Inside Sources

In the backyard of his host, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the U.N.'s Ralph Bunche got some valuable pointers on the art of horseshoe pitching (see cut). In Berkeley to deliver a commencement address at the University of California, Bunche was ordered into a pair of sneakers by the admiral. As the backyard game progressed, Nimitz said: "Keep your arm straight at the elbow--less tiring, more accurate." Then, plopping a perfect ringer, the admiral advised his puffing house guest: "Best exercise in the world for sedentary people."

Before leaving Detroit for a tour of Canada, Britain's oldtime music-hall comedienne Grade Fields fired a parting shot at her fellow comedians: "Everybody is trying to be too clever and too quick these days. It's the day of the gag writer. The actors grab their dreary little scripts and study them frantically for a half hour, and then expect to put on a show."

At the dedication of a new building at the University of Chicago hospital center, Chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins reminisced: "The medical school and I came to the university at the same time. We have both been expensive. The medical school was worth while."

Admitted to a Santa Monica, Calif, hospital for a minor operation, Japan's Shirley ("The Grable of the Orient") Yamaguchi, 24, who had come to Hollywood to learn how to make love, American style, gave the lowdown on love in Japan: "Since the G.I.s came to Japan they have introduced many new customs such as to kiss and smooch and hold each other's neck."

In Commons, Britain's Sir Stafford Cripps recalled one of his more momentous decisions: "On one occasion Mr. [Winston] Churchill offered to become a Socialist if I would drink a bottle of champagne." Teetotaler Cripps declined.

New Directions

To reassure friends, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 51, who broke 23 ribs last October when his horse rolled over on him, announced that during this summer's trek through Iran "I don't plan to climb [any mountains] higher than 20,000 feet."

Word leaked out that Charlie Chaplin planned the vicarious fulfillment of a lifelong ambition to play a Shakespearean role: he will direct his son Sydney, 24, in a Hollywood stage production of Othello in August.

Swimmer Shirley May France, 17, sailed for Europe to take another crack at the English Channel. Trim and chipper, she was eating two steaks a day, weighed in at 170.

After disregarding one court order to appear for questioning, Hearst Columnist Westbrook Pegler turned up to talk things over with Quentin Reynolds' lawyer. Free-lance Writer Reynolds had brought a $500,000 libel suit (TIME, Dec. 12) against Pegler for calling him, among other things, a "fourflusher" and a "nudist."

Bestselling Author James Michener, whose Tales of the South Pacific inspired the Broadway musical smash, was back from his wartime haunts with a new book.

"But my real reason for going out there," he admitted, "was to get away from people who wanted tickets to South Pacific."

Sent to Israel by Washington's famed Negro revivalist, Elder Lightfoot Michaux: twelve empty barrels, to be filled with water from the River Jordan. Michaux, who wants the water for mass baptisms, explained that his idea "was just handed down from heaven, I guess."

Just Deserts

With his royal family, Sweden's King Gustaf sat down to a lunch which included a 160-lb. cake. Then, after a short game of rummy, His Majesty got around to reading several hundred telegrams wishing him a happy 92nd birthday.

Actor Sidney Blackmer, who eight times a week in Broadway's Come Back, Little Sheba, threatens to kill his wife (Shirley Booth) with a hatchet, was named "Stage Father of the Year" by the National Father's Day Committee.

To celebrate the sale of more than a million paperbacked copies of The Postman Always Rings Twice, beetle-browed Novelist James M. (for Mallahan) Cain received a silver statue of Gertrude, the kangaroo trademark of Pocket Books, Inc. Cain also reported that he had been reducing: "When [Critic] Malcolm Cowley described me as 'roller-coaster-chinned,' that was too much. I lost 60 pounds in six months and am now down to 180."

Among the ten best-tailored women in America (picked by the Custom Tailors Guild): Maine's Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Actress Lynn Fontanne, TV's Faye Emerson, Tennis Star Gertrude ("Gorgeous Gussie") Moron.

Groucho Marx reported that his son Arthur, 28, had written a "very elegant" novel about Newport and Southampton, tentatively called The Ordeal of Willie Brown, to be published next March. Harpo, off fishing in Vancouver, couldn't make the graduation from grammar school of his son Billy, 13, but telegraphed: "Congratulations to my blue serge suit. Although I never got through school, all my clothes did."

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