After Due Consideration
Manhattan Banker James G. Blaine, grandson of 1884's Republican "Man from Maine," came out for "an orderly recession." He thought it would be good for the nation's economy. "There's little danger," said he, "unless the recession becomes a rout."
"Frankly, the theater would be a sight better off," declared Veteran Producer Gilbert Miller, "if there were some poverty around among authors, actors and agents. It flourished more luxuriantly when these characters were living in garrets. . . ."
"When a woman meets a beautiful dress," observed Broadway's Leonora Corbett, "she always has to ask herself two questions: Can I afford it? Is it worth it? This year there's a third: Are they trying to make a fool out of me?"
Emily Post, grand old lady of punctilio, informed interviewers that the bedroom of her country place was done in Chinese red. "Some of my friends say they think a bedroom should be restful," said she, "but I don't rest in a bedroom ever."
The Solid Flesh
Novelist Thomas Mann, 72, carried his arm in a sling but was nearly mended now: he had stumbled on a neighbor's stairs in Pacific Palisades (Calif.) and fractured his left shoulder.
Sophie Tucker, 64, everlasting "Last of the Red-Hot Mammas," trotted stoutly into a veterans' hospital in Coral Gables, Fla. to spread a little cheer. In the course of the proceedings, square-rigged Sophie lost her footing, went hard aground, broke two toes, departed the hospital in a wheelchair.
Cinemactor James Mason, after a week abed in Manhattan with a crushing cold, was up & around and back to normal; he let it be known that, after 15 months in the U.S., he would go to Hollywood at last and make at least one movie.
Prospects
General Thomas ("Tommy") Holcomb (ret.), commandant of the Marine Corps from 1936 through '43 (and first Marine ever to become a full general), resigned at 68, after four years as U.S. Minister to the Union of South Africa.
The Duchess of Sutherland, whose 59-year-old duke is one of England's great landowners, did a little job of work just before she sailed home from Manhattan. The shapely duchess did some modeling for a forthcoming cold-cream ad.
In Palm Beach, Fla., the Duke of Windsor also toyed with a new pursuit. It was too early yet to guess at his future. He pitched the first ball in the annual Society Softball Game—and it turned out he had never thrown one before. After a little instruction he managed to get it clear to the plate.
Jimmie Davis, troubadour Governor of Louisiana, was all set for his departure from office, come May. From the gubernatorial mansion he was making a sleeper-jump to a new career: his own nightclub in Hollywood, featuring his own hillbilly band and the ex-statesman himself in front of it.
Property