"The Best Regulated Families"

The fur-coated bride was young (22), pertly pretty and the "richest girl in the world."The socialite-playboy groom smiled ecstatically and told reporters: "I assure you that it was love at first sight . . . love at first sight." Then amateur Sportsman James H. R. Cromwell and his bride, the former Doris Duke, boarded the Italian liner Conte di Savoia, sailed romantically away on an eight-month, round-the-world honeymoon. That was in 1935.

Last December the Reno courts awarded Doris Duke Cromwell a divorce on grounds of cruelty. Jimmy Cromwell marched straight into New Jersey's Chancery Court. There, last week, he finally succeeded in having the divorce declared null & void in New Jersey--where Mrs. Cromwell has some $10,000,000 worth of property. Grounds for the court ruling: 1) Doris Duke Cromwell had never become a bona fide resident of Nevada, even though she bought a house there; 2) the Nevada court had improperly concealed the evidence in the case. The decision made the validity of Reno divorces in other states increasingly uncertain.

"Shameful and Shocking." Jimmy Cromwell, son of Philadelphia's rich & famed hostess, Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury, had not been reticent about pleading his case in court. His basic philosophy: "I don't believe that a marriage license alone suffices to keep a woman in love with her husband. What happened to me can happen in the best regulated families."

The trouble began with politics. Said Jimmy: "You know ... I have always been a good New Dealer. I persuaded Mrs. Cromwell to contribute $50,000 to the Roosevelt campaign in 1940. Her attorney ... is a good old Republican reactionary and I am sure he helped to poison Mrs. Cromwell's mind against me."

When Jimmy -- presumably on the strength of the $50,000 campaign contribution--was made U.S. Minister to Canada, the Cromwells' domestic relations continued to deteriorate. Said the Cromwell counsel, State Senator John E. Toolan: "She humiliated him greatly by her indifference" to the responsibilities of a diplomat's wife even though she dutifully joined him in such chores as inspecting a Canadian gold mine (see cut). Her "conduct and her carryings on" were "shameful and shocking."

Back in New Jersey, added Senator Toolan, Mrs. Cromwell subjected her husband to "the acme of refined cruelty . . . when Mr. Cromwell's valet . . . was compelled to wait several hours . . . because Mr. Cromwell's bedroom was occupied by his successor in his wife's affections." A deposition from Mrs. Stotesbury stated that her daughter-in-law frequently trav eled without Jimmy, "and with companions of which my son deeply disapproved."

What Gentlemen Don't Do. Doris Duke Cromwell's behavior, her husband charged, was the chief cause of his humiliating defeat when he ran for U.S. Senator from New Jersey in 1940. During the summer, Mrs. Cromwell had been ill at Shangrila, her lush Hawaiian estate with an orchid-hung solarium and a $20,000 hydraulically elevated diving board. When Mrs. Cromwell's secretary learned that Politician Cromwell planned to rush to his wife's bedside, she telephoned from Hawaii to warn him that he would not be welcome --that he would, in fact, be locked out. "I don't care if she wants me to come or not,' Jimmy cried, "I'll come even if it's only for the sake of public appearance. Doesn't she know that I'm about to enter a political campaign? Doesn't she realize what the women of New Jersey will think? They'll think that I'm brutal."

When Doris later brought up the subject of divorce, Jimmy said: "You know you have no grounds. It is I who have suffered the onus of cruelty after you wrecked my political campaign...." Then, he charged, Mrs. Cromwell confessed adultery by proposing that he divorce her in New Jersey "because you have sufficient grounds." In cold, virtuous tones, Jimmy said he replied: "Gentlemen don't divorce their wives in this country."

At week's end, Doris Duke Cromwell appeared undisturbed by the fact that her divorce is good in Nevada, no good in New Jersey, questionable in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Manhattan gossip columnists reported that she had joined the United Seamen's Service, was training as a hostess, might be assigned to duty overseas.

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