People: The Chosen Few

General Douglas MacArthur got an honorary Doctor of Laws from Manila’s University of Santo Tomas, whose rector acclaimed him “greater than Alexander the Great or Napoleon, man of destiny and savior of Christian civilization.”

Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands got a Bronze Star from General Eisenhower for unifying quarreling Dutch resistance groups.

Captain Vincent Astor, peacetime yachtsman (the Nourmahal), was awarded the Navy Commendation Ribbon in Manhattan for “meritorious performance . . . initiative, unflagging energy and devotion” to administrative duties with the Confidential Fishing Vessel Observers, who watched for subs while fishing along the Atlantic Coast.

Margaret Truman, the President’s 21-year-old daughter, was voted the sweetheart of Lambda Chi Alpha at the University of Missouri.

Kith & Kin

Chiang Kai-shek’s grandson received a present from Joseph Stalin. It was a jolly gesture of good will from the man who had just decided to back grandfather against the Chinese Communists (see INTERNATIONAL). The present: a pistol.

Hedy Lamarr, in a pinafore, and Actor Husband John Loder, in sideburns for a movie role, posed with daughter Denise, not quite three months old, for a family portrait that looked like an illustration out of Anthony Trollope (see cut).

Alice Stone Blackwell, 87, pioneer suffragette and daughter of famed Lucy Stone, glanced around at the world on the 25th anniversary of women’s suffrage, and said: “I’m afraid that women’s suffrage hasn’t done as much good as was originally hoped.”

Harry Bridges, battling for a divorce in a San Francisco court, let go with a creeping barrage at Wife Agnes. He said that she had thrown nearly everything in the kitchen at him—skillets, knives, chairs and irons. The longshoremen’s boss added that she was “anti-Negro, anti-Mexican, and anti-Jewish.”

Traveling Men

Major General Claire Chennault,

back from China, winged into Washington, at the airport got a welcome-home kiss from his ex-secretary, Doreen Lonborg. News photographers who missed it and asked for a repeat performance had to settle for a snuggle (see cut).

Kings Gustaf and Christian of Sweden and Denmark met face to face, kissed cheek to cheek for the first time in six years, at a two-family get-together at Denmark’s Amalienborg Castle. Sweden’s aging Gustaf (87)—whose granddaughter is married to King Christian’s son—went by destroyer to Copenhagen to visit his 74-year-old royal friend. Then the royal in-laws of both houses got together for a group picture to make it official (see cut).

Postmaster General Robert Hanne-gan surprised Chicago’s Mayor Ed Kelly by assimilating a heroic-sized “Black Cow” —six scoops of ice cream in three bottles of root beer. A pop-eyed Chicago Daily News editorialist pointed a moral: “This is an age of power, size and grandeur. …”

Home & Hearth

J. P. Morgan’s favorite Long Island mansion, which was as big as a small hotel (41 rooms and 15 baths), was about to become one.

Lieut. Colonel Ben Lyon, Hollywood hero of the ’20s, now 44, back from eight years of show business in Britain with wife Bebe Daniels, made a sentimental journey to his Atlanta birthplace. Said he, after looking the old house over: “It’s pretty dilapidated—but so am I.”

Lou Nova, heavyweight fighter, was suddenly homeless—after his horse kicked over a tank of butane gas, sent the fighter’s Los Angeles diggings up in flames.

Henry Pu Yi, just captured by the Russians, had further cause for sadness. The ex-Manchukuo puppet’s collection of dolls was all smashed up by a bunch of Jap bullies who looted his palace, the Moscow radio reported.

Crack-Ups & Get-Ups

Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery had a bruised hand and ankle and a chipped vertebra after his plane crash-landed into a tree near Oldenburg, Germany.

King George VI made a symbolic change that many a common soldier was also enjoying: he walked abroad in civvies (lounge model, pin-striped blue).

Ernest Hemingway visited Hollywood Beautician Gloria Bristol (specializing in male customers) for a scalp-&-skin treatment, and learned a new beauty trick—the use of a toothbrush. “He told me,” she said, “he always had brushed his teeth with a Turkish towel.”

Work-in-Progress

Gertrude Stein was two weeks along on a new novel called Brewsie and Willie. Subject: the way G.I.s worry and the way Gertrude Stein worries; “we are quite worried together,” she said.

Arturo Toscanini took back his vow never to return to Italy so long as The Little King and his family had any power. Reason for changing his mind: he now believes that Italy will soon become a republic. The 78-year-old conductor agreed to conduct the opening at Milan’s famed La Scala next season, telephoned Rome to start rounding up singers.

Cory Grant and Alfred Hitchcock bravely announced a Hollywood Hamlet in modern dress. “I won’t attempt to portray the role,” confided Cinemactor Grant, “in the traditional Shakespearean manner.”

Rudy Vallee was signed to play the part of high-pressuring Press Agent Russell Birdwell in I Ring Doorbells, a film by and about Birdwell. Hired to publicize the film: Russell Birdwell.