Names make news. Last week these names made this news:
Rita Hayworth, the fourth bride of Crooner Dick Haymes, was not quite right when she cried that her fourth groom was being "torn apart and crucified." Actually, like a sinewy Thanksgiving turkey, Dick was just being carved many ways. His second wife, Cinemactress Joanne Dru, collected $2,650 for overdue support of their three children, claimed that Dick owed her $29,087 more. Internal revenuers were grabbing half of Dick's salary for unpaid income taxes; his agent continued to get the customary 10% slice; his creditors were cut in for their regular 20%. Dick was reported "on the verge of nervous collapse."
After two years of fighting and making up all over the U.S. and Europe, Cinemactress Ava (Mogambo) Gardner and crooning Cinemactor Frank (From Here to Eternity) Sinatra decided that their careers are bigger than both of them, agreed to call off their marriage.
Marie Dionne, 19, last-born, smallest and shyest of the famed quintuplets, said farewell to Papa and Mama Dionne in Callander, Ont., left for Quebec City to become a postulant in the convent of the Servants of the Very Holy Sacrament.
In a slapstick skit on her Manhattan TV show, Comedienne Martha Raye tried to pass herself off as another Gabor sister, but found that her resemblance to glamorous Magda, Eva and Zsa Zsa overstrained the family tie.
After a newsman dug up the fact that Lieut. General George Washington died before the rank of general of the armies could be conferred on him. Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens declared that the Army no longer has the power to promote Washington, tossed the problem to Congress.
At a banquet in London. Labor's Deputy Opposition Leader Herbert Morrison complained that every time he dutifully criticizes Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, he gets a flood of abusive mail, mostly from women, berating him for attacking "dear Sir Winston." Recalled Morrison wryly: "Once I asked . . . 'Winston, do you ever get letters when you attack me?' . . . He didn't remember that he ever had."
Gambler Frank Costello, 62, was sprung from the federal pen in Milan, Mich., after serving 14½ months of his 18-month sentence for contempt of Congress. Although Costello got time cut off his stretch for good behavior, he was no sooner out of the prison gate than he was in trouble again. Pursued by a carload of persistent newsmen, he ordered his chauffeur to step on the gas. sent his black Cadillac hurtling along the 45 miles to Detroit at 80 m.p.h. (Michigan speed limit: "Reasonable and proper"). Twice overtaken by the reporters, Frank croaked peevishly: "Will you fellows please quit chasing me? Do you want to kill me dodging these cars?" Later he hopped a train for Manhattan, where he faces two more raps: one for dodging the truth about his criminal record when he applied for U.S. naturalization, the other for dodging $73.417 in income taxes. —