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Just so he could show the boys he had not lost his touch, A.F.L. Musician Boss James Caesar Petrillo warmed up for their convention next week in Santa Barbara, Calif, by rattling a solo on a Latin American guiro a notched gourd that rasps when rubbed with a stubby baton.
The Chosen Ones
At an Oakland (Calif.) Chamber of Commerce dinner, France's Minister Plenipotentiary Roger Seydoux hailed Manufacturer Henry J. Kaiser as "the symbol of the industrialization of the West," awarded him the ribbons of a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
Britain's public-opinion pollster, Mass Observation, asked 200 Londoners-in-the-street whose death, among six late celebrities (not including King George VI), had most grieved them. Their greatest loss: Britain's idolized Radio Comedian Tommy Handley. Runner-up: Franklin D. Roosevelt. Sixth place: George Bernard Shaw.
Although nobody would say who had commissioned it, a bust of Harry Truman, the work of Finnish Sculptor Kalervo Kallio, went on exhibit at Washington's Smithsonian Institution. But in Rochester, N.Y. the President looked more like a boon than a bust to National Retail Clothiers and Furnishers President Ben Projan, who proposed that, if he ever leaves the White House, ex-Haberdasher Truman should be named czar of the squabblesome U.S. men's clothing industry.
After Due Consideration
When a Washington society reporter hopefully asked her if there was any chance that she might be married before next Inauguration Day, Margaret Truman replied flatly that there will be no White House wedding. "You can rest easy on that," said she.
Cinemactress Gloria Grahame, who has played many a bad girl on the screen, suggested that most U.S. girls are too proper to give Dr. Alfred Kinsey much help in researching his book on the sexual behavior of the human female. Noting that the new work is already two years behind schedule, Gloria added: "It's a matter of convention. Women . . . simply do not discuss sex . . . except when it applies to someone else."
Reminded that his brother James had endorsed Kefouver and that his brother John was for Eisenhower, Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., chairman of Averell Harriman's national campaign committee, was asked by a reporter about the choice of brother Elliott, who is in Cuba. Retorted Franklin brightly: "Batista, I guess." Then he modestly added: "I don't think it makes much difference to the public whom the Roosevelt boys are for."
Old (48) Crooner Bing Crosby made a low bow to his youthful rivals: "The kids don't buy my records so much any more. They like the new ones who holler . . . The nervous strain Johnnie Ray must go through . . . After show time I'd be ready to go to the hospital."