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1932: Heckled in the House of Commons for referring to "the late Mr. Fisher," Lady Astor retorted: "When people leave this House they are dead to me!" Cried another female M.P.: "What about Lord Astor, your own husband?" Bound to win the argument Lady Astor found herself saying: "Oh, Lord Astor! He's practically dead most of the time!"
1933: Said the Most Rev. William Temple, Archbishop of York: "For some reason which I think perfectly idiotic, there is a special sentiment against hanging women. I do wish the women of England would protest. I think it is a horrible insult to them. They ought to resent it with ferocity."
1934: So pleased was the late John Dillinger with the quick getaway of his Ford car that before his death he wrote two testimonial letters to Henry Ford. Said Ford: "Dillinger told me he was coming to see me sometime. . . . I would like to have seen him."
1935: Mr. & Mrs. George F. Temple took out a $25,000 accident insurance policy on their six-year-old daughter Shirley Temple. A syndicate of British companies underwrote the policy, put in two special clauses: 1) Cinemactress Temple must not take up arms in defense of her country; 2) the policy will be voided if she meets death or accident while intoxicated.
1936: Publisher William Randolph ("Buy American") Hearst sailed for Europe on the Italian liner Rex. With him he took a party of 16, including his son George, his dachshund Helena, Cinemactress Marion Davies. Boomed Publisher Hearst: "Landon will be overwhelmingly elected, and I'll stake my reputation as a prophet on it."
1937: In the Manhattan publishing office of Charles Scribner's Sons was aging Author Max Eastman (Enjoyment of Laughter) conferring with Editor Maxwell Perkins. In walked hefty Author Ernest Hemingway (Death in the Afternoon) and demanded an explanation for Eastman's writing an article in the New Republic called "Bull In The Afternoon" which accused him of "a literary style of wearing false hair on the chest." What next occurred is the subject of variorum accounts. Author Eastman's version: "I knew he could knock me out quickly in a boxing match, so I grappled with him and threw him on his back across Max Perkins' desk and then over the desk and down on his head in a corner." Author Hemingway offered his story as he sailed for Spain. On his forehead were bruises, on his arms, scars. His version: "I got so mad . . . that I wound up by throwing the book in his face. I didn't really sock him. If I had I might have knocked him through the window . . ."
1938: Before a mixed Los Angeles jury of nine middle-aged women and three grey-haired men, Fan & Bubble Dancer Sally Rand stood trial for assault & battery. She testified that candid camera shots taken of her in a Los Angeles theater by Farmer Ray Stanford and his girlfriend, Hazel Drain, had put her in a "ludicrous and lewd position." She denied that she had bitten Miss Drain or that she could have scratched Mr. Stanford (reason: her fingernails were pared to the quick to keep from breaking the bubble). The jury, instructed by