Relative Anonymity

"Well, the blow has fallen," mourned Elsa Maxwell, columning from the Riviera. "Maurice Chevalier is going to be married." But even if he was,* Elsa could bear up. There were lots of lovely people on the Riviera, many from Hollywood.

Not that Hollywood outshone the rest. Cabled one Riviera correspondent last week: "Nobody goggles at Rita Hayworth's body among the hundreds of slim, tanned bathing beauties, or at Tyrone Power's muscles alongside the bronzed Apollos." The cinema people were enjoying relative anonymity.

Lana Turner was seeing Cannes with Husband Bob Topping and Glamor Boy

Freddy McEvoy. She continued to have reporter trouble. When one newswoman asked her, "Do you wear a brassiere?" Lana biffed back with, "And you, do you wear a set of false teeth?"

Charles Boyer, back in French country life, was passing his time playing petanque (bowling) and drinking pale pastis (an absinthe imitation). One day, weary-eyed Marcel Pagnol came over for cocktails and referred to Boyer as "I'Americain." Charles didn't like Marcel's tone of voice. He socked him and they had it out right there, with screams from the girls. But it all ended in a reconciliation scene: the rivals embraced and sat down together to a wonderful bouillabaisse.

But the gossip of gossipy Cannes was

Orson Welles, and his reunion at the Hotel du Cap with estranged wife Rita Hayworth. They kissed in the lobby, then settled down for a day of play, ending with a glorious evening in a Cannes nightclub and buckets of champagne. When Orson had to go to Rome on business, Rita wept but gamely went out to dinner that night with Aly Khan, eldest son of the Aga ("Richest man in the world") Khan.

One night Elsa threw a slumming party in Antibes (Darryl Zanuck and Rita were along), ordered dinner at the popular bistro Felix au Port. The table was on the sidewalk, and almost at once a crowd gathered. When it turned out that they were not autograph hunters but merely folk grumbling at the sight of a lavish dinner, the party moved inside.

*Said Chevalier this week: "Newspapers are quicker than violins in an orchestra . . . The news is at least premature."

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