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Beatrice Lillie was robbed of $12,000 worth of clothes and jewelry in London. The thieves could keep it all "and no questions asked," said Comedienne Lillie, if they just returned an uncut sapphire that had belonged to her only son, Sir Robert Peel, killed in the war. Soon she got a sapphire in the mail from a sympathetic stranger ("touching and charming," said the actress), but it wasn't the sapphire.
Movers & Shakers
George Bernard Shaw's thought for the week: the Nazi war criminals were just "extremely ordinary men" given too much power—and: "Is it fair to give common fellows power that would turn the heads of all but the ablest five percent of the population . . . and hang them because they behaved like Torquemada . . .? Ought we not rather hang ourselves for being such fools?"
Maurice Maeterlinck, in pain with a broken arm after a trip over a rug in his Manhattan apartment, was still sticking to his last at 84. Except for the arm, the author of The Blue Bird was fine, reported his wife. What was he currently engaged in? "Planning happiness."
Margery Sharp, British author of the cinematized Cluny Brown, flew to the U.S. for a month's vacation, speculated on the casting of her soon-to-be-cinematized Britannia Mews. Who should play the disreputable Mrs. Mounsey, "the Sow" ("Her person was obscene . . . she sagged with fat . . .")? Novelist Sharp had an idea: "Charles Laughton . . . would be simply marvelous, but I don't suppose that would be quite proper, would it?"
E. Arnot Robertson, BBC film critic and prestigious woman novelist (Four Frightened People, Three Came Unarmed), took arms against MGM, which had urged BBC to get rid of her because her criticisms were "... harmful to the film industry." Her counterattack: a suit for "reasonable" damages, and a demand for an unqualified apology.
Alexandra Dumas (The Three Musketeers), who published some 1,200 books over his own name (he ran the first ghostwriting factory), seemed to be not quite all published yet. Turned up in Paris: the manuscript of an unpublished novel (The Red Sphinx) about Cardinal Richelieu.
Highland Fling
General Dwight D. Elsenhower, Wife Mamie, and Son (Captain) John had a weekend to remember. In Scotland it rained tributes and rain alternately and simultaneously, and the wind from the bagpipes blew strong and steady.
In Edinburgh, the General got the freedom of the city, and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University. He stood as godfather at the christening of infant Richard Seton Tedder, son of Air Chief Marshal Lord Tedder and his Lady, but refused to hold the child for photographers ("I might drop him!"). Bagpipes welcomed the Eisenhowers to Maybole, where the General was made a freeman and burgess. Ike, who had got in a little shooting on the moors, put the townsfolk at ease: "The poachers among you will find just as many birds left as before I came." Bagpipes piped him on his way to Balmoral Castle. The Eisenhowers' hosts there: George VI and Queen Elizabeth.