Elsie Ferguson, other-worldly beauty of the silent cinema (Peter Ibbetson, with Wallace Reid), first starred on Broadway in 1909, was set for a Manhattan comeback 13 years after she had retired. She will play a wandering house guest in Beyond the Farthest Star, a play Author Rose Franken describes as plotless. Miss Ferguson is now 60.

Sergeant Joe Louis, 29, was knocked down by his old sparring partner, Sergeant George Nicholson, in an exhibition bout for soldiers at Mitchel Field, L.I. Later Sergeant Nicholson protested almost apologetically that he had not really knocked Joe down with the punch, but by stepping on his foot had accidentally made him fall.

Grace Moore, 42, was at work on her autobiography.

Jane Withers, 17, was at work on her autobiography.

Shirley Temple, 15, became an aunt.

Politicos

Winston Churchill found that the fighting versatility of Lord Louis Mountbatten, newly appointed Allied Commander in Southeast Asia, called for a new word, promptly furnished it : "He is what, pedants notwithstanding, I will venture to call a complete triphibian--that is to say, a creature equally at home in three elements, earth, air and water, and also well accustomed to fire."

Lord Tyrrell, 77-year-old president of the British Board of Film Censorship and a devout Catholic, forbade the showing of Stage Door Canteen unless a scene featuring Gracie Fields was cut out. His objection was not esthetic (he once remarked "I have no particular taste") but pious. The offending scene: energetic Gracie singing The Lord's Prayer.

Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska, sure that his state could outsell all others in the new War Bond drive, wrote a put-up-or-shut-up letter to all other governors, wagered "one beautiful, big, corn-fed Nebraska hog." Governor Homer Adkins of Arkansas promptly threw into the kitty one white-faced Arkansas calf.

Associate Justice William Orville Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court came down out of the Wallowa Mountains to Portland, Ore. He confessed that, during nearly three vacation months in his cabin, whose radio is busted, he had read "about six newspapers," had no idea what was going on.

Guests, Hosts

Bob Hope got back from Britain shortly after a brush with Westminster Abbey authorities. The comedian and a cinema company with a load of cinematic baggage had piled into the Dean's Yard to shoot some scenes, promptly got bundled out again. They had neglected to ask permis sion. Title of the movie: Welcome to Great Britain.

Olga Samaroff Stokowski, concert pianist, ex-wife of Conductor Leopold, proved herself the perfect wartime dinner guest: she brought along not only her ra tion book but also her cook.

Lieut. Colonel Serge Obolensky, top-ranking extraman of Manhattan, won a tribute from the World-Telegram's society editor. She reported that the durable charmer, "famed for his graceful waltzing, wasn't handicapped in the slightest by his heavy paratroop boots when he twirled around the St. Regis Roof the other evening."

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