Monday, Jun. 16, 1947

Migratory Labor

Hired: James F. Byrnes, ex-Secretary of State; to serve as counsel for the Hollywood Johnston Office's President Eric Johnston.

Hired: John Rupert Colville, 32, whose mother, Lady Cynthia Colville, is lady in waiting to Queen Mary; to serve as Princess Elizabeth's private secretary--her first.

Retired: Inventor Charles F. Kettering, 70-year-old General Motors research chief. But he would keep right on dropping into the office from time to time anyway. "I'm just fixing it," said he, "so I won't have to open my mail."

The Laurels

At the unveiling of a ten-foot bronze statue of the late Senator William E. Borah in the Capitol rotunda, Senator Arthur Vandenberg declared unequivocally that the late great isolationist from Idaho was "greater than any President under whom he served" (which meant Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt).

The national Father of the Year had already been named the week before, but in Los Angeles a group of loyal Californians announced to the nation that "The Ideal Father" was Governor Earl Warren (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

In New London, Conn., dentists in convention picked Cinemactress Jennifer Jones as their Enamel Girl.

Kith & Kin

Francisco Franco's little-noted sister, Pilar, became a news item in Jaen, Spain, when an automobile she was in overturned. Injuries: slight.

The Gaekwar of Baroda's visiting Maharani, Sitadevi, whose gem-collecting husband rules some 3,000,000 subjects, attracted attention at Manhattan's elaborate Waldorf-Astoria with little difficulty. The elaborate Maharani had only to sit around with her profile turned and her cigar aloft.

The Shah of Persia's 22-year-old brother, Prince Abdorezza Pahlevi, gave his first U.S. press interview, in Manhattan. He proved to have been the most incognito traveler since the Lost Dauphin. "Dore" (his classmates' nickname for him) had been hiding out at Harvard for nearly three years, was now graduating. Did he like American girls? The slim, dark-eyed Prince turned it over in his mind a while before answering: "I've never given it much thought."

George Vl's elder brother and his U.S.-born Duchess were finally back in France again. They crossed the Channel on their tenth anniversary. He still had no job; she still hadn't met the folks.

The Old Gang

Lincoln Ellsworth, who used to explore the poles, was off again at 67 for another close look at a far place. This time it was Africa's iceless Kenya Colony.

Bert Acosta, 52, famed as a distance flyer in the '20s, and famed thereafter as a playboy flying in & out of hot water and jails, was discovered taking it easy for a change, in a monastery near Peekskill, N.Y. (He was just resting, he said, not entering the order--the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement.)

Alois Lang, who twice played Christ in Oberammergau's Passion Play (1930 and 1934), stood trial in a denazification court. Ex-Nazi Lang was convicted but let off with a fine.

The New World

Ella Boole, 88-year-old president of the W.C.T.U., examined the world about her as she prepared to retire, made a newsy report. "The cocktail party," she announced to WCTUers convening in Asbury Park, "has become a common form of entertaining among society people. . . ." She further observed that "church women do not always stay away from such functions."

"I find it hard to sleep here," British Novelist Rebecca West informed a Manhattan reporter. She explained: "There seems to be so much tension in the air. . . . Americans look more worried than Europeans. . . . Everyone here seems to be hating Russia or loving Russia. . . ."

Robert Moses, New York City's ready-tongued park commissioner, undertook to explain to people what a modernist designer or architect is. "He claims that his great objective is to adapt form to use," said conservative Moses. "His real ambition is to be a few jumps ahead of his unborn grandchildren."

International Playboy Freddie McEvoy, longtime playmate of Heiress Barbara Hutton, objected to being called a playboy, demanded that a reporter tell him just what a playboy is, got the answer: anybody who doesn't get up and go to work in the morning. Playboy McEvoy was moved to a definition of his own: "Any man who gets up in the morning is just a damned fool."

James Caesar Petrillo, union czar of music, peered into the future of television, predicted: "We musicians make the most vital thing that will go into television and we are not forgetting it."

Out of Court

Last April, when Frank Sinatra slugged Hearst Columnist Lee Mortimer at a Hollywood nightclub (he said that Mortimer called him a "Dago son of a bitch"), Mortimer had Frankie arrested for assault & battery, and the nation was promised a courtroom battle-of-the-century. Last week in court the crooner said he had made a mistake; the columnist said he had decided not to prosecute. Frankie, said Mortimer, had promised to send him a check for $9,000.

Cinema Hard Guy George Raft also saved himself a trying session in court. Settled in private, for considerations kept secret: a $300,000 damage suit filed by a 50-year-old attorney. The attorney had charged that, when a 19-year-old girl sent him to Raft to recover some baubles Raft had Indian-given her, the actor gave him a beating and then kneed him.

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