The Show Must Go On

The Met's Gladys Swarthout, a onetime victim herself of Carmen's rough-&-tumble shenanigans (in 1942, a Don Jose spurned her so violently that he knocked her cold), inadvertently got even. Singing in Pittsburgh, she dropped her wooden prop dagger in Act III, quick-wittedly snatched up a steel-bladed knife from another member of the cast, and gave Don Jose's wrist a five-stitch gash. Don Jose (Tenor Raoul Jobin) sang on through the act as he bled, and finally finished the show after some between-the-acts bandaging.

Gypsy Rose Lee, who vacillates between bumps and books, was scheduled to open in a rococo Manhattan saloon especially decorated for her (in fuchsia and black lace, with fuchsia table linen). But on opening night she walked out in a huff and an armful of lace (the chorus girls' panties, which "I made myself . . . I sewed every stitch of lace on"). The management, she told reporters, owed her two weeks back pay ($5,000) because she had been standing by all that time while the club's opening was delayed. After 24 hours on the front pages, Gypsy, in the mood to go on discussing her troubles with the management, went back to work --panties, lace & all.

In Los Angeles, Jackie Coogan, onetime movie kid who is now a bald 34, was feeling pretty upset: he reported to police that someone had swiped his toupee (he had left it unguarded in the glove compartment of his car).

The Very Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean" of Canterbury, finally made it to the U.S. (flying down to Manhattan from Toronto) after bucking visa troubles since August. The dean was introduced in a Brooklyn church as "a man who has become almost a symbol of international understanding."*Later, at a dinner in Manhattan, he stated his case: "My purpose in coming was to do all I could to procure peace and good understanding between peoples. Sample contribution to good understanding: All Soviet satellite governments were "elected by the overwhelming wish of the people."

All in the Day's Work

High-powered Careerist Oveta Gulp Hobby, mother of two, who has been bank director, parliamentarian, boss of the wartime WAC and executive vice president of her husband's Houston Post, took on a new job: she was elected the first woman president of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association.

Novelist Clyde Brion Davis (The Anointed, The Great American Novel), who has been a steamfitter's helper, chimney sweep, furnace repairman, electrician, detective arid knockabout journalist, took on a new job: he was elected justice of the peace in Salisbury, Conn.

Sweden's King Gustaf V, who embroiders about four altar cloths a year, got set to pack one off to Brooklyn's Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, for its 75th anniversary celebration.

After Due Consideration

Bernard Shaw, still going strong at 92, considered his creative future: "Since I turned 90, I have written two plays. That's not enough to fill a volume. So I will write enough more to round out a volume, Plays Written After Ninety."

Somerset Maugham, slowing down a little at 74, saw an end to it: "My days as a professional writer are over. I'm putting up the shutters, shutting up the shop." There was "just one more book to come . . . It's--well, when I was 18 I started keeping a notebook, and I've kept one, on & off, for over 50 years . . . Just a writer's notebooks. I made a selection. I've written a preface and a postscript... It may be of some interest . . ."

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, back in New Delhi after a look at the goings-on in the U.N., hinted broadly at a possible solution of a major world problem: "Andrei Vishinsky in his speeches is often very fierce, but he relaxes considerably after a good meal."

Strong Man Juan Domingo Peron decided that democracy can be a lot of fun --for a big shot: "At some parties I attend, it tickles me to shake hands with the maids, the porter, or the chauffeur, and watch the surprise on some faces . . . With this modest example, I hope to impress on others that men are equal in practice as well as theory."

Historian Douglas Southall Freeman admitted to a secret yen: "I've always wanted to have the nerve to put myself down in Who's Who as 'tramp newspaperman.' "

H. L. Mencken was routed from bed for a comment on what Ilya Ehrenburg had just said about him (Ilya had accused him of "calling for a deadly struggle with the Russian barbarians . . ."). Old-Faithful Mencken dutifully erupted: "Who? Oh, that Russian pressagent, he was over here. I never argue with kept men."

*Common Cause, Inc., a vigorous anti-Communist organization, promptly announced that the dean is on the editorial board of the London Daily Worker, that the Communist Party had published 1,000,000 copies of his book The Soviet Power, and that the House Committee on Un-American Activities had described him as "one of the foremost Communist propagandists in the world today."

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