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In her McCall's memoirs, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt painfully recalled a couple of bad moments when King George and Queen Elizabeth were being entertained at Hyde Park in 1939. In the middle of dinner, a serving table collapsed under a load of extra china. As the clatter stopped, Mrs. James R. Roosevelt (a stepsister-in-law), who had lent some of her plates for the occasion, muttered: "I hope none of my dishes were among those broken." The same evening, the memoirs added, "just after we had gone down to the big library after dinner, there was a most terrible crash as the butler, carrying a tray of decanters, glasses, bowl of ice and the like, fell down . . . and slid right into the library, scattering the contents . . . and leaving a large lake of water and ice cubes . . ."
On the Go
Laborite Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Tory M.P. Anthony Eden
managed to share a conclusion, though they remained miles apart. Attlee took a ride in a submarine and fired a torpedo. Eden took a ride in a jet plane at more than 500 m.p.h. Said Attlee: "I thoroughly enjoyed it." Said Eden: "I thoroughly enjoyed it."
Contralto Marian Anderson sailed back from her first European concert tour since 1938 with a bright new trophy which she could add to her collection of honors: the Finnish government's Order of the White Rose.
When Massachusetts' Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. breezed into Paris on a visit, the U.S. embassy lost no time in setting up a press conference. The press turned up dutifully, but after a few minutes of no questions, the Senator grew bored staring at the newsmen (see cut) and, wondering aloud why the conference had been called in the first place, set his silent interviewers free.
Greta Garbo, 43, stole out of Florence and into Rome, where she will reportedly make her first film in eight years. In Florence she ordered some wardrobe items: 70 pairs of hand-made shoes, mostly low-heeled (size 7-AA).
With her son Nicky, 5 (see cut), the Met's Risë Stevens traipsed triumphantly across Europe, collecting offers of long-term contracts from the Vienna State Opera and Milan's La Scala. But Paris gave her the choicest compliment: a request (which she graciously obliged) to cut short her vacation and give a few extra performances of Der Rosenkavalier because no French mezzo-soprano would risk following her in the role.
Matter of Opinion
Margaret Truman roused a flurry in the Missouri legislature, where faithful Democrats had just pushed through a bill making her father's theme song, the Missouri Waltz, the state anthem. To a St. Louis interviewer who wanted to know if she would sing it during her concert tour, Margaret confessed that she got sick & tired of listening to the tune at every whistle stop during the presidential campaign. Said she: "I don't care if I never hear it again."
Drama Oracle George Jean Nathan, longtime professional heretic, got religion of a sort. He was enrolling intimates in a new cult called "Immunism." It still needed some working out, explained Nathan with missionary fervor, but the idea was to get immunized against just about everything, starting with politics.