The Furrowed Brow

"People are ungrateful to the ones who make them laugh," observed Producer Rene Clair, cinema specialist in laughter-&-tears. "They are grateful to the ones who make them cry. The idea of beauty is associated with tears. . . ."

"Other animals have died out in the past," observed Nobel Chemist Harold C. Urey, musing brutally aloud on the meaning of atomic warfare. "I do not see why we should be any exception, and perhaps now is the time."

"Hollywood is a fisherman with an expensive rod," wrote Producer Dudley Nichols (Mourning Becomes Electro) in the New York Times, "and it will not sit all day and go bankrupt and bait its hook with what the fish don't want. And this fisherman has found [that] the abundant fishing is in the troubled waters of adolescence and all its concomitants--violence for the sake of violence . . . physical action for the sake of action . . . glamor that is not beauty, sex with a snicker. . . . Don't blame Hollywood for all this: blame yourselves."

Some of Winston Churchill's wartime speeches were done into Basic English, recalled Author Bruce Lockhart in London's Sunday Times. But the Government's Basic Anglicizer went down before the "blood, sweat, and tears" phrase. "All that Basic English could produce," reported Lockhart, "was 'blood, body water, and eyewash.' "

The Family Circle

In Boston, Lana Turner almost apologetically explained to the press about her romance with Tyrone Power: "How can I say when I'll marry him--after all, he is still married to Annabella." That was why she just couldn't announce her engagement--"That would be bad taste."

In Manhattan, British Stage & Screen Star Wendy Miller made news that sounded a little more like the neighbors. Shipped to her from England were son Anthony, 5, and daughter Ann, 8; their arrival fulfilled one of the terms of mother's contract in Broadway's The Heiress. The term: the children would be brought over if the show was a success.

In London, energetic Victor F. W. Cavendish-Bentinck, 40, who was sacked from the Foreign Service last September after his high-flavored divorce trial, won a Pyrrhic victory. An Appeals Court judge threw out the legal separation Mrs. Cavendish-Bentinck had won; he was convinced, he said, that she herself had misbehaved--indeed, with the husband of one of Victor's own friends.

The Road Ahead

Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. looked like a comer: asked about a rumor that he would get a Justice Department job, Attorney General Tom C.Clark responded: "I can only say that Assistant Attorneys General are always appointed by the Attorney General, and I am very fond of Roosevelt."

A. Howard Fuller, 34, plump president of the joke-haunted Fuller Brush Co., was also coming right along. To impersonate him in a Red Skelton comedy, The Fuller Brush Man, Columbia Pictures asked for--and got--A. Howard Fuller.

At five and ten, Prince Michael and Princess Alexandra, son & daughter of the photogenic Duchess of Kent, already faced pretty heavy responsibilities. At Westminster next week, he would be a page and she a bridesmaid. Meantime they did their royal best to look like an unposed, unself-conscious family for the photographers (see cut).

Jimmy Durante, 54, discovered that he was one of the nation's Ten Most Eligible Bachelors, according to a lightheaded poll of Arthur Murray dancing teachers. The girls elected The Neb because he had "the kindest face" in the U.S. Doubtless as staggered as Durante was Drama Critic George Jean Nathan, a snarling 65, who was voted into the Ten Most Eligible because of his "superior intellect." The others: J. Edgar Hoover, 52 ("masculine courage"); Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy, 57 ("unimpeachable honesty"); greying, toothy Columnist Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., 49 (who lost much of his money some 20 years ago and his fourth wife 5 1/2 months ago); Washington's blond little Senator Warren G. Magnuson, 42 (whose "statesmanlike dignity" allegedly gave the voters a bang)--and, of course, Howard Hughes (the "will to succeed"), Jimmy Stewart ("ageless boyishness"), Cory Grant ("good looks"), and Footballer Glenn Davis.

Health & Wealth

In Canterbury, England, Dr. Hewlett Johnson, 73-year-old "Red Dean" of Canterbury, canceled plans for a lecture tour in the U.S., took to his bed with a misery that his wife described as "similar to sciatica."

In Detroit, Clara Bryant Ford, So-year-old widow of Automaker Henry, sat down and carefully figured her expenses for a year, asked and got an allowance from probate court pending settlement of Ford's estate. Her year's allowance: $300,000.

In Washington, D.C., hardworking Congressman Robert Lee ("Muley") Doughton of North Carolina, who usually rises at dawn and who has been dutifully and happily plugging along in Congress ever since 1911, attained the age of 84, obligingly reported to the press the state he was in: "Not tired, not sleepy, not hungry, and not mad. Nobody ever hears me complain."

Alarums & Excursions

In West Los Angeles, Cinemactress Joan Bennett heard screams outside the house, ran out with Producer-Husband Walter Wanger, found 19-year-old daughter Diana just home from night school, safe & sound but scared stiff. Gone in the dark: whoever had jumped out of the shrubbery and grabbed Diana by the throat.

In Sussex, England, the pudgy Duke of Norfolk, 39, Premier Duke and Earl of England, who lives in a vast, many-towered castle on a hilltop, stepped into his dressing room, encountered a perfect stranger in a fawn-colored coat and green cap, his feet wrapped in rags. The Duke shouted and the stranger bounded away. The Duke gave chase (hallooing as he went) through the corridors, down the magnificent granite staircase, on through an armor-filled chamber. But he finally ran out of breath. Gone, despite an organized manhunt all over Arundel Castle's 1,200 acres: the stranger, and one gold cigarette case.

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