Men of Substance

Laurance & Lester Armour and Joseph M. Cudahy got gouged by their Chicago corner butchers, according to OPA. Investigators of violated price ceilings reported that the Armours had paid 10-c- a Ib. too much for hamburger and Cudahy 8-c- too much for sirloin.

John Jacob Astor, assisted by his chauffeur, whisked a piglet to a swank Manhattan pet hospital from the Astor farm in Basking Ridge, N.J. Hospital authorities soon told the press that the patient, Silvia by name, was improving. Her trouble: undernourishment (probably as a member of too large a litter).

Winston Churchill stood firm against a piece of U.S. slang in the House of Commons. When a member who was questioning him referred to "a stooge," shocked cries of "Oh!" went up all over the chamber. Snapped the Prime Minister: "I am not prepared to answer a question couched in such very unseemly terms."

Secretary Harold L. Ickes, Solid Fuels Administrator, was taken over the coals in the periodical whoop-de-do of Manhattan's Circus Saints & Sinners club, which costumed him appropriately (see cut), hazed him in song and story, made him a member.

Troupers

Adolphe Menjou, for nearly two decades one of the cinema's slickest dressers, got back from a four-and-a-half-month USO tour of England, North Africa and Sicily -- where he reported there were mosquitoes as big as pigeons. Tanned and thinner, he wore a threadbare royal blue outfit, white shirt, red tie with speckled stripes, khaki sweater, green socks, an exhausted artificial carnation.

Marlene Dietrich was ready for her new picture, Kismet (see cut). Hollywood proudly announced that it took four hours to undress and gild her.

Ann Miller, ex-Scandals star, Hollywood danseuse, grabbed a revolver and blazed away into a tree outside her bedroom window. "I'm sure I didn't hit him, but he dropped off the tree, fell and scrambled," she reported. She said he wore shorts and had been looking in on her, off & on, for two months. "I can't shoot with a revolver," she apologized.

Gertrude Lawrence, James Cagney, Robert Benchley got buttonholed by the New York Daily News's "Inquiring Fotographer," who asked them if they felt any different, now that they were celebrities. Cagney and Miss Lawrence answered no. Said Benchley: "When I started out on what you call my 'career' I weighed 143 Ib. and had never had an intoxicating drink. I always wore a 'Belmont' 14 1/2 collar and did exercises to develop my neck. You ask me if I feel different today?"

Mary Martin of Broadway (One Touch of Venus) told New York Post Columnist Earl Wilson that when she was "disgusted" her favorite oath was, "Oh, plop!"

Doyles

Adrian Conan Doyle, younger son of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, himself set pen to paper in an attempt to settle the aging argument about the identity of Sherlock's prototype. To the London Daily Telegraph he wrote: "The fact is my father, himself, was Sherlock Holmes. It was true that Sir Arthur was absentminded and often put on one brown shoe and one black shoe, but like Sherlock Holmes the accuracy of my father's deductions was startling."

Denis Percy Stewart Conan Doyle, brother of Adrian, announced in Los Angeles that he would soon return to England, stand for election to Parliament. A spiritualist like his father, Denis also made his periodical report that he.was still chatting with Sir Arthur from time to time.

Out of the Past

James Eli Watson, oratorical, jowl-shaking Republican Senator for 17 years before 1933, was back home in Indiana for his 80th birthday, greeted the press with: "Sit down and I'll tell you 100 lies in 50 minutes." He is positively "not a candidate for office . . . just an old, broken-down number out on the scrap heap with no ambition except to help my party."

Bert Acosta, 50, famed transatlantic flyer of 1927, was arrested for sleeping in a Bronx subway station. Charged with disorderly conduct, he got a suspended sentence when he pleaded guilty.

Earl Browder, No. 1 U.S. Communist, brought a libel suit against the Philadelphia Record, which had called him a "convicted perjurer." Convicted three years ago of obtaining a passport by misrepresentation and fraud, he demanded $100,000 damages, as a "person of good fame, name, credit and reputation."

Scholars

Herbert George Wells at 77 won a Doctorate of Science at London University as an "external student." His thesis: "Personality of the Mesozoics."

Lieut. General Mark W. Clark was given an honorary degree by the University of Naples, which decided that he was a Doctor of Political Sciences.

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