The Women

John O'Hara, satirical best-seller whose expert fictions (Appointment in Samarra, Pipe Night) occasionally burn women with a hard, acetylene-like flame, explained why women fascinate him as a writer: "You never can tell what they will do." On the other hand, said he: "The whole tradition of masculinity, at least in America, is to stay in the groove--and that means stay in the rut--don't stick your neck out."

Ellen Wilkinson, Britain's Minister of Education, appeared in the House of Commons sporting a hat to remember: high-masted, forward-pitched, bobbing with green feathers at the prow. Small, bird-like Minister Wilkinson, fiftyish, got up to answer a question about textbooks. M.P.s, fascinated by the hat, lost a gentlemanly struggle with laughter. Minister Wilkinson giggled too. "It looks all right, Ellen," said House Leader Herbert Morrison encouragingly. A faint cheer arose. Minister Wilkinson sailed bravely ahead.

Road to Romance

Prince Carl Johan of Sweden, bespectacled, 29-year-old second cousin of the Duke of Windsor, happily prepared to renounce his rights to the Swedish throne. In topcoat and homburg, and clutching violets, he sped down to a Manhattan dock to greet slim, trim Mrs. Kerstin Wijkmark, 35-year-old divorced Swedish journalist.

Down the gangplank she came in mink and a yellow headscarf, sped to his arms, marked him with lipstick, then gaily wiped it off and bussed him again a couple of times for the news photographers. They had always wanted to live here, and now they would. The prince had a job, with an export-import firm. He had even bagged an apartment--three rooms. Porters piled 37 pieces of luggage into a cab, and off they rattled--the energetic bride-to-be and the future Mr. Carl J. Bernadotte.*

Sporting Life

James Joseph Tunney, on vacation in Havana, worked out on his hotel roof, drew news photographers, who found him looking exactly like a 48-year-old retired heavyweight--still in topnotch shape, here & there.

Vice Admiral Alan G. Kirk encountered the shirt shortage; he could get no work shirts in which to do his new job as Ambassador to Belgium. He wildly rummaged Washington, D.C. for twelve, white, boiled. Size: 15 1/2, 34-in-sleeve.

Francisco Franco lightened the gloom of a generally hostile world by togging himself in hunting clothes and giving a splendid imitation of an old-fashioned candidate for some office or other.

New Directions Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce's "good and sufficient reason" for deciding not to run for re-election in Connecticut suddenly became clear: she was received into the Roman Catholic Church, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, and promptly explained matters. The "question of faith" might be raised if she now ran for office, said she; such a "false issue" might obscure important political issues; so she was "unavailable by design or draft."

Artur Rodzinski, maestro of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, master fully shushed a publicity agent who wanted him to name the world's ten greatest musical works. Said Rodzinski: let somebody determine what ten works audiences "would not like to hear under any circumstances, even if they were on a lonesome island in the mid-Pacific for ten years and had no chance of hearing a sound." He waited in happy silence.

Donna Rachele Mussolini made copy for Tobacco Heiress Doris Duke, now a Hearstling. Wrote Doris: "She is still the bourgeois housewife she always was."

Salutes

Franklin D. Roosevelt was saluted by Kentucky, which became the first state to make his birthday (Jan. 30) a legal holiday.

Harry S. Truman was saluted: 1) by an anonymous Buerger of Kreuth, Bavaria, who voted for Harry in the recent mayoralty elections; 2) by a Kansas City councilman, who proposed that 15th Street (main traveled road to the President's nearby home town) be renamed Truman Road.

Van Johnson, sunny-faced Hollywood hero, got the proof that he was a full-fledged popular idol: when he visited New Orleans, a couple of bobby-soxers went out of their way to tell him he was no good. He was, said they, a d. d. d.--dismal, dehydrated drip.

Frank Sinatra still had no cause for worry. A truck driver bound for Hoboken, N.J. had to fight off an attacking party of hijackers before he could deliver his highly prized cargo: Sinatra recordings, $30,000 worth.

Ginger Rogers and five other clotheshorses were touted by Fashion Designer Ray Driscoll as his favorites for the backhanded title: Hollywood's Worst-Dressed Women. Proclaimed Driscoll: Ginger "doesn't dress." Betty Hutton "wears too much of everything." Joan Leslie "tries to dress like a teen-ager." Judy Garland "dresses like a tired clubwoman." Betty Grable wears clothes "too tight and too short."

* Fourth in line of succession, the Prince would lose his rights to the throne by a Swedish law forbidding royalty to marry Swedish subjects--though marriage with foreign subjects is allowed.

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