Regards to Broadway

Ethel Barrymore, 67, first lady of the U.S. theater, sped from Hollywood to Manhattan--but not to Broadway. What sent her packing was grandmotherhood, her first (see MILESTONES). She was not homesick for the theater; she liked Hollywood fine--the weather, the sunsets, the Pacific, the moon. As for cinemacting: "It's so much easier than the stage," said she, "it's a shame to take their money!"

Just when, if ever, would she return to the stage? Not till she found a play she couldn't resist. "It will either have to be about something very important,'' said she, "or about nothing at all. I would really like one about nothing at all. . . ."

She had just moved into a new home on the ocean, after months by herself in a cottage in a canyon. The canyon had been bad. "I was alone," she explained. "I was terrified. But I just pretended I wasn't there. ..." The white-haired Queen Dowager of the Royal Family denied a report that she had signed a seven-year movie contract. "I wouldn't sign a seven-year contract with God," she exclaimed in her famed rich Barrytone. "No--you'd better make that 'only with God.' ... At my age it would be ridiculous. . . ."

Home to Roost

Betty (The Egg and I) MacDonald, whose airy literary omelet is the nation's favorite dish, got a deep bow from her adopted state of Washington. The governor, the mayor and the president of the state Farmers' Association were among the benders-from-the-waist at eating and oratorical festivities in Seattle. Authoress MacDonald watched what she ate; after five years of staggering headaches she had discovered the trouble: she was allergic to eggs.

James Norman Hall, Tahiti-dwelling author (with Charles Nordhoff) of the Bounty series, discomfited many a book critic with a wicked confession: Fern Gravel, a child poetess whose volume, Oh, Millersville!, made a merry little noise in literary circles six years ago, existed only in Hall's brain. Deadpanned Hall in the Atlantic: Fern had come to him in a dream, and dictated such deathless verse as:

Millersville, oh, Millersville! That is my home and I love it, but still I wish that once in a while I could go To cities like Omaha and St. Joe. Hoixer Hall maintained that he was moved to confession by "twinges of conscience." He deserved more twinges for quoting, to their present shame, the past happy squeals of critics. Sample, from Poet-Critic Paul Engle (American Song): "There is so warm a feeling of validity about these verses, and so accurate a sense of individual character that their impact is far stronger than a simple amusement at childish simplicity."

The Shape of It

Erich von Stroheim, once Hollywood's bullet-headed villain No. 1, was having great success in Paris, and not liking it at all. His ten-year-old La Grande Illusion, reissued, was the best-attended movie in town--and the most debated, because it showed Germans in a favorable light. From the Riviera, Von Stroheim cried out clearly, "Most inopportune," then rapidly became less & less clear. "I was a German cavalry officer," said he. "I loved horses, women, champagne and sport. French officers and officers of all other countries loved the same things. It is the bosses who wage war against workers and vice versa."

Howard Hughes, one month out of a Los Angeles hospital where his plane crash put him, and still looking like a stretcher case (see cut), took to the air again, flew to Manhattan. His errand: pursuit of his $5 million damage suit against the censorious Eric Johnston office for keeping the Hughes-produced Outlaw and its busty Jane Russell out of most of the nation's cinemas. The front was expanding. British censors were now reported doctoring Miss Russell's outlawful curves, and modest shock was officially registered by the Association of Bill Posters of England and Ireland.

The Shape of Them

General John J. Pershing reached 86 at Washington's Walter Reed General Hospital, felt fine.

George VI, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, had to skip Sunday services. He had a cold--his first confining illness in nearly three years.

Mrs. Winston Churchill was abed with a slight concussion and bruises; she got them on Lake Geneva when a speedboat she was riding made a quick turn and tossed her against the gunwale.

Jimmy Savo, past master of comic pantomime, was busy figuring out new comedy routines. Place: a Manhattan hospital. Occasion: convalescence from the amputation of his tumorous right leg. Fey-and-wistful Savo, now 54, was keeping his chin up. "I've always kept it up," said he, "ever since I was eight years old, when I balanced a 48-pound wheel on it."

South American Way

Carol and his Magda, still exiling in Brazil, made a rare public appearance to goggle at royalty. The high-styled Braganzas, descendants of Brazil's second and last Emperor Dom Pedro II, were staging a circus. Dom Joao tamed lions, Princess Tereza played an Amazon, a couple of other princesses rode bareback. (The Brazilian Air Minister's nephew tried riding an elephant, but fell off and sprained his elbow.) Dom Pedro Henrique, the Pretender himself, boycotted the show: he was squabbling with the family over money matters.

Tyrone Power and Cesar Romero were getting heroes' welcomes in South America. The pair were flying Power's plane in a good-will tour of their own, down the west coast and over the heaven-puncturing Andes to Argentina. In Santiago crowds choked the streets outside the actors' hotel. But Romero missed some of the whoop-te-do: somehow he had lost his footing in another hotel, back in festive Peru, and now lay abed with a cracked elbow.

Relativity

Mayor William O'Dwyer's school-teaching sister, Kathleen, flew home to Ireland from New York, flew straight into trouble. Seized by Irish customs men: 500-odd pairs of undeclared nylons. Back in New York the Mayor's brother, Paul (who said the nylons were for a sister who runs a drygoods store), assured the press that he was sure Kathleen had really meant to pay duty.

Laurette, Mary Jane and Catherine Soong, daughters of China's Premier T. V. Soong and nieces of the Chiangs, flew east from San Francisco to school. Laurette, 18, was bound for Washington's Trinity College (Roman Catholic), Mary Jane and Catherine, 16 and 15, for Baltimore and Long Island prep schools, both Quaker.

Elihu Yale--ninth-generation descendant of the original's Uncle Tom--registered at Yale as a freshman.

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