Movers & Shakers

For ups & downs, there seemed to be no rollercoaster like the literary life.

In Brooklyn, John Roy Carlson, best-selling I-spyer on suspected subverters (Under Cover, The Plotters), appeared at a police station with head and face bruised. Shortly after he had eyewitnessed a night meeting of the jingo Women for the United States of America, said he, three strangers (male) stopped him on the street, gave him a shellacking, ran away.

In Baltimore, Henry L Mencken, whose beery Christmas Story had been yanked off sale in Canada, was feeling better. A Canadian cinema producer had the rights to Mencken's A Neglected Anniversary (deadpan history of the bathtub, written some 30 years ago), and Mencken had a gratifying contract: in exchange for rights to the old hoax, the old hoaxer (who is a connoisseur of brews) was guaranteed two cases of Canadian ale a month for the rest of his life. Further, he did not have to return "the bottles and containers or other cartons in which such ale is shipped. . . ."

On both sides of the Atlantic, thriller-dealers were set ashake by a rather small boo from Msgr. Ronald Knox (The Body in the Silo). "I say the detective story is in danger of getting played out," wrote Father Knox in the Roman Catholic weekly, the Tablet. ". . . . The stories get cleverer and cleverer, but the readers are getting cleverer and cleverer too. . . ."

Agatha Christie promptly begged to differ, reported that "we still have some tricks to play," cooed: "My own experience is that detective stories are being read more than ever." Ellery Queen held a contradictory mirror up to Father Knox's words, reassured himself: "Readers get more wary, but writers get more clever." People would always read mysteries, declared Leslie Ford and David Frome in unison. "Monsignor Knox is talking through his hat," cried Rex Stout, "--if he wears a hat."

The only amens Father Knox got were from Colonel Van Wyck Mason and Dorothy Sayers (both mystery alumni) --and Mason's was qualified. He had long ago decided, said he, that authors had "used just about every known device in mystery stories"; yet innocent new generations of readers were always coming up. "In common with the novel," generalized all-out Miss Sayers, "the detective story is likely to decline in the future. . . . I don't read fiction any more."

Prisoners

Paul de Lesseps, 63-year-old son of the famed Suez Canal builder, was down with heart trouble and a sense of persecution in Fresnes Prison. The French Government said that Prisoner de Lesseps, who owned land in Turkey, had offered to sell it to the Germr 3, for bases from which to bomb Suez. De Lesseps' reply: the Government owed him five billion francs for land confiscated in World War I, now condemned him "to avoid paying."

Cinemactress Lido Baarova walked out of a Czechoslovakian jail after a year's imprisonment, freed, for lack of evidence, of espionage and treason charges. In Europe she 'had been famed as one of the Continent's great beauties. Abroad she had been famed chiefly as the cute angle of a Nazi riangle. Friends of Lida's actor-husband, ran 1939's best gossip item, gave Paul Joseph Goebbels a bloody beating, in Lida's rooms. Husband Gustav Froeblich has not been seen since.

The Very Best

In Manhattan, a famed host & hostess began to say their goodbyes to Broadway; in Philadelphia, another famed couple brought prewar hospitality back with a loud bang.

After 20 years of feeding the theater's great, the Vincent Sardis prepared to get away from it all. Sardi's restaurant, the oldest (and most relaxed) of the still-famed old Broadway rendezvous, would be turned over to Vincent Jr. Father Sardi, 60, who had been at work since he was ten, would now learn about leisure. Instead of looking at Barrymores, Lunts and Shuberts, the Sardis meant to look at the U.S. Sardi wasn't completely sold on retirement. "But my wife and I are very good friends," said he. "We'll find something to do."

Philadelphia's host & hostess of the season were the Peter A. B. Wideners, whose coming-out party for daughter Ella (familiarly known as "Tootie") was probably the splashiest postwar launching to date. Into the solid old Bellevue-Stratford streamed some 2,000 guests. What they found, besides the multimillion-dollar Wideners: the customary Meyer Davis orchestra, an extra gypsy band, "northern lights" playing on a make-believe Arctic (complete with icebergs, igloos and snow mounds), some 3,000 yards of spun-glass drapes sparkling with silver snowflakes, Cellophane clouds scattered with stars, three bars (one a milk bar), and a sprinkling of detectives. Supper was from 1 a.m. to 2; breakfast, from 5 a.m. to 6. Down the hatch by night's end: 100-odd cases of vintage champagne.

In London, among the dancers at an R.A.F. ball was boyish-looking Group Captain Douglas Bader, 36, wartime air ace who was shot down over Europe and captured by the Germans, thrice escaped, was thrice recaptured. What helped make his fighting (and dancing) something special: he has worn a pair of artificial legs since a crackup back in the '30s.

Just Folks

Yachtsman Errol Flynn put into Kingston, Jamaica, gravely declared that he had retired from the cinema, and delivered a farewell address. "I am deeply grateful to Hollywood," said pleasure-loving Mr. Flynn, "not only for the material things it has given me, but also for the physical peace it has brought me."

Gene Tierney, against her better judgment, went out on a double date with: 1) her estranged husband, Dress Designer Oleg Cassini; 2) her sister, Pat; 3) Sister Pat's boy friend, Playboy Jimmy Costello. A difference of opinion arose over the possession of a set of car keys, so Costello and Cassini gave each other what for. "I hate this!" screamed Gene, "I hate this!" Next night they all had dinner together.

But the star of the folkway-show of the week was the late W. C. Fields. The 67-year-old comedian had asked for cremation, and no funeral service. He got three services--one at a church and two at a mausoleum--and no cremation. Eulogist at one service: Comedian Edgar Bergen. Chief mourner at another service, conducted by a spiritualist: dark-haired young Actress Carlotta Monti, Fields's longtime good friend.* At the Fields family service Actress Monti was barred. She told the press that Fields had asked her to come, in a spirit message. "He wanted me to get a front seat at this three-ring circus," said she.

* He left her $25,000 plus a life income. Other bequests: $10,000 apiece (plus life incomes) to his widow and son; the bulk of his $800,000 estate to the establishment of a non-religious W. C. Fields College for Orphan White Boys & Girls. Comedian Fields pretended to hate children.

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