Conscientious Objectors

Winston Churchill, detecting a small flaw in a London comedy, dropped around backstage to pass the word. In subsequent performances, when the British trucks rounded a corner they sounded their horns.

Sally Rand's time-honored fandangling and bubble-cuddling suddenly struck San Francisco police as indecent. They arrested her -- twice in one week. Topping off the priceless publicity, the judge took a look for himself. Upshot: charges dismissed.

Broken Blossoms

Al Capone, according to his Miami doctor, was positively not capable of muscling back into Chicago (as rumor had him). In fact, he was not capable of any thing much: paretic Al patted tennis balls into a net, was "probably unaware" of world events. Summarized the doctor brilliantly: "He's very fond of chewing gum."

Lillian (Strange Fruit) Smith, travel ing with the unofficial U.S. food mission, arrived in India's malarial Karachi, within 24 hours was in a hospital with a 104DEG fever.

Alfred M. Landon, 58, an old hand at coming a cropper, nursed a broken toe after too much horsing around for one day. Alf was out for a canter along the railroad tracks north of Topeka when a train came around the bend. The rider reined in, and his horse started up an embankment, then fell back on the Landon toe. The train roared by.

Indispensables

William Shakespeare finally rated one of Hollywood Columnist Sidney Skolsky's intimate little profiles, complete to the indispensable feature: "He sleeps in a long nightgown, never wears pajamas."

Erskine Caldwell, literary specialist in the po' whites, paused in a South American junket to examine Uruguay and its roulette tables. He arrived with $100 in loose change, three days later turned up in Argentina with $100 more.

Mary Chase, Denver author of Broadway's Harvey, explained to visiting Columnist Ward Morehouse how success had changed things: "I used to be a little fonder of people. I had a lot of good friends. . . . I made my biggest mistake in the way I returned here after Harvey was a success. . . . I sneaked in the back door, and didn't give them a chance to be proud of me."

Allan Nevins, two-time Pulitzer Prize biographer, took over from Journalist Herbert Agar as "information & culture" chief at the London embassy.

Richard H. Gerard (real name: Richard G. Husch), virtually unknown author of Sweet Adeline's lyrics, retired in Manhattan at 70--to "knock off a few hits." The job he retired from: foreman of the application file bureau of the money order division at the General Post Office.

A. E. Housman, late master of the bittersweet lyric, got a further unveiling as a comic poet by Brother Laurence in The Atlantic. Fragment out of A. E.'s boyhood, quoted by Laurence from memory:

So, when once a Countess bonny Lost her garter at the dance, Then they coined the motto "Honi Soit qui mal y pense."

Young Men's Fancies

Senator Glen Taylor of Idaho starred in a little silly-season whoop-te-do over Washington's radio station WRC. Senator Claude Pepper bravely tooted his harmonica, Congressman James Percy Priest struggled with a guitar, a quartet sang, but Taylor and his banjo took the cake with Cowboy Joe from Idaho. As the legislator "most likely to succeed in radio," he got $100 from Senator Claghorn--in Confederate money, that is.

King Farouk of Egypt sent the Cadillac Motor Co. an order for 25 limousines, pointing out that he is a style-setter in the Middle East and that it would be nice all around if he got delivery right away. Unfortunately Imperials are not yet in production, with or without leather seats, gold fixtures and red paint.

Bernard Baruch made a cute pickup in Manhattan's Central Park. It led to a drink.

Laurels for Ladies

Clementine Churchill got an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree from Oxford. She also got some sympathy for being Winston's wife. "He forgets there is a time for meals," observed Oxford's Public Orator, in Latin, "besides he is a perfect volcano, scattering cigar ashes all over the house (totas aedes Coronarum Coronarum favillis conspergi)."

Princess Elizabeth was to get her first honorary degree next week. The University of London decided the proper thing would be a Bachelor of Music. Meanwhile, a tartan sash over her white gown, she did all right in the dance department, with a fine Highland reel at the Royal Canadian Ball.

Svetlana Molotov, 18-year-old daughter of Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov, got a gold medal for "distinguished success" in her exams at Moscow's School No. 175.

High Flyers

Earl Browder, new U.S. representative for Soviet publishers, flew in from Moscow, like any bourgeois tripper, with presents for the Mrs.: a bottle of perfume and four Russian dolls. At the airport reporters fell on him. Had he seen Molotov? Yes. Had he seen Stalin? No.

Mayor William O'Dwyer of New York flew to California for a ten-day vacation, gladdened the heart of Actor Pat O'Brien by standing as godfather to O'Brien's infant daughter, christened Kathleen Bridget.

Sir Arthur Whitten Brown flew back to London from New York, the second transatlantic flight of his life. His first, from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919 with Sir John Alcock, was the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic--eight years before Lindbergh's.

Filialogy

Elliott Roosevelt made a couple of payments: 1) a $15 fine for speeding (65 m.p.h.) in East Fishkill, N.Y.; 2) his respects to the capabilities of his late father. "If my father had lived," said Elliott, "this whole atomic bomb problem would not exist. He believed in the United Nations." And if the U.S. had not ignored his father's advice, Elliott was certain, there would be no inflation or food problems.

Lady Astor's 27-year-old son John, standing for Parliament as his mother had, tried a different approach. "I do not intend to bring drink or morals into politics," said he.

William S. Hart's only child, William Jr., who lost a fight to be made guardian of his father's estate just before the old cowboy star died, was disinherited by the will; most of the estate's $1 million will be used to run the California ranch as a public park. Meanwhile, the public turned out by the thousand for a full-fashioned Hollywood funeral. The organist played Twilight on the Trail, and Crooner Rudy Vallee sang sad songs.

Complaints

Barbara Mutton got things straightened out with London's gossipy Tatler, which had reported her married to Australian Playboy Freddie McEvoy and sharing the "super-suite at the Carlton." The correction: Miss Hutton was not married to McEvoy and was not at the Carlton; she "treated the matter most generously by accepting this apology, coupled with a substantial payment to the Maternity Ward of the Royal Northern Hospital by The Tatler. . . ."

Artie Shaw, whose previous two wives were Lana Turner and Jerome Kern's daughter, Elizabeth, said that he was now separating from Mickey Rooney's exwife, Ava Gardner, after eight months of it. The bandsman explained: "We simply got on each other's nerves."

Oscar Homolka, male star of I Remember Mama, was sued for divorce by his third wife, Florence, daughter of ex-Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer. She said that he was cruel.

Joan Edwards, radio's Hit Parade singer, gave her husband a headache when she told the American Magazine's readers that her weekly earnings (reportedly $3,000) were three times his. His first wife promptly sued to have her $40-a-week alimony boosted to $250.

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