Monday, Jun. 03, 1957

Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

Even India's Prime Minister Nehru was dragged into the international to-do over the "business relationship" between Italian Film Director Roberto Rossellini and his connecting-suite neighbor in Bombay's Taj Mahal Hotel, high-caste Siren Sonoli Das Gupta, 27, wife of an Indian movie director. A delegation from the family of doe-eyed Sonali, mother of two sons, called on Nehru with the obvious purpose of persuading him to rid Sonali of Rossellini, 51. They hinted that Rossellini claimed to be a pal of Nehru's. Neutralist Nehru took sides instanter. "That rascal!" cried he. "Does he say I'm his friend? I barely met him. He's no friend of mine!" Somebody suggested that the family should have hired a gang of goondas (goons) to thrash the rascal. "Why didn't you?" snapped Nehru.

After a futile two-day effort to renew his visa in New Delhi, Romeo Rossellini, inexplicably driving around in a car belonging to the husband of his girl friend, managed a Bombay getaway only after a member of India's Parliament asked him pointblank: "Are you sleeping with Sonali?" The hesitant answer: "No." Brother and sister, sort of? "I wouldn't say that, either."

In their judgment of Sonali's misbehavior, many Indians could find less than no excuse for it.* Sonali sneaked out of the hotel once during the week to see a movie. The film: Anastasia, starring Oscar-winning Cinemactress In grid Bergman Rossellini. Ingrid, in Paris, kept determinedly calm about the Indian uproar. Roberto, however, came closest to unburdening himself when he told some of New Delhi's staunchest citizens: "I have fallen in love with India. I intend to become an Indian citizen and not return to Italy." The week's developments were perhaps best summed up by Hollywood Pundit Sheilah Graham: "I'm inclined to believe that there is trouble in [Ingrid's] marriage with Rossellini."

When Publisher William Randolph Hearst at 88 shuffled off his editorial coil, his most fabulous legacy was his California barony-on-the-Pacific (375 sq. mi. in its heyday) known as San Simeon. Through the 14 Hearst newspapers last week, W.R.H.'s sundry heirs and the Hearst Corp.--good taxpayers all--announced that the 120-acre heart of their splendiferous white elephant, worth some $50,000 a year to California in taxes, had been given to the State of California. A condition of the gift, which includes a Moorish castle: it will be dedicated as a "historical monument," and a memorial to Hearst and his mother Phoebe. California was no shortsighted beneficiary. Its State Park department is even now plotting rubberneck tours at $1 a head.

Word came from the Antarctic that the 18 U.S. explorers hibernating at the South Pole have averaged a weight loss of 15 Ibs. per man. Biggest loser: Paul A. Siple (TIME, Dec. 31), scientific boss of the polar party, down to 217 Ibs. from his normal 250. All of the pole sitters are in good health and spirits despite such inconveniences as a recent temperature of 100.4DEG below zero--a record low.

Iran's Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his comely Queen Soraya winged into Madrid for what was billed as a four-day state visit. But Spain's Dictator Francisco Franco was not the notable they came primarily to see. On their very first day in Madrid, the Shah called in the dean of Madrid University's medical school, Dr. Jesus Garcia Orcoyen, an internationally renowned gynecologist, and asked him to examine Soraya. Apparently at stake was their marriage. After six childless years with Soraya, the Shah, whose only child is a daughter by his first wife Fawzia, is growing desperate for a male heir. If Soraya is doomed to remain barren, say the Shah's intimates, a divorce, despite the royal pair's deep affection, is more than likely.

Rhode Island's hale, hearty Democratic Senator Theodore Francis Green turned 89 years, 7 months, 26 days, thus became the oldest man ever to serve in the U.S. Congress. His goal: to observe his centenary while in office.

Midway in his soul-saving New York crusade, Evangelist Billy Graham will go on TV. This Saturday (8-9 p.m., E.D.T.) on the ABC network, straight from Madison Square Garden, a Graham meeting will be telecast for the first time in the U.S. Cost of the program: $300,000, underwritten by Billy's current campaign backers. After that, muses Graham hopefully, he would like to launch a 26-week religious TV extravaganza. Its sponsors would have to be content with institutional plugs, no hard sell. Though one of the hottest salesmen ever to push intangibles, Billy admits: "It would be difficult to break into the middle of a sermon and start selling tooth paste." But Orator Graham may have difficulty convincing a sponsor to accept him on those terms.

Like any prudent Congressman quick to heed even the silliest requests from a constituent, Brooklyn Democrat John J. Rooney, 53, asked the Library of Congress to ransack its stacks and files for the words to an oldtime ditty entitled The Lobster Is the Wise Guy, After AIL The library, one of the world's great literary storehouses, was embarrassed to reply that it could not locate Rooney's Lobster among its Crustacea volumes or anywhere else. At hearings on the library's budget, Representative Rooney scolded Librarian of Congress L Quincy Mumford: "I was amazed to find that [you] could not come up with the words of this song which I have heard sung since I was a boy!" Already fearful of budget slashes, Mumford unhappily allowed: "I cannot account for its absence." Hearts, heavy over their failure, some library employees set lobster pots all about the capital in hopes of snaring Rooney's elusive tune. Last week, to the everlasting glory of the Dewey decimal system, a reading-room worker made the catch, vindicated Mumford. Rooney, face red as a lobster's, had got the title wrong, owed apologies to Wise Guy Mumford. The song: I'd Rather Be a Lobster Than a Wise Guy.

Both before and after President Eisenhower took to TV to defend his besieged budget (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Capitol Hill Democrats snickered in the cloakrooms: "The Republican Party should demand equal time to answer him!" Utah's neo-dinosaurian Republican ex-Governor J. Bracken Lee, now chairman of the "For America" committee, did exactly that. By last week three major TV networks had turned down Republican Lee's request, leaving only Mutual Broadcasting Network as his last hope.

In his zeal for fast cars and beautiful women, Spain's late Marquis de Portago (TIME, May 20) neglected the legal adoption of one of his sons, Kim, now 3. Legally fatherless, little Kim was last week the object of a private tug o' war that will probably never land in the courts. Racer de Portage's mother, Olga Martin-Montis, holder of the De Portago purse strings, is fond of her grandson, reportedly wishes to adopt him herself. All for keeping the boy and wangling from Olga a settlement on him is Kim's mother, onetime famed U.S. Model Dorian Leigh, 36, jilted last year by the marquis (long estranged from U.S.-born wife) after he ran afoul of the charms of much-traveled Cinemactress Linda (The Happy Time) Christian.

Last week Tennessee's Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver was telling an improbable yarn about the G.O.P., but asserting that it "could have happened." The Keef's rib-tickler: After a newsman asked a Republican Congressman to define "Modern Republicanism," a Democratic bystander gave the answer: "Modern Republicanism is excitingly and dynamically conservative. It is neither inflexibly traditional nor discordantly progressive. It is at once distinctive and secure, but never overwhelming or confining. It has dignity, quality and dependability. It is designed for men and women of early middle age with an income of over $25,000 a year and a net worth of at least $75,000." The astonished reporter, according to Kefauver, gasped: "Where did you ever get that?" "Simple," replied the explicit Democrat. "I took it right out of an ad for Lincoln Continental!''

*Proclaims one Hindu manual for wives: "Be her husband deformed, aged, infirm, offensive . . . choleric, debauched, immoral, a drunkard, a gambler, let him frequent places of ill-repute, live in open sin with other women ... a wife should always look upon him as her god . . . remain with her eyes fixed upon him waiting for his orders."

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