• U.S.

People, Jun. 12, 1939

4 minute read
TIME

In a gee-whiz promotion scheme to needle circulation, Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Magazine named one Isabel Caldwell McDougal of Greenwood, Miss., “Miss Cosmopolitan.” Next issue Cosmopolite Faith Baldwin, one of the judges, twittered: “She hasn’t an atom of classic beauty but she’s as pretty as spring in the South. . . . She has a certain pixie charm hard to define. She reminds me a little of Helen Hayes.”

Peaches-&-cream Cinemactress Madeleine Carroll asked Paramount a favor: a change of title for her new film (Are Husbands Necessary?). Reason: she is getting a divorce from her husband, Mayfairite Captain Philip Astley.

Americans who feel sure they are somebody’s descendants sometimes ask Anthony Richard Wagner, 30, Portcullis Pursuivant of Arms (heraldic symbol-chaser) of the British royal household, to trace their British ancestry. Last week he announced a timely kinship: “Mr. Chamberlain and President Roosevelt are eighth cousins twice removed . . . descendants of a brother and sister of the early 17th Century. The brother came to America and the sister remained in England. The family where they join is the Cotymores, a Welsh family.”

Few years ago Monica Dickens, beauteous, 23-year-old great-granddaughter of class-conscious Charles Dickens, went to work as a cook to get material for a book on belowstairs life. President Cass Canfield of Harper & Bros, announced he had bought the book (One Pair of Hands), gaffed: “She has an easy pen and the same interest in the lower half of the people that Dickens was so well known for.”

In the House of Representatives last week, New York’s James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. (Rep.), a natty dresser, defined the difference between an under and an assistant secretary of the Cabinet. Said he: the former may wear spats.

When a misread timetable landed Labor Martyr Tom Mooney in Manhattan one and one-half hours ahead of his scheduled arrival, he thumb-twiddled until a Grand Central policeman spied him, hustled him into a private office. Still determined not to muff his entrance, Tom Mooney slipped away, hopped the right train as it chuffed to a halt, reemerged, in time to gladhand some 15,000 laborites, newsmen, photographers.

On the eve of his 25th Harvard class reunion, Massachusetts’ long-toothed Governor Leverett Saltonstall rounded up the members of his famed junior-varsity crew,* took them for a spin on the Charles River (Saltonstall rowing bow).

Curious was the preamble to the will left by Dr. Richard Clarke Cabot, rich, blue-blooded Social Ethics professor at Harvard, who died last month: “I . . . realizing that God has allowed me a life of almost unbroken happiness upon this earth, and that this happiness has been due in no way to any merit of mine, but has been permitted in spite of grievous sins and shortcomings, do now make this, my last will and testament.” To friends and servants he bequeathed $200,000; to pet philanthropies about $1,000,000.

In Paris, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor celebrated their second wedding anniversary by remaining in complete privacy.

To celebrate the 43rd birthday of her husband, James Henry Roberts Cromwell, Millionheiress Doris Duke Cromwell, 26, presented him with a giant birthday cake studded with 43 skyrockets, shot them into the air over their Somerville, N. J. manor.

In recent years the muted pro-Nazi thunderings of London’s august Times have produced heil-storms in Germany. Last week the Times’s chairman, bean-thin, wry-mouthed Major the Hon. John Jacob Astor, M. P. (brother-in-law of Cliveden’s Lady Astor), landed in Manhattan, promised: “There will be no more appeasement from our side.”

Formally inducted last week as princi-puppet of Liechtenstein, Europe’s cutest little country (pop.: 11,500; area: 65 square miles; standing army: 0), was Prince Franz Josef II, nephew of Liechtenstein’s late Franz I. His biggest headache: to preserve the independence of his country, which has been technically at war with Germany for 73 years.*

After playing the lead part (profane, shiftless Jeeter Lester) in Tobacco Road for most of its run, James Barton four months ago left the cast. Rumored reasons: 1) he was sick & tired of the play; 2) he annoyed fellow-actors by carrying his profanity backstage. Last week he was back again, played Jeeter Lester for the 1,684th time.

In a Hollywood replica of Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall, which he had opened with a concert in 1891, snow-maned, 77-year-old Dr. Walter Damrosch made his cinema debut. The occasion: treacle-throated Bing Crosby’s new film (The Star Maker).

* Which in 1914 won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta. * Because Bismarck considered it too microscopic to list in the Austro-Prussian peace treaty of 1866.

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