Real Estate

Separate fires broke out in Dorothy Thompson's home in Manhattan, and in Governor-Elect Thomas E. Dewey's home in Pawling, N.Y. The columnist's fire started in a secret washroom (its door a swinging bookcase), burned up 600 books, smoked her out for the night. The Governor-elect's fire spread from a defective flue in the fireplace; firemen chopped a hole in the side of the house to put it out.

Too big a house for her, said Elaine Barrie, is the late John Barrymore's $33,000 mansion in Los Angeles' suburban Bel-Air. She got it with a divorce settlement in 1940, and will auction it off soon, move where she has "just enough room for myself, my two canaries and three dogs."

A Congressional committee gnawing over the U.S. shortage of doctors called as witnesses both Dr. Morris Fishbein, American Medical Association bigwig, and mountain-moving Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, who in the name of wartime efficiency is providing his tens of thousands of employes with medical attention at a fixed fee of 50¢ a week. The two did not clash directly but when Fishbein said priorities made the building of new hospitals impossible, Kaiser snorted: "We are doing it." Said Dr. Fishbein blandly: "You are a very strong man, Mr. Kaiser." Before the hearing was over the strong-minded duo had given the world a memorable picture of a high-domed duologue.

Armed & Disarmed Forces

Vernon ("Lefty") Gomez, 31-year-old Yankee pitcher, went to work in General Electric's war plant in Lynn, Mass. To Cornell University, to teach Russian, went Marie Tolstoy, 34-year-old granddaughter of the famed Russian novelist.

In an interview at Red Bank, N.J. (near the Army camp where her husband now works) Gloria Vanderbilt di Cicco explained, "I was never proud of being a Vanderbilt. If I weren't so happy now, I might hate them [her mother and aunt fought over her custody when she was a tot]. They never thought of what they were doing to me. . . . Every time I was hurt or lonely ... I wished I had a father living and a mother who loved him and loved me. ... I kept saying to myself, 'when I grow up I'll marry and have a lot of children and I'll love them so much they'll never be lonely or unhappy.' That's what I'm going to dp with our children. I want six, three boys and three girls."

In Hollywood, before the Government exempted contracted 1942 salaries from the new income ceiling (see p. 92), Cinemactor Franchot Tone walked out on a

Warner Bros, contract that would have paid him $60,000 for one picture. Paulette Goddard ditched a radio appearance.

Out of the temporary Reserve into the regular Coast Guard went Beauhunk Victor Mature, who enlisted as a coxswain, left behind Hollywood's cracks about the Reserve being a soft spot (see cut).

Song & Dance

For the first time since infantile paralysis struck her in June 1941, Operatic Soprano Marjorie Lawrence appeared before an audience: 600 guests at a Metropolitan Opera Guild luncheon in Manhattan. She arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria's ballroom in a wheelchair, sang from a settee. Lily Pons fell victim to the singer's bogey, laryngitis, canceled a concert in Houston. Artemisa Elias Calles, black-eyed, 28-year-old daughter of Mexico's ex-President Plutarco Elias Calles, made her debut as a professional dancer in Manhattan, gave flamenco and Spanish dances in a floor show at the Hotel Pierre. Cheerleader on the sidelines: Dr. Joseph Jordan Eller, her ex-husband since May 1941.

In a new round in the three-year-old fencing match between the D.A.R. and colored Contralto Marian Anderson, the D.A.R.ters who had finally asked her to sing in Washington's Constitution Hall got an acceptance with provisos: that there be no audience segregation, that she be allowed to sing there again sometime. So the D.A.R.ters withdrew the invitation. Then Marian Anderson accepted anyway. But Sol Hurok, her publicity-wise manager, would not let the quarrel lapse. Said he: "Since the executive committee has not referred in its letter to the matter of segregation . . . Miss Anderson understands that this is no barrier."

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