People: The Social Graces

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Interviewed for the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune, Washington's No. 1 unofficial hostess Gwendolyn Cafritz carefully explained why she does not invite Mr. & Mrs. Harry Truman to her parties: "I never invited Mr. Truman when he was a Senator, which was my mistake. I never had anything against him. It's just that I never thought the Trumans attracted me. I only ask people that are really exciting. Besides, Mr. Truman doesn't like to talk to ladies." How about Senator Joe McCarthy? "Joe's a friend of mine, but I haven't invited him this year. I just can't take it any more." Had she ever honored Price Boss Mike Di Salle with an invitation? "No, he wouldn't look nice around my table. I like my tables to be filled with attractive women and handsome men, people like General Hoyt Vandenberg, who couldn't look more divine, and Tony Biddle, who just looks wonderful."

When they got word that five-star Generals Omar Bradley and George C. Marshall were checking into Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria, current residence of five-star General Douglas MacArthur, and that Vice President Alben W. Barkley was also arriving, hotel protocol experts went into a huddle, reached a solution that seemed to satisfy everyone. MacArthur's red five-star flag, usually flown at the front entrance, was moved around to another door in honor of all three generals. The white Veep flag (13 stars and the American eagle) was hoisted over the main door. But later the experts learned that their solution was not quite right after all. As Secretary of Defense, General Marshall rated his own blue standard (four stars and an eagle).

The British Broadcasting Corp. caught a blast from fiery Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham when it offered him a picayunish fee of $60 for a broadcast of "his arrangement of Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. The "arrangement," wrote Sir Thomas, already a bit edgy from an attack of gout, "has involved the thoughts of 25 years ... at no time and nowhere in the course of a long career have I received such a preposterously inadequate, thoughtlessly impudent and magnificently inept offer from anyone." Thoroughly singed by the explosion, an abashed BBC hastily made a "substantially higher" offer, and Sir Thomas accepted.

Among the swank set at Deauville, France there were two versions as to how Aly Khan picked up the massive shiner on his right eye. Popular version: dining at a restaurant without his usual companion of late, Cinemactress Joan Fontaine, he let his eye rove too obviously toward a nearby beauty whose husband's aim was right on target. Aly's story: "My physical instructor hit me accidentally with his head."

Since he had failed to reduce in time to meet the deadline for his new picture,

M-G-M postponed its shooting schedule, sadly announced that it had shipped its 240-lb. singing star Mario Lanza (TIME, Aug. 6) off to the Oregon woods to diet, chop wood for a month,' and slim down to a reasonable 180 Ibs.