Worldly Goods

Andrei Gromyko, who had been holed up on Park Avenue all winter, got a summer place for the last few months of his U.S. stay. Gromyko & family (wife and two children) moved into a 30-room villa on Long Island.

Opera's Lauritz Melchior, in Berlin on a song tour, asked the Russians please to give him back the antique silver he had stored there during the war. (The Russians, said he, had taken it over from the Danish consul.) Tenor Melchior seemed to be out 200 pounds of silver. "The Russians," he reported presently, "pulled our noses."

John Masefield was without a cake on his 70th birthday. Down with a cold, he skipped all celebrating. Outside of his family, nobody sent him a present. And the Poet Laureate, who sings like clockwork on royal anniversaries, received not a couplet on his own.

To the Yale University Library's manuscript collection, Babe Ruth presented a treasure: the MS. of his autobiography, The Babe Ruth Story ("as told to" Bob Considine).

Bernard Baruch, 77, dropped his roll at a race track, but not on a horse. He somehow managed to fumble away $2,200 in $100-bills. An attendant found the stuff and returned it two days later. The silver-haired statesman gave him a $500 reward, and leaped to the season's most charitable conclusion. "This proves," he announced, "that everyone at the race track is honest."

Haile Selassie, 56, bearded Lion of Judah and Emperor of Ethiopia, laid in a stylish stock against the unpredictable future. Flown to him from Manhattan on his order were five business suits (a grey flannel, two striped grey worsteds, a navy blue, a grey worsted with small plaid), two topcoats, three dinner suits, three sport jackets (two beige Kashmir, one of herringbone weave), and five pairs of slacks.

Travel

Washington's George Marshall, vacationing in Sun Valley, Idaho, saw brief action in the daily softball game. Getting a good grip on his lip (see cut), he took his cut from an open southpaw stance, grounded out to the pitcher in the first inning, then sat out the rest of the game.

Australia's Shirley Maycock, onetime swimming double for British Star Jean Simmons (Great Expectations, Black Narcissus), arrived in London with a picture contract of her own, promptly made a memorable picture with Actress Simmons (see cut).

Sweden's Prince Bertil, third in line for the throne, arrived in Chicago for the Swedish Pioneer Centennial, crammed his 6 feet, 200 pounds into a midget racing car for a spin around the track at Soldier Field. He explained why he had not yet married at 36: "I take things very easily."

Old Russia's Grand Duchess Olga, youngest sister of the late Czar Nicholas, was Canada-bound after 27 years of farming in Denmark. The Russians had begun to question her status, so Olga & family left Denmark to avoid embarrassing the government, to farm in Canada.

Detroit's Joe Louis was also doing some traveling these days, but mostly just around & around, taking off pounds at Pompton Lakes, N.J. for his June 23 fight. He attracted a little helper (see cut).

Intangibles In London, Baron Stanley of Alderley sued for divorce after four years of marriage. The baron's lady: the Transatlantic Set's pastel blonde Sylvia, who was Lady Ashley before she succeeded Mary Pickford as the late, gymnastic Douglas Fairbanks' wife.

Ex-Ambassador (to Brazil) William D. Pawley's five-year-old divorce from wife Annie (who was succeeded by wife Edna) was upheld by a Florida judge who dismissed Annie's suit for maintenance and delivered 1) a ringing tribute to Pawley as a valuable citizen, 2) a ringing rebuke to Annie for "relentlessly poisoning the minds of his superiors . . . with the purpose of ruining him." Buddy De Sylva, hit songwriter of the '20s (Good News, April Showers, Wishing) and producer (Panama Hat tie, Louisiana Purchase, DuBarry Was a Lady), persuaded a court to pare down the support payments he has to make to his onetime good friend and secretary, Marie Ballentine, and their four-year-old son. Starting next March it will be $650 a month instead of $750.

The season's noisiest courtship approached a quiet wedding. After nearly seven bumpy months of stops & starts, separations & reunions, rumors & denials, and considerable mixing & marching by relatives, ex-King Michael of Rumania and Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma flew down to Athens from Geneva to get it done in private. Announced the Royal Palace: Roman Catholic Anne would positively marry Greek Orthodox Michael this week in the Greek Orthodox Church. Sole witnesses to be present: the royal families, the Greek Premier, and the Foreign Minister and his wife.

Comers

William C. Ford, grandson of Henry, was elected a director of the Ford Motor Co., eight months before he would graduate from Yale.

Ex-Congressman Will Rogers Jr. signed up to play his father in a Hollywood biography of Marilyn Miller.

John Roosevelt, haberdashing youngest of the four, was doing fine: ten years after his debut as a lowly stock boy, he became head of a new chain of California department stores, the Roosevelt-Good Corp.

Flesh & Blood

President Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers finally yielded his mother-in-law's missing darning needle. A doctor found it by X ray, managed to cut it out of where it had disappeared to when Rickey sat on it.

Dwight P. Griswold, aid-to-Greece chief, and wife Erma each had a collection of slight cuts & bruises after a truck hit their auto in Athens.

George VI and Queen Elizabeth were in good shape, but by the skin of their teeth. On their way to the Derby they suddenly took a detour, after an ill wind had slammed down a tree on an auto ahead of their own.

Princess Elizabeth's pregnancy (TIME, March 15) was now official. The announcement from Buckingham Palace put it this way: "Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, will undertake no public engagements after the end of June."

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