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Eugene O'Neill got a soaking in London too. The Times Literary Supplement seized the occasion of The Iceman Cometh's publication there to beat him black & blue. The characters in his plays were described as generally "ineffectual egotists," his philosophy was "jejune," Strange Interlude "badly bungled," Beyond the Horizon's leading man "a peevish Hamlet who whines and snivels," and the O'Neill dramaturgy generally "the sort of stuff that might be written by an earnest sophomore."
In Philadelphia, James T. Farrell resented the fact that his dogged Studs Lonigan novels were among the books seized by police-department moralists (TIME, April 5). He and his publisher sued three department officials for illegal seizure, figured the damage done him was about $100,000 worth.
The Strenuous Life
Robbed: Mae West. Somebody got into her dressing room at London's Prince of Wales theater (where she is packing them in with Diamond Lil), and made off with $16,000 worth of diamond jewelry.
Robbed: Archbishop Francis Patrick Keough of Baltimore. Out of his house vanished some $1,250 worth of silverware which had belonged to the late James Cardinal Gibbons and bore the Cardinal's coat of arms and initials. Presently police found the swag in a bushel basket in a church, and a chauffeur pleaded guilty.
Robbed: Hirohito & family. Somebody got into the palace grounds and made away with 15 white Leghorns that had been protégées of the Empress herself.
Hearts & Thistles
Actress Margaret Sullavan (The Voice of the Turtle) sued Agent Leland Hayward for divorce after nearly twelve years, three children.
Walter WincheH's son-in-law, Bostonian William Lawless, son of a retired streetcar motorman, had his marriage to daughter Waldo annulled after nearly three years of no-marriage.
Comedian Danny Kaye and Writer Wife Sylvia, who started trying a trial separation last fall, stopped trying and rejoined each other. (She had kept on writing his comedy routines through it all.)
Actress Gene Tierney and Designer Oleg Cassini, separated more than a year, got back together. (He had kept on designing her dresses through thick & thin.)
In Washington, 67-year-old Senator Charles W. Tobey of New Hampshire announced his engagement to Mrs. Loretta C. Rabenhorst, fiftyish, who used to teach school but lately has clerked in the Senator's hotel. She was divorced two years ago; his wife died last August. "It was a whirlwind romance," said the bride-to-be, who described the balding chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee as "a very romantic person." Mrs. Rabenhorst, who dabbles in poetry, let the press have some:
Snow came down in April,
Blowing willy-nilly,
Made the startled robin
Seem positively silly.
Royal Families
Ex-King Michael of Rumania and his mother, Queen Helen, flew to London, after a month in the U.S., said they were not sure where they were going next. Michael on Americans: "You kind of see freedom coming out all over them."
Michael's father-in-law-to-be, Prince René of Bourbon-Parma, fell down stairs in Copenhagen and broke his leg.