High Life

Fiorello LaGuardia and his clothes stood out in Paris: at a full-blown gala at the Opera he was the only man wearing a business suit. In Geneva, begloved and Homburg-hatted city fathers who greeted him at the airport found him in the shade of a cowboy hat. But playing chess with Tito in Yugoslavia he was the picture of conservative correctness--though, sitting there in long, profound silence, he was not the picture of LaGuardia.

Jock McLean, playful son of famed, diamond-shingled Evalyn, enlivened formal affairs in starchy Newport with his dinner jacket, a solid scarlet even to the buttons.

Ex-Ambassador Joseph E. Davies & wife Marjorie (Post Close Hutton) took the long voyage home to Long Island. From Alexandria, Va. they went by yacht.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, on his official Latin American tour (the Caribbean and Brazil), dropped in on sunny Puerto Rico with Mrs. Ike for a look around. They had to wait a few minutes for the sun.

Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt and Newport neighbors scored a smashing victory over a junkman. For some 30 years he had been heaping his own yard with indelicate odds & ends, and he lived just a tin-can's throw from the very best people. So Mrs. Peyton J. Van Rensselaer got up a petition; Mrs. Vanderbilt and some of the other best people signed it. The junkman's yard was a fire hazard, said they. That did it. The junkman tidied up. Now it was just like the good days of 1929. That was the other time he tidied up.

Ambassador W. Averell Harriman and successors were assured of an imposing domicile. For a permanent home for Ambassadors in London, the U.S. accepted a gift from dime-store Heiress Barbara Hutton: the Georgian-Colonial-style pile she built in Regent's Park ten years ago. (". . . thoughtful of you," wrote Harry Truman to Heiress Hutton.) With it went 14 acres of lawn and garden. Among the conveniences: an indoor swimming pool, a gym, a servants' playroom, gold-plated bathroom taps, a nursery with two toilets.

Personality Kids

Ann Sheridan, who was not built for laughs, satisfied a childhood ambition, took a brief fling at clowning with Ringling Bros., in Grand Rapids. Out of her clown clothes she was a much better show.

Mary Wigman, whose modern German dancing made a noise in the U.S. in the early '30s, emerged from long obscurity, but only a little. "Since 1942 I live in Leipzig," she wrote a U.S. friend. ". . . The Nazis did not like me! Here I live among ruins and have a tiny school of my own. . . . Hard life, but wonderful to be alive, after all! No money . . . nothing at all."

Eva Tanguay, once famed as vaudeville's brass-lunged I Don't Care girl, achieved 68 in her Hollywood bungalow, but she was "hanging on by a thread," said she--"I'm just waiting for it to come any time now." Long crippled, she had been living alone with three cats; now she has a day & night nurse. But she is still holding out for a $150,000 offer for her life story. That was Sarah Bernhardt's price, said she, and "in a way, I was as famous as she was."

Nora Bayes, who made Harvest Moon famous in the first Follies (1907) and famously sang right through the jazz age, was finally buried 18 years after her death. Those who knew just why her body had been kept in a vault all this time still kept mum; but buried with her was her fifth and last husband, Long Island Banker Benjamin L. Friedland, who died last spring. His widow made the arrangements.

Leather-Pushers

Jack Dempsey succumbed to a rash of chance-taking, accepted what looked like the losing end of a wager with a Waynesburg (Pa.) citizen who likes to bet every year that it will rain on July 29. It failed to rain in Waynesburg on that date for the fifth time in 70 years.

Primo Carnera, skyscraping heavyweight champ of 1933, shuffled into the U.S. from Italy for another fling at the ring. But no getting punched this trip: he would just referee and wrestle. After eight years away he looked just about the same, from the ground. But things had been tough. "We're starving, I tell you, starving," he said. "Dio Mio, if I haven't got 100 suits brought with me in '38 we starve. Suits for eat, shoes for eat, shirts for eat, coats for eat." Whatever became of all the money he made? "Better not talk," said Old Satch, "better forget."

Tony Galento, who needed a bung-starter for battle on dry land, took up marine warfare with only his bare hands. In Seattle he had a go with an octopus in a tank. The octopus, wore 16-ounce gloves--eight of them. Tony waded in and blocked four simultaneous lefts, blocked two rights, waded out fast and refused to have another go. He said he had been hit six times below the Plimsoll line.

Pen-Pushers

Eugene O'Neill took the seat-squirm out of The Iceman Cometh: instead of running four hours with a dinner intermission, the play will now run three and a half, with a half hour out for "a drink and a sandwich--and what's the name of that heart stimulant?" Playwright O'Neill, as usual, will not attend the opening. He explained to New York Postman Earl Wilson: "By the time the dress rehearsal is over, I'm sorry I ever wrote the thing and never do see it again--usually for about 15 years."

Frederic (The Hucksters) Wakeman figured that the month it had taken him to write his best-seller had been time well spent. By his own estimate of his take, including the sale to Hollywood, he had been writing at $100,000 a week.

Damon Runyon was doing all right, too. For writing a film story around an idea supplied by British Producer Sir Alexander Korda, the producer agreed to pay him $100,000.

Maude Nugent, who wrote Sweet Rosie O'Grady 50 years ago, missed becoming a multimillionaire. She charged that 20th Century-Fox had unlawfully used the song in the film named for it. A Manhattan judge disagreed, turned thumbs down on her suit for $12,500,000.

Charles (The Lost Weekend) Jackson, who three years ago happily moved to New England--"the epitome of the American spirit . . . the home of American culture"--was ready to get back to New York City, to "bring up our children under democratic conditions." He had discovered "the stultifying atmosphere of New England prejudice; it's in the air, you get it on all sides, there's no pretending it isn't so, it can't be ignored. . . . The children are as bad as their parents and grandparents. Education has really done them no good at all."

Royalty

George VI, whose Household Cavalry* participated in the liberation of Holland, got a handsome package of thanks from visiting Queen Wilhelmina: two high-stepping greys for coach duty, 30 blacks for the cavalry.

Queen Elizabeth turned 46, celebrated quietly with the family at Windsor. The Queen Mother dropped down from London for tea.

Haakon of Norway turned 74; Oslo's celebrating citizens celebrated his 70th for good measure. Because the Germans had arrested people who wore birthday boutonnieres then, they all wore them for his 70th this year.

The Comte de Paris, pretender to the nonexistent French throne, suffered a Dinging in his ears: all five of his children had whooping cough.

* Regiments: the Horse Guards and the Life Guards.

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