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After 29 years of marriage, convicted Perjurer Alger Hiss, 54, now assistant to the president of Manhattan's combmaking Feathercombs, Inc., separated from his bookish, Quaker wife Priscilla, 55. Responsible, said friends, was no third party, but simply the wear and tear of the years. The reticent Hisses had no comment.
Faded Cinemidol Nelson Eddy warmed at the news: a persistent trickle of sentimental interest had at last nudged a recording of his over the million mark in sales. The bestselling old song from his heart: a vibrato-cluttered duet of Indian Love Call waxed 23 years ago with his cinema costar, Jeannette Macdonald.
In Manhattan, a federal judge ruled that pudgy, camel-voiced Hoodlum Frank Costello, 68, now serving a five-year stretch for income tax evasion, had lied about his record as a Prohibition rumrunner in a 1925 naturalization hearing, ordered the Italian-born gambler's U.S. citizenship revoked.
Metropolitan Opera Baritone Leonard Warren wound up for the climax of his aria ("Pietà, rispetto, amore" in Act IV of Verdi's Macbeth) during an RCA Victor recording session, reached hard for a high A, made it. So did a small crackle. Engineers demanded another try. Several takes and crackles later, a production hand noted tiny crinkles in an oversize mirror, held a blanket over it and at last muffled the unsung obbligato. Next day, RCArtisans began dismantling the offender with screwdriver and chisel, instead of vocal chords, as Glassbreaker Warren said in pride: "When I broke a mirror as a boy, they called it vandalism. Now they're calling it bel canto."
*A sour Hawaiian mush made from taro root, which is pounded into pulp and left to ferment; it is always eaten by hand.