Babe Ruth got his annual nod from Japan: Babu Rusu Day.

Faye Emerson Roosevelt made her first bow on Broadway after seven years in Hollywood, caught the critical eyes focused on Molnar's The Play's the Thing. The Times's Brooks Atkinson noted her "high spirit and versatility"; the Herald Tribune's Howard Barnes found her "attractive and promising"; the Daily News's John Chapman, "entirely acceptable"; PM's Louis Kronenberger, "Fetching to look at... pleasant to listen to." Mother-in-Law Eleanor Roosevelt, back from London just in time to watch from the second row, told Columnist Earl Wilson that Faye looked real pretty.

William Randolph Hearst, long ailing at his Beverly Hills home, didn't come downstairs on his 85th birthday to accept the Air Force's meritorious service award (son Randolph accepted for him). Later on he struggled down to look at his cake.

Exiled Peter of Yugoslavia, visiting the U.S. with wife Alexandra and son Alexander, attended Serbian Orthodox Easter services in Manhattan. Royalists in the congregation greeted him with the Serbians' tactful cry that fits every distinguished guest: "Zivio"--meaning simply "Long live."

In Winchester, Va., General Hoyt S. Vandenberg found time in a busy week to crown Skater Gretchen Merrill as Queen Shenandoah XXI of the annual Apple Blossom Festival. Her scepter looked like a rather graceful table leg.

Mining Heiress Margaret Thompson Schulze Biddle, ex-wife of ex-Ambassador Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr., left Manhattan for London, leaving behind some literary mementos: dinner-partner cards which she had written herself for a farewell party for the Duke & Duchess of Windsor. Her tribute to the duchess:

The woman I most admire

Is worth an entire empire

She's witty, she's gay, she's sweet,

And never gossip does she repeat.

Statecraft

Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson had quite a time swearing in Averell Harriman as ECA's ambassador-at-large. The two got together for the ceremony, and then discovered that a Bible was lacking. A messenger was sent for one. Also, a flag was lacking. A messenger went for one. Bible and flag arrived, but the flagstaff was too tall for the ceiling. So the tip was removed. Then Vinson discovered that Harriman's commission was missing. A messenger ran and got it, and Vinson finally swore in Harriman. He then went through the motions three more times for news photographers.

In the Senate Office Building gymnasium, Maine's 60-year-old Republican Owen Brewster and Louisiana's 56-year-old Democrat Allen Ellender struck a pose for a traditional springtime picture: statesmen keeping in trim for the cruel tussle with their responsibilities. Ellender, a statesman in the Huey Long tradition, recalled that he had posed for the same kind of picture another spring with Henry Agard Wallace, sighed wistfully: "I should have knocked Wallace's block off when I had the chance."

Domestic Relations

In Hollywood:

Actor John Payne announced that he and Actress Gloria DeHaven would try the second trial separation of their 3 1/2-year-old marriage. Lita Grey, second of Charles Chaplin's four wives, said that her third marriage (to Arthur Day Jr.) had proved a bust after nearly ten years. Actress Susan Peters and Producer Richard Quine found that they were through after 4 1/2 years.

In Manhattan: Radio Funnyman Henry Morgan and his statuesque blonde wife Isobel agreed that they were more congenial apart.* After 20 months of marriage, she sued for separation, asked $750 a week temporary alimony. She complained that he had once faked a foreign accent, pounded on the door and yelled: "Poor lady, your husband has been killed in an automobile accident !" He had also ripped off her pearl choker in a restaurant, she said; complained about her cooking and thrown food in her face; suggested that she commit suicide ("It would be very dramatic. It would end all your troubles and a lot of other women would feel awfully sorry for you"). In rebuttal Morgan told the court: "My wife is a member of the Communist Party, and I personally have seen her membership card ... I have come to the reluctant conclusion that she is entirely devoid of a sense of humor."

Employment

Johnny Weissmuller, 43, was through playing Tarzan after 16 years; he couldn't get together with his studio on contract terms. The new Tarzan: Lex Barker, an old Exeter boy who used to be aide to General Mark Clark in Italy. Weissmuller's new meal ticket: impersonating a screen character called "Jungle Jim."

Babe Didrikson Zaharias, all-round woman athlete of athletes, took on a job-without-pay: as "recreational consultant" to Denver's juvenile court she will teach waifs, strays and "bad boys" how to have fun outdoors.

Greta Garbo turned down a chance to be the next Miss Hush in radio's Truth or Consequences guessing game. Her agent sent a message to M.C. Ralph Edwards: "Miss Garbo never heard of you . . . and the one & only time she ever listened to the radio was to hear President Roosevelt announce the war against the Axis."

Legacies

Left, by Richard Tauber, romantic tenor who made a few fortunes singing champagne-&-waltz schmalz in Viennese operettas: $9,962.16, no will.

Left, by Minnie Dupree, curlylocked sweetheart of U.S. theatergoers in the '90s: $23,611-- $20,000 of it to one Sherwood Macomber for "his love and loyalty."

Left, by Steelionaire Charles M. Schwab, in the cornerstone of his Manhattan chateau (which a wrecking crew is now leveling): a handful of coins. Folklore had secreted a fortune in the cornerstone.

The Old Gang

In Rio de Janeiro, Charles ("Get Rich Quick") Ponzi, 70, multimillion-dollar swindler of 28 years ago (who has been tutoring languages for a living), lay half-paralyzed in a hospital charity ward. Of the U.S. he said: "I hated to leave. I loved that country."

In Terre Haute, Ind., William Dudley Pelley, ex-Silver Shirts leader serving 15 years for sedition, lost a fight to spring himself on a writ of habeas corpus.

In London, Sir Oswald Mosley led some 300 Fascist followers through six miles of streets in a May Day parade.

In Wiesbaden, Germany, a refugee from Silesia declared that she had been living next door to Adolf Hitler in Liegnitz-- on President Roosevelt Strasse. (Skeptical military government officials said that it was Russia's problem.) "He has a triangular mustache now," said the woman, "and he grows sideburns ... He is living with a small, dark woman . . . He has formed a new party--the T.P.Z. I don't know what it stands for."

* For news of Morgan's professional activities, see CINEMA.

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