Lives & Loves

Henry Ford & Wife Clara celebrated their 58th anniversary at home. Their favorite versions of how it all started: Henry: "A case of love at first sight." Clara: "It wasn't, for me; he made absolutely no impression on me at the time."

Tommy Manville, 52, got a birthday greeting after his own heart, from his eighth & current wife: a full page in the New Rochelle Standard-Star, bearing a picture of himself, the legend, "Happy Birthday, Tommy Manville" (in big letters), "from Georgina" (in small letters).

Barbara Hutton, thrice-married* dime-store heiress, boarded a plane for a month's junket to Paris and London, explained with more candor than discernment why she would never marry again: "You can't go on being a fool forever."

Count Alfred de Marigny, acquitted in 1943 of the unsolved Bahamas murder of his father-in-law, wealthy Sir Harry Oakes, turned author with a personal history: More Devil Than Saint (Bernard Ackerman; $3). Half the book concerns the murder and trial (De Marigny wants the case reopened); the other half mostly tells how he "walked in and out of the lives of many women. . . ." Sample aphorisms: "In Europe women take good manners for granted. In America they take them to bed"; "It is no effort to make American women happy." Characteristic anecdotes: how De Marigny picked up Brenda Frazier in a hotel grill (he made her come to his table); how De Marigny beat the Duke of Windsor's time with Madeleine Carroll.

Transients

Lady Astor, facing a group of reporters in Washington, faced a sudden situation: one of her nylons let go. The indomitable Viscountess, explaining chattily that she kept her stockings loose "so they wouldn't tear," stepped behind a desk, quickly pulled herself together, carried on.

Bernard M. Baruch, whose fair-weather office as wartime presidential adviser was a Washington park bench, was back on the bench, but this time in Manhattan's Central Park. The U.S. representative to U.N.'s Atomic Energy Commission conducted Visitor Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. to it, observed: "Oh, oh--someone's taken the office." But the woman with the baby carriage moved away.

The Duke of Hamilton, 43, headed home after a U.S. business trip and a visit to his old Oxford pal, New York State Boxing Commissioner, Eddie Eagan. The business: getting a new transatlantic air service under way. Once an amateur boxer of note, the greying, fiddle-fit Lord said he rarely put on the gloves any more --last time was about a year ago, with one of his two small sons. Did he want them to be boxers? Said the noncommittal Duke: they could be whatever they wanted to be.

Frank Sinatra found a fine refuge from bobby-soxers: a U.N. Security Council meeting. "The Voice" attended in peace with Sculptor Jo Davidson, departed unmolested. Nearest thing to an upsetting experience was some picture-taking later: Sinatra and his big bow tie (his wife makes them for him) didn't look half so much like a heart-leaping popular idol as 63-year-old Davidson and his little one (see cut).

Bouquets for the Living

Edgar Lee Masters, whose Spoon River Anthology made U.S. literary history 30 years ago, and who was last in the news when he was found broke, ill and half-starved in Manhattan in 1944, won a high-timely $5,000 fellowship at 76. Donors: the Academy of American Poets. Observed Poet Masters, resting his way back to health in Charlotte, N.C.: "Poets in America find it hard even to make a living. I personally am very grateful." Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 28-year-old historian (The Age of Jackson), won a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a "political-intellectual history" of the New Deal. Other Guggenheimers: Novelist Carson McCullers (The Member of the Wedding); Folksong-bagger Alan Lomax; Painter Eugene Berman.

Patti Clayton, radio songstress best known for the way she peals Chiquita Banana, moved the Banana Dealers Association to acclaim her Miss Banana Royal.

Van Johnson won a Harvard Lampoon citation for the second year running. Last year he shared Worst Discovery honors with Frank Sinatra; now the Cantabrigian funnymen acclaimed his acting in Thrill of a Romance as the year's Worst Single Performance (male). Eddie Bracken was chosen Most Unamusing Comedian. Oscar Winner Joan Crawford, 38, was acclaimed Oldest Actress, with Joan Bennett, 36, getting honorable mention.

Personal Property

Haile Selassie, Conquering Lion of Judah, appeared to be in the chips. At Sweden's famed Orrefors Glass Works his coat of arms was being tooled on 676 crystal carafes and drinking glasses which would set back the black-bearded Negus $14,000 to $20,000.

George M. Cohan, who loved Broadway and despised Hollywood, turned out to have left his heirs more Hollywooden nickels than stage money. Largest single asset of his $827,384 net estate proved to be his interest in the Yankee Doodle Dandy cinema version of his life: $421,766. "Mr. Broadway's" interest in songs: $65,000; in plays: $35,000.

Winston Churchill had some tailored shirts coming to him from Manhattan, but first the shirtmaker had some missing measurements coming to him. Unaware of the demands of true haute couture, the barrelly Briton had left only his neck-size (17 1/2) and inside sleeve-length (20 from armpit to cuff). Cabled the shirtmaker: "Please send one old shirt for use as a model." He could scarcely do a proper job, he explained, without the outside sleeve-length, chest and waist measurements.

Shapes

Peggy Cummins, Hollywood's blonde Amber, gave her inflammable all to a bedroom scene, and smoke billowed up from the floor. Just a short circuit in the wiring.

Marie MacDonald, reasonably nicknamed "The Body," won a fight to cancel her contract with Hollywood Producer Hunt Stromberg, promptly said she was shucking the nickname, would "get by hereafter on my ability."

Jane Russell's charms, as exploited in advertisements, got Producer Howard Hughes in trouble with the Eric Johnston (ex-Will Hays) organization. Producer Hughes was summoned to defend himself next week against "suspension or expulsion" from the organization for violating the standards of decency. Sample obliquities in a recent newspaper ad that carried robusty Miss Russell's picture: "The Music Hall gets the big ones," "What are the two great reasons for Jane Russell's rise to stardom. . . ?"

* Prince Alexis Mdivani, Count Court Haugwitz-Reventlow, Gary Grant.

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