Dogfights

Senator Tom Connolly, fancy-dressing, fancy-swearing Democrat from Texas, uttered a prosaic "damn" on the Senate floor, got tutted by Nebraska's Kenneth Wherry, ex-undertaker, who considered the word "beneath the dignity of the Senate." Connally promptly withdrew the word ("I know my colleagues are delicate"), swore he was just quoting somebody else, and thus "it wasn't my word at all."

Charles A. Lindbergh's shooting role in the war ceased to be a scuttlebutt topic. A press association reported: Civilian Lindbergh, in 1944, as a technical adviser in the South Pacific, went out in a formation with Major Richard ("Dick") Bong. A Zero jumped them. Civilian Lindbergh fired one burst from the guns, got his man.

Elliott Roosevelt's famed Apriority bull mastiff, Blaze, 125 lbs., won a bloody encounter with 20-lb. Fala on the lawn at) Hyde Park. He lost to Malvina Thompson, Eleanor Roosevelt's companion-secretary. When Blaze charged in a surprise attack, plucky Miss Thompson snatched the Scottie into her, arms. Blaze leaped. He got 1) Fala, 2) Miss Thompson (on the left index finger). Blaze tried to finish Fala. Miss Thompson conked Blaze with a rock. Fala went to the vet for a patching-up, Blaze (by Elliott's order) went to the vet to be destroyed. The state got his head for a rabies test, found none. That saved Fala's life.

Eleanor Roosevelt's customary cordiality to the press sagged under the strain. To a reporter who asked for details, and quoted the Associated Press, she crackled: "Go back to your office and telephone the Associated Press and tell them to mind their own business."

Home Folks

Charles Spencer Chaplin, 56, proclaimed that he was an expectant father for the fourth time. (He denies fathering Joan Berry's daughter.) The mother: Fourth Wife Oona, 20-year-old daughter of Eugene O'Neill. She bore No. 1 to the silvering comedian in August 1944, awaits No. 2 next March.

Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, mother of glamor girl Gloria Jr. and twin sister of England's Lady Furness, flew home from England with glad tidings of London. Reported mink-coated Mrs. Vanderbilt: "The people are brave and are taking it beautifully. Nobody dresses formally."

Thomas Wolfe's mother, Julia Elizabeth Wolfe, 85, went up to Manhattan to see a Tom Wolfe biographer ("I said to him, 'Why don't you hurry up and get it finished?' "), talked to a publisher about getting her son's plays produced, dropped in on New York University. "I got to autographing books," she said afterward, "and instead of just writing my name, I wrote a page in each book, so I wasn't finished until 3 a.m." Of her son's death, seven years ago: "It was hard to give him up, but I figure he lived as much in 38 years as most folks do in 75."

Top Drawer

Hedda Hopper, high-styled Hollywood gossip, wife No. 5 of marrying DeWolf Hopper's six, hopped to Manhattan for the opera opening, appeared in a chinchilla coat which she boasted was the only one in Hollywood--except for 88-year-old Lady (Elsie de Wolfe) Mendl's. She declared she would never marry again, explained why: "What I attract is too young. What I should attract is too old."

James Roosevelt and wife Romelle made the 1946 edition of the New York Social Register, whose policymakers, moving as always in mysterious ways their wonders to perform, silently dropped: 1) Elliott Roosevelt, who had married Cinemactress Faye Emerson between editions,* 2) John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, multimillionaire sportsman, and wife Betsy (ex-Mrs. James Roosevelt).

Joseph E. Davies, ex-Ambassador to Russia, was in solid with both classified and classless society. He 1) held his place in the Social Register, 2) got the Order of Lenin for his good-willing between the U.S. and the Soviets.

Fine Arts

Adolf Hitler, in granite, was auctioned off in London, where the bust had been in the German Embassy. His price, paid by Captain R. Gordon-Canning, former member of the Anglo-German organization, The Link, and wartime jailbird: $2,000.

Rudolph Valentino still came high: at an auction of odds & ends from his Hollywood home, a fan (female) paid $1,900 for a silver tea set.

John Milton's Paradise Lost, first edition, fetched $1,600 at an auction in Manhattan.

*Elliott was having a bad week.

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