Words & Music

In an article for Britain's weekly Spectator, Author Harold Nicolson discussed the delicate problem of writing tasteful but truthful obituary notices of well-known lusty characters. The English necrologists, he said, have developed a special technique: "To tell the truth by denying its opposite." For example, it was said of the late novelist Norman Douglas: "His worst enemy could not have accused him of being either a hypocrite or a puritan." The past master of this art, Nicolson decided, was Sir Sidney Lee, author of the official biography of King Edward VII, who loved to eat his royal meals in a hurry. Avoiding such words as "gobbled" or "bolted," his biography simply noted: "Nor could it be said that he was a man who toyed with his food."

Cinemactress Joan (Rebecca) Fontaine arrived in San Francisco for the premiere of her latest movie, Something to Live For, in which she plays an alcoholic. It was one of her more difficult roles, she told reporters, "partly because I've never been drunk." Trying for a convincing performance, she said, "I talked to members of Alcoholics Anonymous and watched my friends at cocktail parties."

In Manhattan, headed for England, Actress Claudette Colbert gave a shipboard pronouncement on the hairdo controversy: "Poodle cuts come and poodle cuts go. I've had a half-baked poodle for 15 years. I think it is very cute on some women."

Old Traveler Burton Holmes, 81, dean of the U.S. lecture circuit for the past 60 years, decided he had had about enough wandering, announced that he would take it easy and live in California.

After a visit to Spain, Major General Charles Willoughby (ret.), longtime intelligence officer for General MacArthur, announced that he would rent an apartment and live in Madrid. Said he: "I feel much safer in Madrid behind the Pyrenees than in Paris behind the Rhine."

A real-life romance blossomed at the Metropolitan Opera. Baritone Robert Merrill, 33, recently reinstated after a wayward detour to Hollywood, and 21-year-old Soprano Roberta Peters, who made a dramatic debut in a last-minute substitution a year and a half ago as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, announced they would marry this summer. They met while singing Figaro and Rosina in The Barber of Seville, in which Figaro tries to persuade Rosina to marry the romantic tenor, Count Almaviva. Cracked Merrill: "This time the baritone got the girl."

In & Out

After his performance at a Los Angeles theater, Cinemactor Edward G. Robinson was told that his 19-year-old son was in a Beverly Hills jail on a bad check charge. Junior, who was cut off from his $10-a-week allowance a fortnight ago after father disapproved of his marriage to a 24-year-old actress, needed some bail money. Said father Edward G., as his lawyer hurried to spring Junior: "After all, he's my son. What could I do?"

To let him visit his wife, who is critically ill in a Black Forest hospital, officials of the British military prison at Werl signed a seven-day parole for ex-Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the Wehrmacht's 63-year-old Panzer specialist, who is serving a twelve-year war crime sentence. One condition of the leave: a pledge of honor not to talk to reporters.

Bennett E. Meyers, onetime major general and big-shot purchasing agent for the Air Force, was released from the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa. After serving 318 days of a one-year sentence for $61,400 income tax evasion, plus 30 days more for failure to pay the $15,000 fine, he signed a pauper's oath and promised to give to the Government, toward payment of the fine, a percentage of any future money he may earn.

Tokyo announced that Admiral Nomura, the peace-talking Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. at the time of Pearl Harbor, was among those listed to be taken off the political purge roll, provided the occupation authorities approve.

With All Due Respect

Touring India to glean material for a book on "the economic possibilities" of the country, Eleanor Roosevelt stopped in Karachi where the All-Pakistan Women's Association presented her with a souvenir, a colorful dopatta (shawl) which she promptly put on for the benefit of photographers. Later, after a dinner party in Lahore where eight little Pakistani girls did a Punjabi folk dance, Mrs. Roosevelt amazed and delighted the guests by going through a 15-minute exhibition of the Virginia Reel.

The 1952 edition of Who's Who included some newcomers. Among the entertainers: Jimmy Durante, Sid Caesar & Imogene Coca, John Wayne, Mario Lanza. In government: Perle Mesta and Mike Di Salle. In fashions: Christian Dior and Jacques Path. In the Manhattan saloon set: Sherman (Stork Club) Billingsley.

In Washington, in the President's Room at the Capitol, the Loyal Order of Moose welcomed what Senator Matthew Neely of West Virginia called the "most distinguished class ever initiated in the U.S." Among the distinguished new Moose: Senators Lister Hill, Herbert Lehman, John J. Sparkman, Robert Kerr and Attorney General J. Howard McGrath.

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