One month before their divorce case could reach the comparative dignity of the courts, Billy Rose and Eleanor Holm began throwing mudpie bulletins at one another in public.* Last week their latest volley of press releases gave Manhattan's joyful tabloids the best copy of the whole hot summer. Billy Rose himself, the unco-smart little bashaw of Broadway, called it "trial by newspaper."
It's a Phony! The first mudpie was hurled by an old friend of the family, Dorothy Wesley Bernie, widow of Ben ("The Old Maestro") Bernie and matron of honor at the Rose wedding 13 years ago. In California she filed...