On the Job

At a party in her Capri villa, Gracie (The Biggest Aspidistra in the World) Fields, durable (53) darling of the British music halls, stood by her Christmas tree to croon a little ditty ("I'm an old goat, but I'm so in love with him"). Then she surprised her guests with the announcement that she plans to marry again. Her third husband-to-be: a 48-year-old Bessarabian-born engineer and radio repairman named Alperovici, whom she calls simply "Honest Boris." "The only thing Boris cannot do," said Gracie, "is sing. We went for a walk this morning and he started singing a Bessarabian love song. I had to tell him to shut up." But, she added, "you should just see his chest. Talk about hairy!"

In Rome, a reporter dropped around to her night club for a chat with Bricktop (Ada Smith Du Conge), famed as a cabaret hostess among Paris' Left Bank literary set in the '20s. Asked if she remembered F. Scott Fitzgerald, the throaty West Virginia-born Negro songstress said: "Sho-nuf darling, I remember all those darlings. There was Scott, and his wife Zelda, she was nice. There was Hemingway, too, already famous. And Louis Bromfield and John Steinbeck. Steinbeck, he's my darling of all darlings, except of course Cole Porter. He's my favorite in all the world."

Along with dozens of federal and state inspectors who had come to West Frankfort, Ill. to investigate the pre-Christmas coal-mine blast which killed 119 miners was grizzled old John L. Lewis. He put on a helmet, headlight and work clothes for a personal underground inspection. Eight hours later, soot-streaked and weary, he came to the surface, where photographers got a picture that would show other union miners that the Boss still knows his way around the pits.

Crooner Vic Damone, now an Army pfc., arrived in Paris on a few days' leave. His new career? "I didn't exactly take the Army job. You might say they drafted me for it. For the record you can quote me as saying that I like the Army. I like the Army. I really do."

Burden of Proof

In Washington, M. B. Schnapper, editor of Public Affairs Press, wrote to Postmaster General Jesse M. Donaldson criticizing plans for a new stamp honoring that patriotic seamstress, Betsy Ross. There is no proof, wrote the dissenter, that it was Betsy who had made the first American flag. "It is a sad day indeed when governmental agencies start promoting romantic rumors as though they are historical facts." Nonsense, retorted Donaldson's philatelic experts. A. Atwater Kent had spent good money to refurbish the Ross house in Philadelphia as a historical shrine; the Daughters of the American Revolution had approved the stamp; furthermore, "even if it is a myth, it is a pleasant one . . . that has been in all the history books and which all the school children love. We can't disprove it, so why not accept it?"

For his 82nd birthday, Painter Henri Matisse received an abstract plaudit from Painter Pablo Picasso, who wrote: "No painter has ever tickled painting to such bursts of laughter."

In his first broadcast to Swedish citizens living abroad, King Gustaf Adolf dismissed the "socalled good old days" as overpublicized, and spoke words of praise for modern times. For example, he said, "That I can be sitting here in my study in the Stockholm palace and talk to you, perhaps 6,000 miles away, is certainly something to be pleased about--although we have not yet come to the point where you could also talk back."

Just Deserts

In London, the usual post-election cabinet shuffle began once again in famed Madame Tussaud's waxworks. Socialism stepped down, and the first eight wax figures--including Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden--of the Conservative cabinet took their places of honor. The Churchill waxwork, made in 1944, and the Eden figure (1938) are both to be remodeled. "Eden," admitted one Tussaud official, "especially needs it badly." As for Clement Attlee and his cabinet: "We're not melting down any of them as yet. For the present we're keeping them all intact--in case."

The Big Brothers of America, Inc., announced that Big Brother of the Year for 1952 will be Luther W. Youngdahl, former governor of Minnesota and now a judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The Air Force gave Major James A. Jabara leave, to join his 60-year-old, Lebanon-born father on a 45-day tour of Lebanon and Syria. The Federations of Syrian and Lebanese American clubs, who are footing the bill for the trip, decided that the world's first jet ace and his proud father would make a fine good-will team.

New Hampshire's Senator Charles W. Tobey loosed his righteous wrath again. Tongue-lashings and petty reprimands are not punishment enough for public officials who betray their trust, he declared. He was "thinking seriously" of asking Congress to authorize flogging. "Let's revive the whipping post. They'd fear that. No punishment really can be adequate, but this practice of accepting resignations of those who are caught in wrongdoing is childishly inadequate."

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