People: The Inside Dope

At the Denver convention of the C.I.O. Oil Workers’ International, Guest Speaker Walter Reuther laid down the auto workers’ political line for 1952: “The 80th Congress, once lambasted by President Truman as the worst in history, looks like a New Deal Congress compared to this horsemeat 82nd Congress . . . Ford went down in history as the man who took the horse off America’s streets . . . This Congress will be noted for having restored the horse to the American table.”

In London, Cinemactress Elizabeth Taylor, who once explained that her marriage to Conrad Hilton Jr. went on the rocks because she had “the body of a woman and the emotions of a child,” announced that the two were just about on a par now, that she was “mentally equipped” at 19 to try marriage again. Said she: “It’s maturity that counts. I am definitely in favor of marriage.”

A reporter in Waltham, Mass, wanted to know how former White House resident Fala, now 13 years old, was getting along. Said Eleanor Roosevelt: “Well, he’s old and grey, but he’s well. He still goes walking with us at Hyde Park, but the walks have to be shorter now. He snores quite loudly and sleeps later than he used to, but he’s still a fine dog.”

Curtain Call

A nursery near London announced that a delicate mauve orchid, developed in 1942 and christened Marshal Stalin, had been renamed. The new name: General George Patton.

Charles Chaplin, who likes to cast his pictures with relatively unknown actresses (e.g., Paulette Goddard in Modern Times), followed his custom again. After an interview and screen test, he picked London-born Claire Bloom, a 20-year-old brunette, to star in his new film Limelight, scheduled for fall production. Evacuated to the U.S. with other British children during the war, Claire returned home, joined the Oxford Repertory Theater, two years later won her first big-time applause as a fragile Ophelia. The news that she was Chaplin’s choice came at the end of a successful London run in Ring Round the Moon. Her reaction: “I could drop dead this moment.”

For his “historic contribution to the American motion picture,” the Hollywood Screen Producers Guild presented a silver laurel wreath to Movie Veteran Jesse Lasky, 71. After the ceremony, Lasky, who once played a professional cornet and had an ambition to play in Sousa’s band, gave the audience a sample of his old showmanship: a stirring rendition of

Stars and Stripes Forever (with a professional musician, behind a curtain, to help him over the high notes).

From her home in Aberdeen, Scotland, old Opera Star Mary Garden, 74, announced plans for another final tour of the U.S. this fall. The purpose: scouting for someone talented enough to play her life story in a movie. She admitted little hope of success, however: “American girls don’t know how to breathe. They tinkle when they talk.”

Slimmed down after a nine-week diet of “baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whisky” while filming The African Queen in the Belgian Congo, Cinemactor Humphrey Bogart, with his wife Lauren Bacall and 2½-year-old son Stephen, arrived in Manhattan. Said Bogie: “Africa is a good place to stay away from, but I suppose that statement will burn up all the Africans.” Before leaving for Hollywood, he went to a ball game, where he met another baseball fan, Douglas MacArthur. The dialogue, said Bogart, went something like this: “The general said: ‘Hear you had a pretty rough time in

Africa.’ I thought of all he’d been through, and then I blushed like a schoolgirl and said: ‘It was nothing, general. It was really nothing at all.’ “

For Mrs. Douglas MacArthur there was a tribute of sorts, too. A Manhattan suit designer was inspired to present her with a scroll as “Outstanding Little Woman* of the Year,” whose “constancy and devotion to her husband and whose outstanding ability to dress exactly right for every occasion has provided inspiration to little women in every part of the world.”

Hands Across the Sea

U.S. Minister to Luxembourg Perle Mesta arrived in Stockholm “to learn and enjoy as much as I can,” almost at once found something she enjoyed. Said she: “I love your red cows. They remind me of our Middle West. I wish I could take one home with me.”

Radio Comic Fred Allen wore his saddest face to London, where he talked to reporters about laughs and life. Said he: “I’m the poor man’s Will Rogers. There’s more poor men than rich men so I have a chance of lasting a long, long time . . . Over in Hollywood, everything gets exaggerated, including people’s ideas of themselves. We live in New York. People there are normal-sized. We aim eventually just to live in oblivion and get to the grave without confusion . . . I’m a sad man. I’ve been leading mourner at the death of more jokes than any man alive.”

Williamsburg, Va.† dressed up in its 2OO-years-ago best to welcome the visiting Lord Mayor of London, Sir Denys Lowson, 45, the youngest to hold office since Dick Whittington took the oath at the age of 38. On a good-will visit to “knit closer together the bonds of friendship,” he closed the four-day pageant by leading a parade of mayors from the colonial capitals of the 13 original states.

*5 ft. 2 in.

† For other news of Williamsburg, see EDUCATION.