To radioactive Orson Welles, who recently grew a Falstaffian beard, Cinemactor Errol Flynn's Christmas gift was a ham with beard attached.

Bequeathed to Cinemactress Mae West by the late Oscar Monroe Abbott, a Chicago businessman, were a diamond and pearl stickpin, "my sincere good wishes and a cordial invitation to kum up and see muh some time."

Ellis Island announced that General Walter Krivitsky, ex-Shmelka Ginsberg, onetime member of the Soviet Military Intelligence, who told tales all over the Saturday Evening Post and Dies Committee, had left the U. S. for parts undivulged. Reason: his visitor's permit for the U. S. would have expired in three days.

Permission to enter the U. S. as an immigrant was granted to Alexandre Barmine, onetime U. S. S. R. Charge d'Affaires at Athens, who two years ago astounded diplomats by fleeing from his post to France, rather than go home to Moscow and probable purging.

Antarctician Richard Evelyn Byrd managed to spend Christmas in a publicity-worthy manner: he wirelessed that he and his men aboard North Star crossed the international date line during the night of Dec. 24, woke up on the morning of Dec. 26.

Sold at auction were the office property and personal belongings of Sing Sing Convict No. 94,835 (ex-Broker Richard Whitney). Items: a $50 custom-made office wastebasket, $2; an L. C. Smith typewriter, $27.50 (sold to the secretary who once used it); pearl studs, $100; office carpet, $46. Total proceeds: $763.65.

In Manhattan's swank St. Regis Hotel, a process server cornered Cinemactress Paulette Goddard, handed her: 1) a subpoena to appear as a witness, 2) 50-c- for carfare, 3) 50-c- for a day's fee. Occasion: a $150,000 libel suit brought against Collier's by Joseph R. Levy, divorced husband of Paulette Goddard's mother, be cause, he alleged, a story was published saying he was Paulette's stepfather, not father. Cinemactress Goddard failed to show up and the court decreed a command performance on Jan. 16 in which she should tell why she should not be held in contempt.

Big social splurge in Washington, D. C. was the joint debut at the Carlton Hotel of Mary Margaret Jackson and Jean Browne Wallace, 18-year-old daughters of Solicitor General Robert Houghwout (pronounced Howett) Jackson and Secretary of Agriculture Henry Agard Wallace. Carrying bouquets given them by President and Mrs. Roosevelt, the debutantes for two straight hours hand-shook Washington socialites, Government wigs and hangers-on. Also reigning in another section of the hotel drawing room were the fathers, who did not cease to beam all afternoon. Gurgled Washington Post Society Pundit Hope Ridings Miller: "More men--young and older--than one usually sees at afternoon parties were on hand for the pleasant fete, which was accented by lively music from an orchestra that flourished on one side of the ballroom, and a gay company that filled every nook and cranny all over the place."

Said solemn Actor Walter Hampden, aged 60, after seeing his cinema debut as the Archbishop of Paris in The Hunchback of Notre Dame: "I saw myself act and heard myself talk for the first time in my life. I looked a little different than I thought I would and my voice didn't sound the way I thought it always did. ... I was nothing to make myself say I was wonderful; but then, I don't think I was awful either."

Caught in the old confidence game was superstitious Cinemactress Lupe Velez. She let a gypsy woman persuade her to tie two $1,000 bills and $500 in assorted currency in a piece of red silk to be prayed over as protection against her enemies, got the silk back wrapped around blank paper.

In a dawntime collision with a parked truck near Berry's Ferry, Va., Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. and Ethel du Pont Roosevelt were badly bumped and scratched, he on the arms and forehead, she on the right ear and forehead. Off dashed Mother Eleanor Roosevelt, brought them, not seriously harmed, back to the White House.

Said rufous, middle-aged Josephine Dillon (recently employed as dramatic coach by Christian College, Columbia, Mo.) of Clark Gable, her 1923-30 husband, in Gone With the Wind: "The part calls for a big, dashing, handsome man who can really act. I saw my ex-husband in the part and he was magnificent. He hasn't forgotten a thing I taught him."

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