The Duke of Windsor, on his stopover in Britain (en route to the south of France), paid a quiet call on Prime Minister Clement Attlee at No. 10 Downing Street, stayed 40 minutes, departed by the back door. The inside dopesters concluded (as they did last year, when the Duke also visited the P.M. and left by the back door) that Windsor would presently have a job with the Empire. Four days later everybody was still waiting, ears hopefully cocked.
In Manhattan, ex-Prince Carl Johan of Sweden, Windsor's second cousin, who also married a commoner (and relinquished his rights of succession), had a distressing set-to with his landlady. He sued to break his lease on his duplex apartment ($666.67 a month) which, the ex-Prince declared, not only "presented a somber, ungainly and disordered aspect," but also had rats. He suggested that $300 a month was quite enough. "I'm not being libelous and I'm not being rude," the landlady explained, as she reported that she had decorated the place "in a manner I thought fitting for an ex-prince."
Furrowed Brows
Raymond Duncan, 72, party leader of a sandaled Paris cult, plumped for the separation of Paris from France. Let Paris, he cried, be declared a "world city" and handed over to the artists and thinkers. "It would be ... easy," Raymond said brightly. "We could move the factories to Lyons . . . the Government ... to Bordeaux."
British Ambassador Lord Inverchapel, in McCook, Neb. to dress up the dedication of a dam, peered at the razzle-dazzle in wonder and made a traveler's observation: "In my country we help our celebrations along with beer and whiskey. You people do it on coffee."
Hollywood Veteran Walter Brennan, homespun character actor for 20-odd years, considered cinemacting as a career: "I see 'em get the big car and the big house and the big head. Then they lose the big car and the big house and all they've got left is the big head."
Hedy Lamarr, admitting that she and Actor-Husband John Loder were "discussing separation," produced a sort of aphorism: "A marriage based on many disagreements cannot be a blessing. . . ."
Harlow Shapley, Harvard's left-leaning astronomer, reported his discovery of an "ism" that he considers more dangerous than communism, fascism or any other: somnambulism--"seeming to be awake but actually not."
The Right Rev. John William Charles
Wand, Lord Bishop of London, peered about him, reported with some perception: "One thing about which the world is uncertain today is whether life has any meaning at all."
The Laurels
Warren R. Austin, 69-year-old father of two, was named Father of the Year by the National Father's Day Committee. As special ambassador to U.N., explained the committee, he had earned the honor by "contributing ... to our children's future."
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder handed his daughter, Edith, a diploma from George Washington University, and got an honorary LL.D. for himself.
Harold Lloyd, callow comic of the silents (and star of Preston Sturges' forthcoming The Sin of Harold Diddlebock), was elected Imperial Chief Rabban of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
Attorney General Tom C. Clark--in a week when lynching and vote fraud cases were giving his department no fun at all --got into a Micawberish topper, a striped prison jacket and a dismal pun (see cut), submitted himself to the nonsensical whoop-te-do of being chosen "Fall Guy" by the Circus Saints & Sinners club in Manhattan.
In Washington, Mrs. Robert A. Toft, bustling wife of the busy Senator, briskly hacked away at a roast for photographers, while organized labor hacked away at the Taft-Hartley bill. Occasion: another spell of social eating by members of Bess Truman's Spanish class.
Carl Sandburg, troubadour of the Midwest and No. 1 biographer of Lincoln, was suddenly, at 69, getting the home-town-boy-makes-good treatment from Sweden. Poet Sandburg was born & raised in Illinois, but his folks were Swedish. The Swedish press proposed that he be invited over to play the lion, and maybe get an honorary degree. "Sweden," declared the Dagens Nyheter, "owes Sandburg this homage. . . ."
Laurence Olivier, filming Hamlet, was really giving his talented all to the Bard. He will not only appear as Hamlet but as Hamlet's father's ghost, and for good measure, as the king in the play-within-the-play.
Winston Churchill, the British Control Commission gravely announced after polling some 2,500 citizens, is the Germans' favorite person. Second favorite: Joseph Stalin; Third: Pius XII.
The Thorns
Veteran Bandsman Fred Waring was sued for a separation by his second wife, Evalyn, after 14 years.
Ex-Follies Beauty Boots Mallory, who had been charged with drunken driving, won acquittal by declaring that she had been hysterical not from drinking but just from being scared.
Top-ranking Blues Singer Billie (Strange Fruit) Holliday was really singing the blues. She got a year and a day in a reformatory on a narcotics charge. The judge allowed her hospital treatment, hoped she would eventually tell the FBI where she got the junk.
Canadian Millionaire Duncan McMartin Jr. retorted to wife Pauline's separation suit in Manhattan with a long, fancy answer. Pauline not only led a "life of wanton extravagance," charged McMartin, but went nightclubbing with Doris Duke's ex-husband, James H. R. ("Jimmy") Cromwell, and went even farther with Tallulah Bankhead's ex-leading men, Helmut Dantine and Philip Reed--besides a couple of others.
Quiet Zone
Radio Know-It-All Franklin Pierce Adams' 19-year-old son, Tim, broke a finger on his right hand playing volley ball.
Actress Maureen O'Hara's two-year-old daughter, Bronwyn, stood tiptoe just as Maureen bent down for a kiss. Beautiful mamma stayed home from work next day with a swollen lip.
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