People: Pleasures & Palaces

Ever since Mussolini’s troops marched over his tiny kingdom of Albania, former King Zog, like many another D.P., has been looking for a place to put down roots. Last week he found just what he wanted: a 60-room mansion bordered with a half mile of rhododendron bushes, plus 100-odd acres of rich farm land, on Long Island. It was a barter deal, reported the New York Times. Short on cash, Zog had plunked down “a bucket of diamonds and rubies” in a royal exchange. The King’s spokesmen hastily sent out frantic denials. The King, they insisted, had paid an undisclosed sum in the ordinary way, by check. But the deal was closed, and the local Nassau Daily Review-Star gave its new neighbor a friendly editorial: “Welcome, Farmer King Zog. While Nassau County farmers have been selling their land to live like kings on their real estate profit, along comes a king who wants to do some Long Island farming . . . Now when Nassau crows about its cabbages, it can add its king.” The King, meanwhile, was off to Alexandria to pick up his family and 20 farmhands.

For the first time since ex-President Ulysses S. Grant visited Emperor Meiji in 1879, American guests were entertained in Tokyo’s imperial household with top diplomatic honors. To celebrate the peace treaty, Emperor Hirohito invited General Matthew Ridgway and his wife to a royal luncheon, at which Empress Nagato set the conversational tone with a little story. The day the treaty was signed, a white crane had alighted in a treetop on the palace grounds. The Japanese took this, she said, as a good omen for peace.

Old Sweet Song

Charles Guy Fulke Greville, Earl of Warwick, 40, left England’s autumn heat to spend five days as the house guest of Luisa Maria, Duchess of Valencia, the often-arrested monarchist gadfly of Franco Spain. After sightseeing in Madrid and a round of motoring, swimming and riding, the Earl presented the Duchess with a small memento of the occasion: a pair of Cartier’s diamond cuff links bearing the Warwick coat of arms. The little interlude ended with gallant restraint as the Earl kissed his hostess’ hand, boarded a plane and made his farewell: “Thank you, Luisa Maria. This has been a wonderful excursion.”

From No. 10 Downing St. came a communique for the society editors: the engagement of Alison Elizabeth, 21-year-old daughter of Prime Minister Clement Attlee, to British Army Captain Richard Lionel Davis. The romance began after Corporal Martin Attlee, the PM’s son, introduced his captain at a party last Christmas.

Two weeks after their first meeting, movie starlet Betsy von Furstenberg, 19, announced that she would marry Hotel Heir Conrad (“Nicky”) Hilton Jr. as soon as his divorce from Cinemactress Elizabeth Taylor is final.

Over Their Shoulders

In Washington, some 2,000 women attending the postmasters’ convention turned out to enjoy a fashion show and hear a speech by Madam Frances Perkins, onetime Secretary of Labor, now a member of the Civil Service Commission. Wearing a new copy of her old badge of office, a small black satin tricorne hat, Madam Perkins, who has never reconciled her views of fashion with those of the style experts, admitted that it was the first time she had ever attended a fashion show. However, she said, “there is one canard I want to deny. I may never have another opportunity. I do not have my hats made at the Bureau of Standards.”

After speaking to students of City College in Manhattan, Eleanor Roosevelt was asked for her opinion on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. Said she: the way the Senator from Wisconsin “has played on our fears” has done “infinite harm to freedom.” In fact, said the former First Lady, he is “the greatest menace to freedom we have in this country.”

In Washington for a pre-Manhattan run of Love and Let Love, Missouri-born Ginger Rogers told Drama Critic Richard Coe how it feels to be headed for Broadway again after 21 years and some 60-odd movies. At this stage, she said, it’s “feudin’ and fussin’ all the time. I’ve never been connected with anything in the theater or movies that didn’t have it … In this case it’s all very courtly—much bowing and talking about art and hand-kissing in an atmosphere that sometimes reeks with rage.” But the movies have their trials, too, she added. “I had a director once I’m sure couldn’t read. When we’d question him about something, he’d ask to have the script read to him and close his eyes as if in deep thought. He wasn’t really arty, I’m sure—just illiterate.”

When she was picked as the only successful candidate in a group of 15 auditioning for the Sadler’s Wells ballet school last week, Heller, nine-year-old daughter of Mary Martin, announced that her new idol was Moira Shearer. Furthermore, she said, “I want to be the greatest ballerina in the world. I don’t want to sing and act like my mother.”