The Family Circle

Surrounded by relatives and friends in a suite at Manhattan's Hotel Sherry Netherland, durable Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch celebrated his 80th birthday with champagne and caviar, ice cream and cake. Baruch, who back in 1947 said that he was bowing out of public life, had definitely changed his mind: "The sands are running out for me, but I'm not senile yet. I'll know when I am, and I'll shut up. But I am still able to cope with those fellows [in Washington], and I'll keep telling them what I think should be done until somebody listens."

After a short wait at the Denver airport, a beaming Dwight D. Eisenhower met his only son, Captain John S. D. Eisenhower, West Point English instructor, drove him to the home of the general's parents-in-law for a bang-up family reunion (see cut).

Ater 14 years of marriage and three of divorce, Poetess Dorothy Parker, 57, was remarried in Bel-Air, Calif, to second husband Alan Campbell, 43. Explained Screen Writer Campbell: "I just called her up in New York and asked her and she said yes." What about the honeymoon? "We're not going away," said Dorothy. "We've been everywhere."

Roses & Thorns

Unveiled on its site opposite the West Point library: a heroic bronze statue of the late great General George S. Patton Jr., complete with pearl-handled pistols.

Disturbed by popular demonstrations against him, India's multimillionaire Nizam of Hyderabad voluntarily gave up his royal right to have the public roads cleared during his afternoon drive to his mother's tomb.

Named as winners of the New York Board of Trade's gold plaques for "Notable Service in the Preservation of Our Heritage of America": U.S. District Judge Harold Medina and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Taking orders for his new syndicated weekly newspaper column: up & coming new Journalist Cecil B. (for Blount) DeMille of Hollywood.

Nabbed at Nice by French police as she was about to board a plane for Tunis, Couturiere Elsa Schiaparelli tried to explain why she was carrying with her $1,485 in undeclared U.S. bills (which were confiscated), plus several items of jewelry which she had reported stolen the previous week. Released after six hours of questioning, she could only sputter: "I am furious." Later, she told newsmen that she hadn't bothered to report the jewels' recovery because the main item, a set of diamond pins on a chain, valued at $5,714, was still missing. As for the money, she thought she had a right to do with it as she pleased: her dress designs had brought France more dollars than most French businesses.

The Way Things Are

Katherine ("Klondike Kate") Van Duren, 69, oldtime "Belle of the Yukon," turned up at the 19th International Reunion of Alaskan Sourdoughs sporting a practically undamaged pair of gams but remembering better days: "I was a sunflower, but Lord, the petals are falling fast."

Luscious Patricia Morison, who was on her uppers in filmdom before she romped and trilled through the Broadway smash Kiss Me, Kate, noted a change in the California climate: "A week or so ago when I sang at the Hollywood Bowl . . . people who used to nod and say 'Hello, Pat' . . . came dashing backstage and threw their arms around me, shouting 'Dahling, you were wonderful!' "

In Madison for the unveiling of a scale model of the U.S.S. Wisconsin, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy recalled that he was once all set to enter the U. of Wisconsin law school: "I was all signed up. But somehow I got tangled up with the Navy and here I am. I never would have been worth a darn as a lawyer anyway."

Shock-haired, baggy-trousered British Poet Stephen Spender was also off on a nostalgia jag. "Science has provided man with the means ... of complete destruction," he told a Harvard poetry conference. "What has always been the essential condition for creating poetry--the assurance of a continuity in civilization--is lost."

Hollywood Gossipist Hedda Hopper led with her chin, bravely recorded the result: "When I wrote that I didn't understand why Louis Calhern and Nina Foch wanted to do King Lear on Broadway," she reported, "I got the following note from James T. Burns Jr. of Columbia University: 'The reason artists like Calhern and Foch choose to star in Lear instead of staying in California to portray defunct cattle barons and brilliantined cuties is approximately the same reason a gifted writer would prefer to become a Wolcott Gibbs instead of a Hedda Hopper.'"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.