In & Out

Pianist Oscar Levant was sued for a legal separation by his blonde wife, exActress June Gale, who complained that the radio know-it-all gave her "mental pain." A couple of days later she changed her mind and took him back.

Johnny ("Tarzan") Weissmuller, 38, one of the world's great swimmers before he took up grunting for Hollywood a decade or so ago, announced dreamily that he was going to swim the English Channel in record time next spring.

Doris Duke (Richest -Blonde -in -the -World) Rubirosa dropped into her native land from France for another darting glance before shoving off again. After five months in & around Paris as a leg girl for Harper's Bazaar (from which she has resigned), towering Doris--in a fitted grey lamb jacket, matching sidesaddle pill box, and gelid face-do--was worth a darting glance herself (see cut). She would alight next in Buenos Aires, to settle down, more or less, with new Husband Porfirio Rubirosa, the new Dominican Ambassador to Argentina.

Inside Sources

"There are some people who are ripe for democracy," reported retired Heavyweight Champ Gene Tunney, "and some who will be ripe for it a hundred years from now." Occasion for the remark: a chat with Buenos Aires newsmen after a meeting with Argentine Dictator Juan Peron. But Tourist Tunney quickly added that 1) he was not talking about Argentina, 2) he knew nothing about politics. On surer ground, he reported that when he shook hands he noticed that onetime boxing enthusiast Peron had had a fracture: "He apparently developed . . . more power in his punches than the bones of his hand could stop. That very often happens."

"We must decide whether America or China is our boundary," declared Chicago Tribune Publisher Robert R. McCormick, on a globe-trot's stopover in Manila. He was speaking of a boundary against Communism. Decided the Midwest's onetime No. 1 isolationist: "I think we should make it China."

"I'm glad to be back in democracy," announced Cinemactor Tyrone Power, home from 13 weeks of goodwilling-for-Holly-wood in Europe and Africa. "From what I saw of Europe," he reported to the press after assembling his impressions, "I'm convinced that the U.S. should adopt universal military training and be prepared for anything."

Nods & Becks

A man could go to the movies or stay home with a book. Either way, he could be sure he was doing the right thing--if he read the New York Times first. Somerset Maugham, No. 1 entertainer among the modern classics, listed in the Times the "ten" best novels ever written"; James Mason, No. 1 intellectual among the cinema's hardguys, listed the "five best" cinemactresses in the U.S.

"Let me begin by saying," Maugham began, "that to talk of the ten best novels in the world is to talk nonsense." He had a good word, however, for: Tom Jones, David Copperfield, Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, Madame Bovary, Le Pere Goriot, Le Rouge et le Noir, War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov. But "I could make a list of ten more ... as good as those. . . . My choice is arbitrary."

"The great actress," instructed Actor Mason, "has talent plus intelligence plus imagination plus X." The only cinemactress whom Mason currently found in possession of "plus X": Greta Garbo. The other four best: Dorothy McGuire, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, and "a non-pareil," Lena Home (see Music).

Mark Twain got a tribute of which he might or might not have approved. The Mark Twain Association began a drive to finance a $300,000 Mark Twain Chair of Literature at the University of California. Purpose of the "chair": the explanation of humor to students. In the Atlantic appeared some letters Twain had written to his fiancee--and one to her father. Portrait of an anxious-to-please son-in-law-to-be: "I wrote you [the father] and Mrs. Langdon a letter . . . which will offend again, I fear--and yet, no harm was meant, no undue levity, no disrespect, no lack of reverence. The intent was blameless--and it is the intent, and not the act. . . ."

Bob Hope was back from a royal command performance in London with the classiest imaginable keepsake for his actor's-scrapbook: a nice picture of Hope hobnobbing with fascinated royal chums around a book of Hollywood autographs, including Hope's (see cut).

Winston Churchill received tributes by the hundreds/- and presents by the score on his 73rd birthday. Among the presents: a bold seascape in oil by seven-year-old Grandson Winston II, whose art teacher is his grandfather. Winston II explained to the inquiring press why he hadn't yet done a portrait of his grandfather: "He wouldn't keep still."

In Manhattan, General Dwight D. Eisenhower got a homey tribute. Veteran Broadway Producer Brock Pemberton, who went to work for the National Draft Eisenhower League, explained: "He works on me like Lincoln."

Outrageous Fortune

In Washington, Secretary of the Interior Julius A. ("Cap") Krug's home was burglarized while he was exploring the nation's interior. Gone: one leather jacket, two watches, three gold studs (with diamonds), a few gold trinkets, one $20 gold piece, and four golden cases of Scotch.

In Atlanta, Georgia's Acting Governor Melvin E. Thompson was fined $3 by a traffic judge for parking too long in a restricted zone.

The Heidelberg Man was fresh out of two teeth. The famed primordial jawbone, hidden underground during the war, was now back at Heidelberg University, but with a couple of ugly gaps. The university wondered just who the dentist had been. "The missing teeth," declared a paleontologist, "did not drop out. . . . The Heidelberg Man had a wonderful set of molars ... all in perfect condition. . . ."

Italy's embattled Premier Alcide de Gasperi retired to bed for a spell with arthritis.

Arthritis also plagued Trixie Friganza, once brunette-&-bubbly queen of bubbly operettas. She more or less celebrated her 77th birthday abed in Flintridge, Calif.

The Alices were breaking their arms. Washington's famed, acerb hostess, "Princess Alice" Roosevelt Longworth, 63, lost her footing in a butcher shop, landed hard, broke her left arm in two places and sprained her ankle. Blonde Cinemactress Alice Faye, 32, fell into a sunken living room at a Los Angeles party and broke her right arm.

/- The London Daily Mail called him a "metabolic miracle."

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