HP-Times.com

Dr. Robert Ley's brain was en route to Washington within a week after the bibulous Nazi labor leader's suicide. The U.S. Surgeon General's office wanted to find out for sure what was the matter.*

Mistinguett, ancient (seventyish) Parisian music-hall favorite whose shapely legs have outlasted two World Wars, saw Marlene Dietrich perform in Paris, cooed to a lobby listener: "Marlene was marvelous, but, cherie, you know, she's really getting very old."

Joe Louis was off to a flying start on the publicity build-up for the Billy Conn fight, still seven months away. First he announced his plan of attack: "Cool him . . . soon as I can;" then he said that before the fight he would open a Harlem cafe for "theatrical and sporting figures."

Oveta Culp Hobby, ex-director of the WAC, returned to Washington for a visit, showed conclusively that she had left all that way behind her (see cut).

George Bernard Shaw's last remaining tooth--a wisdom tooth--had been plucked by a pair of dental pliers, reported a London Times correspondent.

Past, Present and Future

Paul Lukas, Hungarian-born stage & screen specialist at portraying conspiratorial smoothies, got back from a trip to Europe, confirmed reports that he had seen through the disguise of a Nazi actor hiding out in Hof-Gastein, Austria, and turned him in to Army Intelligence. Watch on the Rhine's anti-Nazi hero was brimful of worry: "The mountains are full of SS men. . . . They are laughing at our demobilization. . . . We are suckers."

Harold L. ("Terrible-Tempered") Ickes, asked for the umpteenth time if he expected to quit his Interior Secretaryship soon, tried a kittenish answer for a change: "That cat has more than nine lives. . . . Besides, I don't like cats."

Charles E. ("Commando") Kelly, famed Congressional Medal winner (40 dead Germans in 20 minutes), settled down to the peaceful task of running a Pittsburgh filling station. Said he: "It's an honest living. I like it."

Howard Lindsay found himself unexpectedly onstage in a new Lindsay-Grouse collaboration, State of the Union, a Broadway-bound political hot potato about how Republicans knock their heads together. Author Lindsay, who pinch-hit as an old-line GOPolitico for two performances, is used to saying his own lines; he played Father in Life with Father for 1,618 performances.

Collectors' Items

Booker T. Washington became the (first Negro ever elected to the Hall of Fame.* The onetime slave, pioneer in Negro education and autobiographer (Up From Slavery) received more votes from the 93 Hall of Fame electors than any of the other three newcomers: Georgia-born Poet Sidney Lanier, Revolutionary Pamphleteer Thomas Paine, Yellow Fever Fighter Walter Reed.

Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of Hollywood's most bucolic types, turned up at Sun Valley, Idaho, for the pheasant season, brought home the bakin' their first day out (see cut).

Henry Agard Wallace was doubly rewarded for his international plugging of "equal justice for all"; the African Academy of Arts and Research presented him with an African mahogany table (see cut) and a session of African whoop-te-do. Ceremonially involved were Prince Akiki Nyabongo of Uganda and K. Ozuomba Mbadiwe of Nigeria (both in flowing robes), Asadata Dafora (who did a knottily convulsive dance) and Norman Coker (who beat a drum).

*Ley's choice for a defender at the war criminals' trial, said an Army major, had been Father Charles E. Coughlin.

*New York University established the "Hall" in 1900, gets nominations from the public before every quinquennial election, has its Senate of professors and university officials second the nominations, sends the names to some 100 distinguished citizens (geographically scattered), who then do the electing. If somebody puts up the money, each winner gets a bronze bust in a colonnade in The Bronx.

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