Monday, May. 27, 1929
"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:
John Pierpont Morgan, yachtsman, has made his last voyage on his huge, black-hulled Corsair. Last week the Corsair beat United Cigar Store Tycoon George J. Whalen's Warrior across the Atlantic. In Manhattan the Corsair's officers announced that she would be turned over to the U. S. Geodetic Survey. Mr. Morgan will not stop yachting. A two-million-dollar successor to the Corsair is being built in Bath, Me.
John Coolidge once bought a saxophone for $230, tooted it in the White House. His father objected. Son John sold the horn. Last week one Arnold Zahn of Brookline, Mass., obtained what was represented as being the Coolidge saxophone, at a Boston pawnshop, for $15.
Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, grandson of the onetime Kaiser, lately engaged to German Cinemactress Lili Damita, is listed as "Louis Ferdinand," student-laborer, in the Ford assembly plant in Los Angeles. He eats his lunches from paper bags. Last week he said he liked his job. Said he: "I'm just goofy--you understand that?--about it, although I do not know what my parents will do when they find out."
William Marion Jardine of Washington & Kansas, onetime Secretary of Agriculture, was last week elected board chairman of Investment Corp. of North America, succeeding the late Lyman B. Kendall.
Mrs. Harry Ford Sinclair neared a nervous breakdown last week, was taken from Washington to a sanatorium at Battle Creek, Mich.
Edsel Ford dug the first turf last week for a new Ford plant in Degenham, Essex, England. So manfully dug he that he bent his silver spade. The factory, to be finished in less than three years, will employ 15,000, make 300,000 Fords yearly.
Douglas Fairbanks, President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, presided in Los Angeles last week when the Academy's annual prizes were awarded. Among the winners : Acting -- Janet Gaynor (Seventh Heaven) ; Emil Jannings (The Way of All Flesh, The Last Command) ; Directing -- Frank Borzage (Seventh Heaven) ; Engineering Effects -- Roy Pomeroy (Wings) ; Outstanding Picture -- Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. (Wings). Charles Chaplin was specially rewarded for being writer, actor, director, producer of The Circus.
Edward Gordon Craig, famed British stage designer, son of the late Actress Ellen Terry, announced last week that next fall he would make an extensive U. S. lecture tour. His last U. S. visit was in 1885.
Said he: "I would like to produce all the plays of Shakespeare in America. Why doesn't some American magnate try some thing different -- Hamlet with Chaplin, for instance, accompanied by good jazz music." Elmer L. Rice, author of the Pulitzer Prizewinning play Street Scene, said last week: "After 15 years in the theatre I am convinced that nobody knows anything about it. This play . . . was turned down by all the prominent New York producers who told me it wasn't a play. ... I never have followed rules or technique." Thomas Tunney, Manhattan detective, brother of retired fisticuffer James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney, went last week to squelch a conference of policy game promoters, scuffled with a large Negro, wrested a revolver from his hand.
James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney, has been twanging a harp during his stay on the Adriatic isle of Brioni. Last week he was in no mood for twanging. Reason: it was reported that Mrs. Tunney, convalescent from an appendicitis operation (TIME, May 20) must soon undergo another for stomach trouble.
Muriel McCormick, daughter of Chicago Capitalist Harold Fowler McCormick, last week established residence in Rochester, N. Y., intending study at the famed Eastman School of Music.
As John Davison Rockefeller Jr. drove to his Manhattan home last week, his car nearly bumped an inebriate couple emerging from a speakeasy close by the Rockefeller residence. To avoid undesirable neighbors, Mr. Rockefeller long ago bought most of the block. Rockefeller lawyers were reported planning action to dry up the Rockefeller neighborhood, including the section bounded by Fifth and Sixth avenues and 48th and 51st streets, honeycombed with speakeasies, which Mr. Rockefeller lately bought as site for the Metropolitan Opera and a smart shopping centre.
John Davison Rockefeller III.,
Princeton senior, was last week given two titles by vote of his class: "Most likely to succeed," "Third most pious."
At Yale's annual Tap Day (senior society elections), held last week, the first man chosen by Scroll & Key was Woodruff R. Tappen, junior varsity stroke oar, tapped by Paul Mellon, son of the Secretary of the Treasury. The seventh man chosen by Skull & Bones was Waldo W. Green, football captain-elect, tapped by George Harris Crile, son of Dr. George W. Crile, famed Cleveland physician whose clinic was last week a scene of catastrophe (see p. 15).
The late Melville Elijah Stone, longtime Associated Press General Manager, gave, like the late great John Wanamaker, most of his money to his family before he died. Last week, it was announced he left an estate of "not more than $2,000."
Paul Louis Charles Claudel, poet, novelist, French Ambassador to the U.S., spoke in Manhattan last week to the Catholic Actors Guild. Said he: "I am sure [you] are all good Catholics and very good actors. As for myself, if I try to be a good Catholic I am not at all sure to be a good actor on that very catholic scene of Washington diplomacy, where ambassadors have to play their part in a kind of international revue and all-day performance before a tolerant but slightly bored public."
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Jr.,
Manhattan-Philadelphia financier, and his associates of Dieppe Corp. (including Financier William Kissam Vanderbilt Jr., Banker Jules Semon Bache, Cinemagnates Adolph Zukor, Joseph M. Schenck, Producer Florenz Ziegfeld), were freed last week from long litigation, proceeded with their plans to remodel Manhattan's Central Park Casino as "a dining place for New York society . . . around which the cultured life of the city can rotate." Announced features: a black glass ballroom, an orange terrace, a tulip pavilion.