary Astor’s famed “Purple Diary,” introduced by her then husband Dr. Franklyn Thorpe in his 1936 suit for custody of their daughter Marylyn. Though the two-volume record of Actress Astor’s amorous adventures was never officially admitted into the court records, enough of it leaked out to give Hollywood some apprehensive moments. It named Hollywood’s six “greatest lovers,” and included a lurid description of the manly appeal of Playwright George S. (Of Thee I Sing) Kaufman (“thrilling ecstacy . . . I don’t see how he does it”). Last week, now that daughter Marylyn is 20 and married, the Manhattan court that had locked the document in a bank vault decided the time would never be better for taking it out and burning it, so ordered.
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