How to Become Extinct

There was a hot time at the edge of the glacier last week.

Fun with Annie, Tanis & Loelia. In London, hostess-of-the-week was Anne (Annie) Geraldine Mary O'Neill, Viscountess Rothermere, energetic wife of the second Viscount (Daily Mail) Rothermere, who organized a "treasure hunt." This was a farewell gesture for some visiting friends--Howard and Tanis Dietz (she is the former Tanis Guinness, of the stout Guinnesses; he is MGM's publicity potentate who originated Leo the Lion). When Anne's Mayfairest guests rolled up (sixish) at the Rothermeres' Warwick House behind St. James's Palace, they found that no ordinary treasure hunt awaited them.

According to the rules laid down by their hostess, the gentlemen would have to bid in cold cash (which would go to a charity) for the ladies they wished to escort during the impending quest. Some of the ladies objected; after a democratic vote, the majority went along with the auction plan. So Master-of-Ceremonies Baron Stanley of Alderley (he's terribly good at this sort of thing) mounted a chair in the sitting room. Cried he: "Now, who wants Loelia?" (the recently divorced Duchess of Westminster). Bidding was sluggish, and the ex-Duchess finally went for seven guineas. Blonde Princess Ali Khan, the Aga Khan's daughter-in-law, did better at a reported 15 guineas. Randolph Churchill, who could not stay late because he had to dash off to a regimental dinner, bought up several girls and later disposed of them at a profit--which, of course, went to charity too. One of his transactions involved 27-year-old Kathleen, Marchioness of Hartington (nee Kennedy, of Boston).

The treasure hunt proved hilarious but hot. Some of the less hardy couples dropped out to cool off with champagne. The rest raced through London from Warwick House to an empty house at No. 1 Cambridge Square to the Ritz to the Peter Pan statue in Kensington (the Rolls-Royces had trouble getting through those narrow lanes), doggedly following the far-flung clues that had been written (in verse) by Howard Dietz. Sample clue (leading to a book planted inside the empty house):

The stone Cambridge's quarantining To you may have a hidden meaning; Pick out the place, then seek a nook, And browse until you find a book That deals with fairies, not the kind Occurring to the vulgar mind.

First prize (-L-150) went to the Hon. Hugh Fraser, Conservative M.P., who had wisely bought a notoriously intelligent companion. Then the happy hunters had a ham and tongue supper, afterward moved to London's Orchid Room. The party broke up at 5.

Fun with Sacha, Jo & Jo. In Paris, a pleasant social ruffle was provided by Actor-Author Sacha Guitry, 62, author of Nine Bachelors, who was getting his fourth divorce (from Actress Genevieve de Sereville). In court, a vivid tug-of-love arose over a diamond-studded bracelet, worth millions, which Guitry had given his wife, then taken away after they separated. Now she wanted it back. Guitry pleaded that he had already compensated his ex-to-be with one Utrillo painting and two million francs. Furthermore, it was not clear to what extent the bracelet had belonged to her in the first place. For inside the bracelet, Guitry--sometimes considered a minor poet--had inscribed: "Il est `a toi mais il est encore `a nous" (It is yours, yet it is ours).

But both in poesy and fun, Guitry's divorce was topped by Josephine Baker's wedding (to Bandleader Jo Bouillon). During the syncopated years between the wars, the dusky St. Louis song-&-dance woman had ruled the jungle of the Folics Bergere clad only in several bananas. From World War II she emerged almost fully dressed and somewhat slowed down. The provincial wedding of "Jo & Jo" (as the French press called it) went well--except for one thing: the bride's gown did not arrive from Paris; she had to wear a blue dress, enlivened by a deeply determined decolletage and a helmet of white feathers. Afterward, the local blacksmith presented the couple with a breuvage d'amour (love brew)--a palate-scorching onion soup. According to local experts, it is "calculated to get a honeymoon off to a flying start."

These events took place in Josephine Baker's 12th Century castle in the Dordogne Valley, which is famed for its scenery, its mild climate, and the fact that it has yielded several of Europe's best Neanderthal men (of the cave-dwelling Neanderthals, of course). This Pleistocene elite inhabited the Dordogne Valley, and other pleasant regions, circa 250,000 to 150,000 B.C., during the third interglacial stage of the Ice Age. It became extinct when the world's ice masses, against which it had devised no defense, once more advanced across Europe.

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