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Sportsman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, 43, multimillionheir owner of one of the top U.S. racing stables, confirmed Manhattan cafe scuttlebutt that he and his high-styled wife were legally separated last January. Of pretty Jeanne Lourdes Murray Vanderbilt, 33, his elopement bride (second wife) in 1945, a friend once observed: "She can take race horses or let them alone—with a slight drift toward the latter." The rift, however, seemed no choose-me-or-your-horses affair: Vanderbilt announced that he will sell 37 of his 41 thoroughbreds next week. Herself an heiress, sad-faced Jeanne, mother of two of Vanderbilt's three children, Heidi, 7, Alfred Jr. ("Butchie"), 6, said: "I want ... a reconciliation."
Boston's ex-Mayor James Michael Curley, 81, was indignant when Edwin O'Connor's bestselling novel The Last Hurrah (TIME, Feb. 13) first hit the bookstalls, had his lawyer sniff through its pages for the scent of libel. By last week, however, Old Pol Curley had not only failed to sue but had come around to loving Hurrah's every word, reported Columnist Doris Fleeson. He revels in the late-life glory unexpectedly brought him by his fictional counterpart, Old Pol Frank Skeffington, the book's improper Bostonian hero. Said Newshen Fleeson: "He grandly refers to himself ... as Skeffington, protesting, however, that O'Connor gave him a Nova Scotian Irish, not a Boston Irish name." In Massachusetts' recent presidential primary, 161 Bostonians cast write-in ballots for Skeffington as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Vastly flattered, National Democratic Committeeman Curley lays claim to these votes, points out that a vote for Frank is obviously a vote for Jim. Curley, dazzled by Hurrah's popularity, is also trying to interest publishers in his very own autobiography. But so far he has found no takers—possibly because a Last Hurrah for Frank is so indubitably a Last Hurrah for Jim.