Idle Hours

Romance traveled a rocky road; but love, with a brief, side-of-the-mouth laugh at locksmiths, conquered all. Francis Hitchcock, 39, balding younger brother of the late Long Island-polo-playing Tommy Hitchcock, and Stephany Saja, 23, blonde daughter of a Windber, Pa. coal miner, were taking a well-earned vacation--a honeymoon in Rio. It had been a nerve-racking week. In the course of just a few days, Stephany flew down to Daytona Beach, Fla. from New York, Francis got his divorce from his second wife, the happy couple eloped for a two-minute civil ceremony and were married again in a 30-minute formal Greek Orthodox service--in which the bridal couple wore wreaths of mother-of-pearl orange blossoms (traditional in the Greek Orthodox service). There was one terrible moment when Francis was threatened with a perjury rap (he had picked up the wedding license in August and had listed himself as single). To cap everything, the newlyweds missed their scheduled flight to Rio. The nation's press had not been so chattery and dewy-eyed over a romance since the Rockefeller-Cinderella* story last February.

Walter F. White, Harvard-accented, quietly aggressive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was about to slow down at his doctor's request. Soon after he comes back from the Paris U.N. meeting (some time in November) he will quit work for a year's vacation.

When the Australian cricket team visited Balmoral Castle and asked if they could take some snapshots of their royal hosts, King George VI said sure, "but you'll have to take some of your own medicine. I am a photographer, too." After a merry clicking of shutters from all sides, all the camera fans sat down to tea.

Klement Gottwald, burly boss of Czechoslovakia, left the stresses & strains of government in Prague for a quiet vacation (of unannounced length) in the friendly Crimea.

Inside Sources

Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, onetime boss of the Reichsbank (and a convicted "major Nazi offender" released last fortnight by a German appeals court) got cautiously astride the Marshall Plan fence: "I rejoice over the willingness of the American people to help Germany ... To live from alms kills a man's dignity."

Chester Bowles, onetime OPAdministrator, now Democratic candidate for governor of Connecticut, considered the rigors of practical politics: "This is tough and rugged. I have been called everything from 'millionaire yachtsman tool of Wall Street' to 'Communist.' "

Louis Budenz, professional ex-Communist, advised Harry Bridges, Communist-line boss of West Coast longshoremen, to return to the faith of his Roman Catholic youth: "I know from personal experience how troubled must be the conscience of Harry Bridges, and that is why I am presenting this thought directly to him."

Hugh Dalton, who draws down $20,000 a year as Britain's Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (a cabinet sinecure), made a major concession to the harsh facts of modern British life: "because of the rise in the cost of living" he swore off cigarettes* (he had been smoking two packs a day, at 70-c- a pack).

Great Expectations

Lana Turner, just back from a four-month European honeymoon with third husband Bob Topping, telephoned her studio that she had "never been so relaxed and happy." She was going to have a baby (her second, Bob's third) "next April or May." The studio took a deep breath ("She was very obliging," admitted a spokesman. "She called as soon as she was halfway sure"), and started looking around for someone else to play Lana's next scheduled role: Madame Bovary.

The estimated date for the arrival of Princess Elizabeth's baby was put off from mid-October to mid-November.

In Tuebingen, Germany, ex-Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, the Kaiser's eldest son, who is quietly living out his years in the French zone, was about to get a glittering reminder of the old days. The British, acting on a 1946 tip, had dug up the crown of the Hohenzollerns, hidden during the war under the false step of a crypt in a tiny church. This week, after some careful investigation to make sure of its authenticity, the gold-heavy gewgaw, studded with 150-odd rose-cut diamonds and topped by a giant sapphire, was on its way back to its rightful owner.

Trials & Tribulations

In Los Angeles, the Rev. Stewart P. MacLennan, who married Lana Turner and Bob Topping three days after Topping's divorce, was formally reproved by his elders. The rebuke, read aloud to him as he stood with head bowed, accused him of having "brought reproaches upon your Christian profession," and warned him to "be more watchful" in future of "the common evil of the remarriage of divorced persons."

The $2,000,000 paternity suit brought against Myron C. Taylor, venerable presidential envoy to the Vatican, was thrown out of court a second time, because the defendant was in Manhattan and the court was in Chicago. Mrs. Eunice Walterman, a Chicago housewife, had claimed that she was his illegitimate daughter.

In Manhattan, Joe Louis was having second thoughts. After he beat Jersey Joe Walcott in a slow-moving travesty last June, the aging (34) champ announced--to the relief of his fans and his mother--that he had fought his last fight. Now his agent, Sol Strauss, of the 20th Century Sporting Club, announced that Joe would defend his title for the 26th time next June --if the winner of the Joe Baksi-Ezzard Charles bout "comes through good." Said Joe's mother: "I feel awful . . ."

*For news of Winthrop and "Bobo" Rockefeller, see MILESTONES.

*Casual mention of tobacco proved disastrous to Dalton last November. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he prematurely let slip a part of the top-secret budget by jovially remarking to a newsman friend: "You might pay a bit more for beer, but I'm not putting any more on tobacco." Next day he admitted his indiscretion and resigned under pressure.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.