WW's Return

With nary a hello to his readers, Walter Winchell, granddaddy of all gossip columnists, returned to duty last week after a sick leave of nearly five months--and suddenly it was hard to realize that he had been away. "Arthur Miller left his mark on ex-Wife Marilyn Monroe," he reported. "Her favorite dish is lox and eggs." "Dagmar has shed so much avoir-dupoison, one of her best quips is now useless: Don't fight over me. fellers. There's enough for everybody.' " "Gloria Swanson brings her own rice when she dines at La Fonda del Sol." "Ailing or well, she is always Elizabeaut Taylor."

It was the mixture as before, but some of the salt was missing. Gone were the public snarls at some particular foe. the three-alarm shrillness, the staccato urgency, the distinctive touch of a man who once polished trifles until they sometimes seemed to gleam. The staphylococcus infection that felled him last fall--"Same one Elizabeth Taylor had." says Winchell. not without pride--hit the 64-year-old columnist hard: "I had a time of it for six weeks." Now in Los Angeles soaking up sun, he divides his time between the Ambassador Hotel and his office at the 20th Century-Fox studios (where a younger Winchell made two films).

Even Winchell agrees that the old drive is gone. After 40 years of incessant tidbit collecting, he is too jaded to bother. Last week his copy read as if the pufflicty seekers had landed their puffs intact. "In my younger days." said the columnist, "when I used to hustle, it was a lot more exciting. Now the copy comes in by the bushel, and I sit around filling up the wastebasket and staring at the ceiling waiting for an idea to come."

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