Diversity for Dinner

In a crowd that had what one columnist called "staggering diversity," ex-prizefighter chatted with industrialist, baseball manager interpreted ideas expressed by theologian, and one U.S. Senator demanded that another yield a beautiful actress. Items: . . . Before dinner Monday night, Joe Louis and Henry Ford II held an animated conversation about the Brown Bomber's days as a 55-c--an-hour assembly-line worker in the Ford Motor Co.'s River Rouge plant back in 1933. "I told Mr. Ford," said Louis, "that I went on a leave of absence and haven't been back since." "We talked about the old 'B' building at River Rouge," said Ford. "I didn't know Joe had two brothers still working there." . . . Senator Barry Goldwater's tuxedo had watered silk lapels in a floral design. "One thing about owning a store," explained Goldwater, whose family operates Goldwaters in Phoenix, "you've got to wear the things that don't sell." . . .

In one of the rooms off the main ballroom, a group of partygoers and a small musical combo surrounded Actor Rex Harrison, My Fair Lady's original Henry Higgins. Head bent forward, brow wrinkled in a characteristic Higginsian expression, Harrison was quietly singing I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face. Once when he muffed the lyrics, he was immediately prompted by his audience.

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About to spear an artichoke with her fork, a diner seated across the table from Diet Specialist Ancel Keys asked: "Do you approve of artichokes?" "Absolutely," replied Keys, downing a glass of polyunsaturated white wine.

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When New York Mets Manager Casey Stengel and his wife Edna arrived, Mrs. Stengel announced: "I'm Mrs. Stengel. We're in baseball." After Theologian Tillich's speech at the Monday dinner, Casey, in his own conversational style, offered his interpretation to the guests at his table. They were bewildered.

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"Don't look behind you, Louella," Mrs. Henry Wallace warned Mrs. Everett Dirksen. "Someone's wearing the same dress you are." Mrs. Dirksen turned, saw a guest wearing the same pink and white flowered gown and said in mock indignation, "I want my money back."

. . . Easing through the crush of persons jamming the Waldorf's four reception rooms, Jack Dempsey said: "This is the toughest fight I've had in a long time." When Comedian Milton Berle introduced Mrs. Dempsey to Mrs. Gene Tunney, he said to the Manassa Mauler's wife: "Your husband knows her husband."

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Industrialist Konosuke Matsushita, the board chairman of Japan's Matsushita Electric Co., wanted most to meet Actor Richard Boone, whose Have Gun, Will Travel is a top-rated show on Japanese television. When he was finally introduced to TV's Paladin, Matsushita executed a low, formal Oriental bow, then came up fast with both hands cocked in a two-gun draw. Informed that Matsushita was Japan's highest-paid businessman at $1,226,000 last year, the U.S.'s top automobile wage earner, General Motors Board Chairman Frederic G. Donner, who pulled in a mere $791,000 in 1962, cracked: "I'll have to tell my board about that."

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A rose discreetly tucked into her decolletage, Gina Lollobrigida was a magnet that attracted passing males. "Sweet lady," said Republican Senator Everett Dirksen, bowing low, "I'm pleased to meet you." Tapping Dirksen impatiently on the shoulder, Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey said: "Will the Senator please yield?" Posing for a photograph with Senator Humphrey, former Republican Presidential Candidate Thomas E. Dewey joked: "I can only warn you, Senator--this picture can only help me, but it may hurt you."

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A tough college middleweight at the University of Virginia, Internal Revenue Commissioner Mortimer Caplin mixed with three heavyweights--and came away with the autographs of Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and Joe Louis.

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As Henry Cabot Lodge raced through his introductions of cover subjects, Comedian Bert Lahr said with mock annoy ance: "That name dropper."

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Scientists, theologians, educators, and military leaders who had never flinched before germs, ignorance, shot or shell suddenly turned wide-eyed in the presence of show business personalities. White-haired Nuclear Physicist Isidor Rabi begged to be introduced to Hedda Hopper as he was too shy to go up to the columnist himself. "Why were you on the cover of TIME?" Hedda asked him, somewhat doubtfully. Answered Rabi: "Because I won the Nobel Prize."

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Said Musical Comedy Star Carol Channing: "Nobody gets as much fun out of meeting celebrities as other celebrities."

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As Cuban Exile Leader Dr. Miro Cardona was leaving the Linen party, an elderly lady in a red dress grabbed his hand and said: "Doctor, you're a brave man and I admire you. There is only one person who has more courage than you, and that is the lady who is giving this party."

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"I remember you running for president when I was a little girl," a woman guest told 78-year-old Socialist Norman Thomas. "Madame," replied six-time presidential candidate Thomas, "I've been running for President since I was a little boy."

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Actress Bette Davis looked over the crowd and said to her 16-year-old daughter, Barbara Sherry: "Darling, take a good look, because you'll never see anything like this again."

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