In Los Angeles, Whodunit Authoress Craig Rice (Home Sweet Homicide) was sued for divorce by her fourth husband, Writer Lawrence Lipton. Said Lipton: "It was murder. I could never get a decent night's sleep."
In Boston, authorities heeded the silent pleading of the late Poet Joyce Kilmer (Trees) by approving a project to plant a tree in the shadeless yard of the Joyce Kilmer School.
Elliott Roosevelt had a week for the scrapbook. His As He Saw It (Duell, Sloan & Pearce; $3) was the subject of one radio program, would shortly be the subject of another, and out of Leningrad belatedly arrived an astrakhandid portrait of the author after a publicity man's heart (see cut). Elliott's answers to a couple of cozy questions on radio's Books on Trial: 1) "I am no Communist;" 2) "I did write the book myself. . . ." Mother Eleanor was his adviser, said he, and "severest critic."
Arriving in Manhattan, Satirist Evelyn Waugh, 43—for years one of Britain's very brightest young men—ducked the press for three days and then sped off to Hollywood on what sounded like a dream mission, even by Hollywood standards. He would listen to MGM's ideas on filming his Brideshead Revisited; if he didn't like the sound of them, he could suggest changes; if the changes weren't suitable, he could just go sell the book to someone else. Meantime, M-G-M had contracted to maintain him in the most luxurious possible style.
In Palm Beach, the Duke of Windsor made a remark that might just possibly foreshadow the biggest literary event since Forever Amber. He was thinking, said he, of writing his autobiography. But it might take a while: "I use the hunt-&-peck system of typing."
In a Denver hotel on a lecture tour, Columnist Randolph Churchill encountered some faulty plumbing—to his personal annoyance but patriotic satisfaction. He complained, later reported his conversation with the plumber sent to fix matters.
Churchill: "There's something wrong with the plumbing."
Plumber: "Well, there's something wrong everywhere in the world today. . . . What's your name?"
"Churchill."
"Any relation to Winston Churchill?"
"He's my father."
"Well, I don't like his policy of putting all those kings back."
Churchill: "The only one that got back was the King of Greece and that was after my father got kicked out."
Plumber: "H. G. Wells was the only intelligent man England ever had."
New Directions
James McNeill Whistler's stock was going up. Bought from a Manhattan dealer by the Detroit Institute of Arts was the waspish Victorian dandy's famed Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket—the splattery nightscape that moved John Ruskin to a crack about "a coxcomb flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." (Bad Boy Whistler sued Ruskin for libel, won a farthing's damages.) Asking price for Nocturne that year (1875) was $1,000. Price reportedly paid by Detroit: $12,000.
Uncle Tom's stock was going down. Being prepared for Broadway last week was a musicomedy version of his life which would make him out an old appeaser and a heel.