Thoughts for Today

George Bernard Shaw, 91, enthusiastically endorsed a British organization called the Anti-Women Society (for "men's rights"), though he declined an invitation to join. "I am far too old," said he, improvising his nouns as he went along. "I can only send you this attaboy."*

Omar Khayyam, whose pleasantly fatalistic Rubaiyat was a campus favorite in the '90's, was now the best-selling poet at Smith College. The local bookshop reported further that T. S. Eliot (see Col. 3) was way down in fourth place: he trailed Elizabeth Browning and Kahlil Gibran.

"Unless we behave like raving lunatics, there will not be another war," announced Britain's Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross. "But there is always the possibility that men may be lunatics."

Dale Carnegie, whose How to Win Friends & Influence People struck just the right note with U.S. readers a decade ago, was getting something ready for 1948: How to Stop Worrying.

Shadow & Substance

It wasn't so much the deed itself as the thought behind it.

Charles Chaplin Jr., 22, booked in Los Angeles on suspicion of intoxication for a little fender-nicking incident, gave a low, morning-after moan: "I feel very badly . . , because of what my Dad will say."

A California game warden brought home the biggest bag of the 1947 duck season: Cinemactors Clark Gable, Frank Morgan and Johnny Mack Brown. The warden said that he had caught Morgan with 13 dead ducks, Brown with 16; but He-Man Gable had been staggering along with 25 (21 above the legal limit). Nonsense, Gable huffed, he had not shot a single duck. After consultation with an M-G-M lawyer, the warden decided that, on recount, Gable had really shot only six. With everybody (except the ducks) feeling better, the party was fined $200 apiece.

Tyrone Power greeted the New Year in Mexico City as he did last year--but not with the same girl (Lana Turner was involved elsewhere--see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). This year it was Linda Christian, a widely traveled Hollywood starlet he had bumped into in Rome. After Mexico City, the handsome couple moved on to Acapulco.

"Ginny" came out. All season, tall, bangsy Virginia Leigh, 17, had kept Manhattan society reporters in a dither. Not since Brenda Frazier had a sub-deb been so well managed; Ginny had even been wormed into the New York Sun as a society columnist: "The William Benjamins 2nd (Odette de Bruniere) hope for a telephone during the New Year." And last week her debut had the hairy Daily News mewing about "a pale blue moon" and "pink mist." For her coming-out party, there was a blaze of pink candles, a bed of pink azaleas, baby spots playing on the potted plants, a hamburger stand and an ice cream stand, champagne ("all French") in five-foot jeroboams, Moscow Mules* in copper souvenir cups. After breakfast (4 a.m.) Ginny hauled off her hoopskirt ("icy white satin . . . after a Winterhalter portrait of the Empress Eugenie") and fell into bed at 8 a.m.

The Saudi Arabian Legation in Washington called off its annual reception. King Ibn Saud, officials said, was mad at the U.S. for supporting partition of Palestine.

Just Deserts

T. S. Eliot, 49, Missouri-born poet who became a British subject in 1927, received from George VI the Order of Merit--one of the Crown's rarest decorations.

In Manhattan, W. H. Auden, 40, British-born poet who became a U.S. citizen in 1946, was admitted to the grave and august National Institute of Arts and Letters.

In Paris, a panel of right-minded judges carefully examined the evidence, ultimately came to the conclusion that dark-haired, dark-eyed model Yvonne Viseux, 20, who used to be Miss Cote d'Azur, rated the title, Miss France (see cut).

In Santa Monica, Calif., Bing Crosby, 43 and balding, entered a hospital for a checkup the day after U.S. movie exhibitors* voted him box-office champion of the year--as he had been voted the three previous years. Next-most-magnetic, reported the exhibitors, was blonde Betty Grable, who also sings. Third best crowd-puller: Ingrid Bergman, even though no new Bergman movie was released all year.

Ups & Downs

Henry Ford II's 29-year-old wife, Anne, skiing at Sun Valley, broke an ankle.

Jimmy Durante, 54, went into a Hollywood hospital, where his condition was presently reported "good," after an operation for the removal of a tumor. He was off the air till Jan. 21.

In Marrakech, Morocco, Winston Churchill, 73, was out & around after 1) a tussle with a bad cold, 2) a spell of bronchitis, 3) a plague of morbid rumors that had far-off London wringing its hands. Wife Clementine flew down with her husband's private physician. Next day the patient went motoring, dealt the rumors a crushing blow by dining in public on soup, fish with mayonnaise, veal souffle, cake with whipped cream, tangerines and coffee.

To Have & Have Not

Burglars broke into the London house of the tenth Duke & Duchess of Rutland, carried off $28,000 worth of furs, jewelry, oddments. But first they polished off a bottle of the duke's best Scotch, and gnawed a few apples. The duke (once reportedly a swain of Princess Elizabeth's) and the duchess (a former dress model) refused to have thier vacation spoiled, left next day for South Africa, as planned.

The Lady Elizabeth Clyde, 29-year-old daughter of the seventh Duke of Wellington, was fined -L-235 ($940) for evading currency restrictions during a holiday in France. She had cashed -L-235 more in checks than British law allows.

An appraisal of the estate if the late Washington hostess, Evalyn Walsh McLean exploded a popular myth. Her famed, traditionally unlucky, 44 1/4-kt. Hope Diamond, which Sunday-supplement readers had thought of as a $2,000,000 gem, was valued at $176,920 ($22,920 more than was paid for it in 1911).

Fannie Hurst, high-styled writer of highly excited novels (Humoresque, Lummox), was out $5, but it could have been worse. New Yorker Fannie, briefly in Dallas, jaywalked through a traffic light and got stopped by a cop. As he made out a ticket he asked her name. She refused to tell ("didn't like his attitude," she explained later). She wanted to talk to the chief. When Fannie and the cop got to the station house, 1) the chief was "unavailable," and 2) she learned that she would give her name and pay $5 or go to jail. She gave, paid and kept a date with a westbound plane.

* To Thakin Nu, Premier of newly independent Burma, he sent a good-will copy of Back to Methuselah, confided that he considered it his masterpiece.

* Recipe: half a lime, jigger of vodka, add ginger beer to taste.

* Polled by the trade's Motion Picture Herald.

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