Showfolk

Archduke Otto of Austria, at last report a glossy, uninvited onlooker at the Quebec Conference (TIME, Oct. 3), was the center of a wild rumor spread by peace-hungry Austrians in the hope of early deliverance from Nazi hands. The story: 31-year-old Pretender Otto had married 18-year-old Svetlana Stalin, only daughter of The Kremlin.

Frank ("The Voice") Sinatra, patent-leather-lunged idol, opened a three-week engagement at Manhattan's mammoth Paramount Theater, got the usual screaming reception from 30,000 bow-tied, bobby-soxed fans, who caused such a commotion that the Police Department responded with 421 policemen, 20 policewomen, 20 patrol cars, two trucks. The excitement had scarcely died down two days later, when an 18-year-old boy stood up in the theater, threw an egg that smacke'd Sinatra squarely between the eyes. The egger, one Alexander Ivanovich Dorogokupetz, was mobbed by Sinatra's fans but rescued by police and ushers. Said Dorogokupetz: "I vowed to put an end to this monotony of two years of consecutive swooning. . . . I took aim and threw . . . it hit him . . . his mouth was open . . . I felt good."

Gertrude Lawrence, sparkling British comedienne (Lady in the Dark), arrived in Manhattan from a six-months' battle tour of England, France and Belgium, admitted that she had suffered from "estomac de Normandie . . . a polite name for dysentery." She began rehearsing a new comedy-drama, Errand for Bernice, but said that she "may not be able to stick it" because she is too far from the war. Said she: "I keep feeling I ought to be doing something. New York is just incredible. It's as though peace were already declared. . . . I've never seen so much money . . . so many people buying clothes. It's another world."

Beatrice Lillie, known to Britain's peerage as Lady Peel (see FOREIGN NEWS), on her way to the U.S. from Britain for her first appearance in five years--starring in Showman Billy Rose's forthcoming Seven Lively Arts (TIME, July 24--was bounced off a plane in Ireland, had to await a priority while the show, having chalked up a record $300,000 advance sale, went into rehearsal without her.

Fred Astaire, having danced his way through a six-week U.S.O. tour of the European theater, arrived in Manhattan, reported that when doughboys asked "How does it feel to hold Rita Hayworth (or Ginger Rogers) in your arms?" he invariably replied: "Fine--they're swell dancers." Groaned the doughboys: "Aw, that's not what we meant."

Teresa Wright, blue-eyed cinemactress (Casanova Brown, Shadow of a Doubt), and her husband, Niven Busch, Hollywood writer-producer (In Old Chicago, The Westerner), were sued for $15,000 by their cook, who charged that Busch's eleven-year-old son (by a previous marriage) had shot him in the arm because his stepmother "requested the kid to take a pot shot at me."

Bruce Cabot, squarejawed, Hollywood heman, asked permission of the Los Angeles Superior Court to legalize his cine-moniker, dropping his real name: Etienne Jacques Pellissier de Bujac.

Belles Dames

Ava Astor Ribblesdale, 75, Philadelphia-born widow of Lord Ribblesdale, ex-wife of Colonel John Jacob Astor, mother of Vincent Astor, grande dame of the prewar international set, who gave up her title in 1940 and recovered her U.S. citizenship, registered in Manhattan for her first U.S. vote.

Eleanor Roosevelt's weekly press conference began with Washington newshens cheerfully singing "Happy birthday, dear Eleanor. . . ." The 60-year-old First Lady shook hands all round, then waited for questions. What would she like to do when she went back to private life? When she did go back, Eleanor Roosevelt said, it might "be enormously interesting to go to a teachers' college in my own state and learn to teach English literature." Asked whether she thought it possible for a President's wife to avoid speaking engagements and public activities, she said thoughtfully: "Anything is possible. People have to be themselves. . . . I've lived the way I had to live because those were the things that mattered to me."

Lady Astor, plainspeaking, Virginia-born Tory M.P., branded as "a lot of hooey" the "Middle East Compassionate Posting Committee" campaign for British Tommies who want to get home to have children (TIME, Oct. 16), claimed that British women "prefer to wait for the peace." Observed she: "Our birth rate is low, but it is nothing to worry about. It is quality, not quantity, that counts."

Mistinguett, longtime darling of Paris, displayed, for the benefit of Paris photographers and posterity, her 69-year-old, onetime "million-dollar" legs (see cut).

Asides

King Vittorio Emanuele, who was Italy's greatest numismatist under Mussolini, discovered that his collection, supposedly lodged in a villa near Turin, had been stolen by Nazis and Fascists.

Maury Maverick, loquacious head of the Smaller War Plants Corp., in Britain to study new fields for U.S. small business, told the "gosh-darned true version" of Lieut. General George S. Patton's $1,000 bet (TIME, Sept. 18). Maverick said he had heard the true details from "a couple of generals [who] had enough rank to make it gospel truth." Said he: "That yarn that Patton bet $1,000 . . . is hokum. He said he would be the first one to spit in the Seine. . . ."

General Dwight D. Eisenhower gave to the Smithsonian Institution the desk and chair from which he directed the invasion of Europe.

Abraham Lincoln, who won fame as a rail splitter and wrestler before he entered politics, also won a foot race when he was 42, according to an entry in an Urbana (Ill.) carpenter's account book, just made public. The note, dated May 2, 1851, read: "Seen Abe Lincoln run a foot race with Samuel Waters from Mane [sic] St. to Walnut St. in front of the court house. Abe beat."

George Bernard Shaw made himself clear on the subject of Shaw societies: ". . . My one prayer . . . is to do what you like among yourselves, hold your meetings, read your papers, discuss my views or what you think are my views, accept my blessings--but for God's sake, leave me alone."

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