The World of Ideas

In Manhattan, Best-Seller Betty Smith, little noted since A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, worked on a play and a movie, had a new book about Brooklyn coming out next spring, meantime mused to an interviewer: "I'm getting too used to luxury. Writers shouldn't have too much comfort--all they need is warmth and enough to eat. . . . What I long for is the feeling of dreaming of a bright future again. . . ."

At U.N. headquarters, Eleanor Roosevelt pointed out for the Russians one of the distinctions between a free press and a controlled one. "If some parts of a free press become bad, the rest will remain good," said she. "But a controlled press is like an egg: if any part of it is bad, the whole is bad."

In Southampton, England, camera-shy Greta Garbo, homeward bound, failed to shy fast enough, got caught again in that same wonderful old hat (see cut). But she arrived back in Manhattan at the top of her form: after two months of travel & observation in churning Europe, she had nothing to say at all.

Shelter

A fire (cause unknown) destroyed all the furnishings, books and paintings in Franklin D. Roosevelt's study in the Manhattan house* once owned by his mother.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower's house-hunting was over: Nicholas Murray Butler, president emeritus of Columbia University, decided to let his successor use the official president's residence, which Columbia had given 85-year-old Dr. Butler for the rest of his days. (Dr. Butler has another place on Park Avenue.)

Ambassador Lewis W. Douglas' wife, Peggy, who had long been trying to get a prefabricated house for the Douglas ranch back in Arizona, finally found just what she wanted, but she couldn't have it. She found it--marked "Made in U.S.A."--on a visit to a housing project in Birmingham, England.

Tyrone Power, hopping around Africa spreading good will for Hollywood, got nice accommodations in Addis Ababa. His host: Haile Selassie.

Health

Orville Wright, 76, of the plane-pioneering Wright brothers, ran up the steps of a building, collapsed, observed when he came to: "Apparently the exertion was too much for me." At a Dayton hospital next day, Inventor Wright & heart were reported "satisfactory."

Brigadier General Frank Merrill, leader of Merrill's Marauders in, Burma, was down with heart trouble in a hospital near Manila.

Massachusetts Congressman John F. Kennedy, 30-year-old Pacific veteran, who went to Europe to study labor unions, was on his way home from England with war-born malaria after spending most of his six-week stay in bed.

Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg of Michigan, and his wife Hazel, were both in a Grand Rapids hospital, he for a rest and checkup, she for a gall-bladder operation. The post-operative report: "satisfactory."

Lila Lee, saucer-eyed, doll-faced heroine of the silents, was "feeling fine" after two years at a Saranac Lake, N.Y. tuberculosis sanatorium, was set to be up & about (in Manhattan) next week.

Fundamentals

Violinist Yehudi Menuhin's wife, Nola, who divorced him last fortnight, got a license in Manhattan to marry Businessman Anthony Arthur Williams.

Bandsman Xavier Cugat, whose wife, Carmen, finally divorced him after 18 years, announced next day that he would marry Actress Lorraine Allen.

Soprano Vivian Delia Chiesa, Chicago Civic Opera prima donna, who once told the press that she did not believe in divas marrying because "it isn't fair to the man," was sued for $75,000 damages by Adrienne Ellis, a Chicago suburbanite, who charged Diva Vivian with copping her ex-husband, George.

Pressagent Johnny Meyer, best known for his witness-stand singing at the Senate investigation of Howard Hughes last August, was arrested in Manhattan on a former cigarette girl's charge that he was the father of her eight-month-old son. Between Meyer's arrest and his lawyer's appearance for him in court two days later (trial was set for Dec. 4), Hughes's squashy, bald party-thrower got newspaper attention fit for visiting royalty or assassins. Police picked him up at El Morocco (where the girl used to work). At the station house he informed the sergeant: "I've been pushed around by pretty important people, and you're not going to push me around." He was briskly booked, held under $500 bail, packed off to jail in a paddy wagon. Bailed out at 5 a.m., he snickered grandly, "I need $500 like I need a hole in the head," and disappeared for three days. Soon he was back at El Morocco with a rococo blonde in attendance. Said Meyer about that paternity thing: "I never took her out. . . . She worked until 5 a.m." The cigarette girl's little quote for the papers was more in the classic mold. "I want nothing for myself," said she. "I want justice for my child."

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