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Ernest Hemingway reported happily that he had "broken the back" of his new book: he had 1,200 pages of it finished. As for the rest of his future: "I'd like to write a good novel and ten or 15 more short stories and not go to any more wars. I'd like to raise my kids."*
Moss Hart was not at all happy. Holiday burglars in the Manhattan duplex of the playwright (Christopher Blake, You Can't Take It With You) took with them $25,000 worth of fine feathers, personal ornaments,* and miscellaneous comforts. Gone: Actress-Wife Kitty Carlisle's $5,000 sable, her $2,000 mink cape, an armful of fox, broadtail and beaver. Gone: 18 of the playwright's 19 suits, six of his overcoats, a $2,000 silver coffee set, and a mess of baubles that included one of the gold garters Cole Porter once gave him. Snooted: about 30 fancy neckties. "I am leaving for the coast January 13," he told the press. "You may report I will be wearing a brown suit. I will be seen in the various Hollywood nightclubs in a brown suit. And on my return, it is possible to predict, I will be wearing a brown suit."
Connie Mack, spry, spare boss of the Philadelphia Athletics for the past 45 years, reached 84 in Hollywood, said he was doing his living from day to day. "When you get to my age," he observed reasonably, "anything can happen."
General Evangeline Booth, retired international commander of the Salvation Army, reached 81 in Hartsdale, N.Y. She skipped her usual horseback ride. Her old mare ("She wouldn't like to have her age known," said the General, preserving the secret) was feeling poorly.
General Peyton C. March, Chief of Staff in World War I, reached 82 in Washington, D.C. He took a dim view of U.N. as a war-preventive. His soldierly conviction: "You can't stop war by legislation or pacts." Keep the atomic bomb a U.S. secret, said he—you never can tell who might become an enemy. The General suggested a possibility: Britain.
Senator Alben W. Berkley of Kentucky moved a hairline closer toward the appearance of the standard Kentucky colonel. At 69 he was raising his first mustache (grey and scraggly as of last week). Explained Democrat Barkley, who steps down this week as majority leader: ". . . The people wanted a change so I'm giving them one."
A change was what Mohandas K. Gandhi needed, but it looked impossible. In a gift package from a Christian relief organization, the world's most famed baldy found a comb. The nicotine-abhorring mahatma, who never plays cards, also found cigarets, cards and a shaving set. He kept the shaving set.
Just Folks
Beauty was having a beastly time. Rita Hayworth caught a cold, collapsed at work, had to stay home for about a week. Gloria Swanson, who got a separation from her fifth barely a year ago, was in court to complain that he owed her $13,400 in back alimony. And Dorothy Lamour, who practically invented the Malayan sarong, was banned from Malaya in Beyond the Blue Horizon because the government there thought the picture wasn't true-to-Malayan-life.
* Gregory, 15, and Patrick, 17, by second wife Pauline Pfeiffer; and John, 22, by first wife Hadley Richardson. * Hart, who collected precious accessories as little badges of success, lost most of his badges to Christmas-season burglars two years ago.