The answers rolled in from all directions.
Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews explained what it takes to make a man an explorer: "He's got to be completely miserable when he's not exploring."
Inventor Charles F. Kettering, General Motors research chief, gave the recipe for an inventor: "To make an inventor, all you have to do is take his mind off the idea that it's a disgrace to fail. . .'.':
Herman F. Willkie, liquor-distilling elder brother of the late Wendell, announced that it is silly for anyone to do uncongenial work: "It is possible to make a living at almost anything. . . . One might as well work at something he likes."
Pamela Kellino, actress-wife of Britain's romantic Cinemenace James Mason, arrived at a formula for a happy marriage: "The only possible way to make marriage work is to stay so close together that you couldn't possibly get apart."
Low Bows
Awarded to Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr.: the Legion of Merit, for "outstanding services ... as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Ulvert M. Moore in action against an enemy Japanese submarine . . -. on Jan. 31, 1945."
Handed to General Douglas Mac-Arthur, by Boys' Town's Father Edward J. Flanagan, who is in Japan studying juvenile problems: a commission as Admiral in the Nebraska Navy.*
Honored: Babe Ruth; by elaborate "Babe Ruth Day" celebrations on baseball diamonds all over the U.S. —and, in Japan, by "Babu Rusu Day."
Congratulated: Prince Carl Gustaf of Sweden, who was making a royal try at standing upright for his birthday this week (see cut). Next in line for the throne after his grandfather (since his father's plane-crash death last January), he was just turning one, already had the situation firmly in hand.
Crowned: Cinemactress Alexis Smith, by roly-poly California Sculptor Yucca Salamunich. who says she has The Sexiest Head in Hollywood. Judy Garland, Salamunich decided, has The Least Sexy Head. Excerpt from the admiring sculptor's informal citation to Miss Smith: "She has the perfect North American head. Those high cheekbones and yunnnh! That nose! Long and straight. Passionate women always have long, straight noses."
Old, Sweet Song
James M. Landis, 47, leathery CAB chairman, onetime Roosevelt Brain Truster, wartime Civilian Defense chief, was sued for divorce by wife Stella in Salem, Mass., after nearly 21 years. She charged desertion, asked custody of their two daughters.
Josephine Baker, expatriate American whose bouncy scorchdancing made her the rich brown toast of Paris musicomedy for years, got ready for her third marriage. Husband No. I had been a Negro tap dancer, No. 2 a wealthy French manufacturer. No. 3-to-be: Jo Bouillon, top-ranking white French jazz bandsman.
Erika von Blomberg, 35, whose marriage to the late Nazi War Minister Werner von Blomberg got him fired in 1938 (he met her in one of Berlin's tonier brothels), announced happily that she had lately got a number of marriage proposals by mail. She didn't say what her answers had been.
The suitors had seen Erika's photo in the U.S. press (see cut), and the proposals, she said, came from Americans—mostly gentlemen of the Old South.
The Literary Life