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The society calendar was crammed with musts. First there was the spectacular opening of Manhattan's new Philharmonic Hall; then off to Washington for the premiere of Irving Berlin's new musical, Mr. President; then back to town and the Maisonette Room of the St. Regis for something on the cool side—the debut of Pianist Peter Duchin, 25, son of the late Eddy Duchin, whose soft-toned renderings of pop classics were the rage with the last generation's carriage trade. Among those on hand to launch the new chip were Peter's godparents, former New York Governor and Mrs. Averell Harriman (he calls her "Ma"), NBC's Robert Sarnoffs, and Mrs. Henry Ford II, all of whom dug Duchin's tinkling into the small hours. But Dad might not have been pleased. "I think he would have preferred that I become a broker or banker." said Peter. "Being an orchestra leader, he told me, was a hard life."
Ill lay: General Alfred M. Gruenther, 63, onetime Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and now president of the American Red Cross, in Washington's Walter Reed Hospital after surgery to tie off a vein that was causing an inflammation of his lungs; Dick Powell, 57, actor and prolific television producer, convalescing at home in Hollywood after radiation treatments for cancerous growths detected in his neck and chest.
Next signature on the lower left-hand corner of U.S. greenbacks: the tight script of Kathryn E. Granahan, a Pennsylvania Congresswoman who will replace Elizabeth Rudel Smith in the $17,000-a-year post as Treasurer of the U.S.
It was the first time that a Russian audience had heard an American-born singer in the title role of Boris Godunov. For his passionate and athletic performance —in faultless Russian—of the tragic Czar, enormous (6 ft. 6 in.. 195 Ibs.) Metropolitan Opera Bass Jerome Mines, 40, drew a tumultuous standing ovation and six curtain calls from the opening night crowd at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. Said the Hollywood-born Hines, modestly trying to sound surprised at the cheers: "How do you think Americans would feel if they saw Yuri Gagarin on the launching pad at Cape Canaveral?"