O.K. From on High

Social Arbitress Emily Post informed OWI of her decision that it was all right for women war workers to go ahead and thumb rides to work. But she insisted that good taste imposes certain rules. One's identification badge is to be raised aloft instead of a thumb; only cars with B or C ration stickers should be hailed; between girl and driver "conversation is not necessary. If they must talk, they should stick to impersonal subjects." And Miss Post emphasized: "If the driver is not going in her direction, he does not stop."

The Literary Life

To an American private in the Canadian Army who had sent him a rhymed tribute, one-eyed General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell, commander of the British forces in India, sent back a rhymed reply, in the course of it confided:

It's true I've one eye only,

My aide has but one, too.

So he looks east and I look west

When we want a wider view.

Against Gypsy Rose (The G-String Murders) Lee a suit for $5,000 and half the G-Siring royalties was filed by Harper's Bazaar Associate Editor Dorothy Wheelock, who charged she collaborated with the ecdysiast on "a literary work with a burlesque-theater background," found a publisher for it, and was then ditched. Gypsy says the editor wrote "a sample book," but not G-String.

"I dislike intensely the way I look," said Columnist Dorothy Thompson to an interviewer. "I cannot bear it! But I haven't the character to get thin. Getting thin is a life in itself. I can't integrate it with my life."

Pinch-hitting for Lieut. Commander Walter Winchell, eccentric Bridge Systematizer Ely Culbertson devoted most of a column to explaining how the war should be fought and how it will go, disclosed "the real reason why I have been out of circulation these last three years." The reason: he has been "building a concrete and comprehensive system--a Treaty of Peace--for the coming world settlement." Without describing the system, the bridge player characterized.it as "a blueprint that works, not dreams," declared that it had been endorsed by "hundreds of professors, statesmen and specialists."

Lucius Beebe cast his eye back over the bloody year of 1942, recalled baked lobster Savannah, soft-shell crabs, roulade of sand crabs, jugged saddle of hare, monies marinieres, rack of lamb, shrimp Creole, Strasbourg foie gras, Dom Perignon champagne, pompano belle meuniere, venison steak grand veneur, shad roe bonne femme, terrapin stew, escallopini of veal, oysters Rockefeller, pheasant in casserole and eggs gashouse. . . . Concluded the Lucullan Lucius: "Betcha it won't be like this next year!"

Dames & Dough

Approved by a Los Angeles court was a seven-year cinecontract to pay a weekly minimum of $150, a maximum of $1,250, to Hollywood Newcomer Mimi Chandler, 16-year-old daughter of Kentucky's Senator A. B. ("Happy").

Temporary alimony of $4,000 a month was asked by ex-Musicomedienne June Knight from Husband Arthur A. Cameron. A Houston court put his Texas oil properties in receivership pending her divorce suit.

To be auctioned off New Year's Eve for the benefit of the American Theater Wing War Service was a super-mink coat, on Tallulah Bankhead's shoulders worth a picture (see cut); on the hoof, $30,400.

Settled at last were the claims of Manhattan (Kans.) creditors against Gloria Vanderbilt di Cicco & husband. The local suits were all dismissed and possible auction of such Vanderbiltiana as the family coat of arms and Father Reginald's gold polo trophies was avoided.

Family Matters In a little cabin on the eastern slopes of Tennessee's Cumberland Mountains a child was born to a young married woman famous in the annals of Tennessee. Fourteen-year-old Eunice Johns, whose marriage had become a national sensation in 1937 (Husband Charlie gave her a doll for a wedding present), became the mother of a 7-lb. girl. The child's name was undisclosed. "I think Eunice wants to name it after my nephew's boy," Charlie told a visiting reporter and photographer. Asked what the boy's name was, Charlie said: "I can't recollect." "See yan branch," he said, pointing with his squirrel rifle, "well, that's the dividing line. No photographers can cross it." The newsmen went away.

In the suburbs of Ottawa, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands awaited the birth of her third child. If the child should be a boy, he might some day rule The Netherlands, but birth on British soil might make him technically a Briton, would complicate matters. Therefore to smooth the path of the Dutch succession, the Dominion Government last week decreed that during the hours of childbirth (expected this month) Canada will grant extraterritorial rights to the birthplace and suspend all its sovereign claims to that part of the earth under the delivery room.

Golden Gang

Movie exhibitors reported that the cinemactor who had made them the most money in 1942 was a team: (Bud) Abbott & (Lou) Costello. The boisterous comics shouldered out boisterous Mickey Rooney, who slipped to fourth in the poll after leading it for three years. Second biggest moneymaker has been in the Army five months--Clark Gable, one of the top ten ever since the poll was first taken eleven years ago. Gary Cooper ran third. Newcomer to the golden gang: golden Betty Grable, who ran eighth.

HEARTH & HOME

A night fire broke out in the old Harry Payne Whitney mansion in Newport, drove. the occupants to the gardener's cottage. The refugees: Countess Laszlo Szechenyi (the former Gladys Vanderbilt), Daughters Sylvia and Nandine, the countess' grandchildren, son and daughter of the Earl and Countess of, Winchelsea. Estimated damage: $50,000.

A night fire broke out in a Manhattan building, drove out the residents next door. The refugees: wealthy Jules Brula-tour & wife, glitteringly blonde ex-Star Hope Hampton. Their refuge: the neighboring home of veteran Humorist Arthur ("Bugs") Boer.

A kitchen range exploded in the country home of Showman Billy Rose, blew Housekeeper Mary Post galley-west, blew her teeth out.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.