The Personal Approach

Soprano Margaret Truman estimated that her 1950 earnings from concerts, radio and records might come to $75,000, but expenses would "cut my gross income in half." Also, she told the Saturday Evening Post, "there is a little man with a big book down at the Internal Revenue office--but who am I to gripe about taxes?"

James J. ("Big Jim") Jeffries, 75, heavyweight champ who was knocked flat in 1910 by Jack Johnson, the first Negro champ, observed that the fight game has become so sissified that "I'd rather see a wrestling match . . . Lots of these kids fighting now would make damn good ping-pong players."

Author Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep), master of the hard-guy school of crime fiction, openly sneered (in the Saturday Review of Literature) at those who prefer the too-too refined type of whodunit ("That charming Mrs. Jones--whoever would have thought she would cut off her husband's head with a meat saw? And such a handsome man, too!").

Once again, Connie (Cornelius McGillicuddy) Mack, 87, beginning his 50th year as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, denied the annual rumor that he would retire at the end of the season: "It's--it's preposterous!"

For a London interviewer from the New York Times, Poet-Playwright T. S. Eliot cleared up a subtle point that has puzzled many who have seen his Broadway hit, The Cocktail Party. Why does one of the heroines go on living a dull life with her husband while the other goes off to Africa to be crucified? Said Eliot: "People are just different, aren't they?"

The Little Things That Count

With his leg still in a cast (he broke it in three places while skiing last February), Prince Aly Khan flew to London for the races at Hurst Park. The trip was worth it. Horses belonging to his father, the Ago Khan, ran off with two races. (The winnings: -L-4,780 153.)

In San Bernardino, Calif., Bernarr ("Body Love") Macfadden, 81, took a now-familiar pose (see cut) which helps keep him in trim. Then he hurried east to appear in NBC's TV show called Life Begins At 80, where he said he might stand on his head again ("It's good for the digestion") or else do a fast Russian kazachek ("It keeps my knees supple").

Efficient Edith Helm, White House social secretary, was momentarily nonplussed. At a press conference someone said he had heard that Bess Truman "used to beat even the boys at mumblety-peg when she was a child in Independence. She used to pull the peg out with her teeth, too." Quickly rallying, Mrs. Helm replied: "That's an esoteric rite of the player. I used to play it myself."

Cinemactress Joan Crawford, 42, who started out as a Chicago nightclub dancer even before the days of the Charleston, struck a pose for what she figured might be her 8,000th piece of cheesecake art. It had long since become a routine with her, she explained: "I just pull in my tummy, throw out my chest, and let 'er go."

A Ringing in the Ears

When Cinemactress Ava Gardner stepped from a plane at a Madrid airport, she played a supporting role to a fellow passenger: a timid-looking young man in a brown suit, yellow tie and outsized sun glasses. Ignoring the movie queen, a score of waiting dignitaries and cameramen rushed forward to greet ex-King Peter of Yugoslavia, who had arrived to pay his respects to Francisco Franco.

After three months, Oxford-bred Seretse Khama, chief of the Bamangwato, was finally allowed by the British to return to his homeland for a five-day reunion with his white wife, former London Typist Ruth Williams, who is expecting a baby in June. As crowds of Bamangwato shouted happily and grizzled tribal elders cried pula, pula (welcome, welcome), Ruth, sobbing and laughing, ran over the rough sand into her husband's arms.

At a fund-raising Manhattan tea party, Mrs. Sumi Yukawa, petite wife of Nobel Prizewinning Physicist Dr. Hideki Yukawa, won bravos for her costume performance of two classical Japanese dances. Her sons, Harumi, 17, and Takaki, 15, did not attend the exhibition. Explained Dr. Yukawa: "They're much more interested in baseball."

To Remember You By

World Citizen Garry Davis, 28, who tore up his U.S. passport in 1948, seemed to have postponed his search for "oblivion." Back in his native land on a French immigrant's visa, Garry married brunette Audrey Peters, 21, an ex-Hollywood dancer whom he had courted by mail. They met for the first time after he landed from the America three weeks ago. First, Garry and Audrey said their vows in the city hall plaza at Ellsworth, Me., while 500 townspeople joined in chanting a "unification of love" service which Garry had written, printed and passed around. Asked about his wedding guests, he explained: "I have always believed in the brotherhood of man and I want the people to take part in our wedding. We don't matter except that we are part of the community. My body is only incidental. It's my spirit that's the real Garry Davis. And my spirit is certainly part of the spiritual whole of the world . . . To me it's all clear as crystal." The officiating minister, not seeing things so clearly, refused to sign the marriage certificate. Then the newlyweds walked off to be conventionally remarried by Justice of the Peace Boyd Blaisdell. Audrey reluctantly accepted a light jacket as protection against the nippy Maine spring, protesting that "Our love will keep us warm." By this time, Blaisdell, J. P., had got tired of waiting around and could not be found. But, anyhow, the pair drove off to Bangor for a wedding supper of beer and seafood. Reminded that no one had paid the minister, Davis asked, "Should we have paid the people, too?" Next day, they finally got married, Garry told reporters, in stodgy, legal style, certificate and all.

An irate Englishman wrote to the London Times protesting a rumor of the possible destruction of St. George's Church in Gravesend, where Pocahontas, savior of Captain John Smith and wife of John Rolfe, has been buried for more than 330 years: "When we are . . . doing our utmost to attract American visitors it seems singularly shortsighted to destroy a building which . . . [could] draw them to Gravesend in large numbers."

Mrs. Helen Dortch Longstreet, ninetyish, peppery widow of Confederate General James Longstreet, announced that she had become a gubernatorial candidate against Georgia's Herman Talmadge. She demanded that the Governor be "gallant enough to step out of the race," since "it is conceded that [he] cannot be defeated by anyone in sight."

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