The Specialist's Eye

Pianist Artur Rubinstein conceded that piano playing could be a bore, particularly at parties where the hostess insists on "just an eensy-teensy bit. Oh, it's a pest. I will go to an affair and they will send some bewitching young thing to ask me to play and I'm a beast if I don't."

Robert E. (Roosevelt and Hopkins') Sherwood was offered 850 cases of unpublished papers and letters of Britain's World War I Prime Minister David Lloyd George, forthwith reversed his decision never to write another biography.

For "revealing the finest qualities of a family doctor" on the radio, Jean ("Dr. Christian") Hersholt was awarded a Certificate for Meritorious Service by the Washington, D. C. Medical Society.

Moscow's Literary Gazette labeled John Dos Passos a "literary gangster" and Henry Wallace "a political businessman." Both were "enemies of humanity."

In San Francisco, Cinemogul Sam Goldwyn predicted that television would cut Hollywood movie production by 70%: "Why should people go out to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television?"

In Los Angeles, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Gordon Evans Dean assured reporters that the U.S. stock of atom bombs was undoubtedly larger than Russia's but added, "That's not much comfort, because 10, 20 or 30 bombs is far too many for anyone to have."

Shadow & Substance

When Prince Igor Troubetzkoy threatened court action to make his wife come home and act like a wife, Dime-Store Heiress Barbara Hutton declared that her fourth husband was no bargain either. Said Barbara from Madrid: "He's one of the cheapest men I've ever met in my life. He only married me for my money."

The U.N. General Assembly's Trusteeship Committee was told that the centenarian Fon of Bikom, tribal king in the British Cameroons, should be allowed to keep all his wives. Said Awni Khalidy, delegate from Iraq: "We should leave the man alone. It is enough to handle 100 women at one time. May God give him strength in his arduous task."

Voted Grandmother-of-the-Year by the Cambridge (N.Y.) Lions Club, Grandma Moses, painter of primitives, grandmother of eleven, great-grandmother of 15, chirped happily: "I'm getting to be as famous as flying saucers."

California's Governor Earl Warren signed his state's new loyalty-oath bill, then promptly took the oath himself.

On the eve of a 70-minute speech, India's Pandit Nehru dropped into a Lucknow medical laboratory for a lung test, found he was able to inhale 5% more air than normal for a man of his height (5 feet, 6 1/2 inches). Said he: "If I take my breathing exercise for three days I can develop my capacity still more."

When he was taken to the hospital with a broken thigh, George Bernard Shaw muttered, "If I survive this I will be immortal." After 24 querulous days, he left the hospital last week on a stretcher, hugging two hot-water bottles and snuggled with blankets to the tip of his nose.

In Manhattan, London Hairdresser Raymond boasted that he had recently given the Duchess of Windsor a new hairdo that would sweep the country: a design called "the tutored urchin look."

For medal-wearing occasions, new U.S. Ambassador to Mexico William O'Dwyer (wartime brigadier general) could sport a new ribbon. The Army had given him the Legion of Merit.

Doctors at the University Hospital in Utrecht announced that their Very Important Patient, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, had recovered nicely from a "slight operation."

At a meeting of the Philosophical Society of England, Philosopher Bertrand Russell had a thought for his fellow thinkers: "It would be difficult to think of an age when there is so little wisdom. In the present world people are extraordinarily specialized, and one man knows everything about his own job, but nothing about the next . . . Wisdom is quite a different thing than specialized knowledge."

Work & Play

Winston Churchill was off to Denmark to be the palace guest of King Frederik IX and Queen Ingrid, and pick up an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen.

General Jonathan M. Wainwright dashed off a quick acceptance when the Boar, Bear & Deer Hunters Club of Bradley County, Tenn. invited him to hunt wild pigs in the Joyce (Trees) Kilmer Memorial Forest.

The New York Herald Tribune polled a few writers to learn how they were playing, thinking, working. Some findings: Ernest Hemingway had cracked his head again, this time on his boat: "I am getting tired of getting hit on the head. There were three bad ones in '44-'45. Two in '43 and the others go back to '18. People think they come from carelessness. But they don't. At least none that I remember did." James Thurber estimated "I have four-fifteenths of my life span left . . . Just like you, I expect to be blown up, but hope that I won't be." Historian Arnold Toynbee felt that "One of the traps into which modern scholars seem to me to fall is that they spend their working lives preparing for an imaginary last-judgment examination and keep on missing the moments for action." Thomas B. (The Black Rose) Costain admitted being "not as tolerant in my opinions . . . getting a little antisocial as the years roll on." John Erskine: ". . . I purposely reveal the plot and title of whatever book I am at work on . . . I know that the human mind is rarely capable of repeating the most familiar story with any accuracy five minutes after it has been told." Henry (Loving) Green: "I write at night and at weekends. I relax with drink and conversation . . . And so I hope to go on till I die, rather sooner now than later."

As a plug for his country's new dollar-earning export, Australia's Governor-General William J. McKell packed a crate of 500 fresh orchids, air expressed them to the White House as a gift for Bess Truman.

When Cincinnati's home-town boy, World Heavyweight Champ Ezzard Charles, 29, returned for a civic welcome, fans and friends were ready with a new crown of golden chrysanthemums. Said Charles, flashing a white smile, "It's swell to be back and thanks for everything."

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