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Separated "too much and too long" by "professional requirements" during their eleven years of marriage, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor decided that a California divorce was the only way out. Feeling the same way, as of last week: Elizabeth Taylor, after seven months of marriage to Conrad ("Nick") Hilton Jr.; Betty Mutton and Ted Briskin, who had been trying again after several separations and a divorce.
Cash & Carry
After five weeks on the throne, King Gustaf VI of Sweden asked his parliament for a raise of $38,000 to bring his annual allowance up to $231,000, a middle bracket in the modern monarchical wage scale.*
In Munich, police arrested Merchant Georg Brunner, 50, for illegally owning and trying to peddle a suitcase full of government-confiscated Adolf Hitler memorabilia including: several autographed copies of Mein Kampf, an initialed steel pocket watch, three engraved Hitler-head coins made in honor of his 50th birthday, his World War I army identity card, his 1933 nomination as Chancellor.
In the threemile, six-furlong race at Sandown Park near London, Queen Elizabeth's five-year-old steeplechaser Manicou romped in by six lengths to win the $1,120 purse. The Queen stepped beaming into the winner's circle, patted her horse, gave a well-done to jockey and trainer. All in all, she appeared to have recovered from the blow of last fortnight, when her other steeplechaser, Monaveen, broke his leg in a race and had to be destroyed.
A sharp-eyed reporter for the New Statesman and Nation thought it was time to clear up the mystery of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's "secret" four-day trip to England. Platonist Ben-Gurion was browsing through some rare Greek volumes in an Oxford book shop.
*Highest paid: Britain's George VI, with $1,148,000. Denmark's Frederik IX gets $296,671; The Netherlands' Juliana, $263,158; Greece's Paul I, $230,000; Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, $146,000; Norway's Haakon VII, $139,860.