People, Mar. 27, 1939

• Share

In Nassau, the Bahamas, Glamor-Debutante Brenda Diana Duff Frazier met and partied with Glamor-Flier Howard Hughes.

When 76-year-old "Papa" Deibler, who as Monsieur de Paris had pressed the button at more than 400 guillotinings in his 40-year career, died last February, his 80-year-old Uncle Léopold Desfour-neaux was appointed temporary successor. Connoisseurs complained that Desfourneaux lacked his nephew's finesse, at his first execution took ten seconds to Deibler's customary three or four. Last week, after six weeks' cogitation, the prisons director pronounced Uncle Léopold's initial effort a complete success, thus making him France's new official high executioner.

Mrs. Dorothy Barber, young Kansas City, Mo. matron who could not get enough food even though she ate 20 times a day (TIME, March 13), announced that she was not unduly hungry any more, had settled down to only three meals a day. "God has heard my prayers," cried she. "I really believe He has cured me."

French Poet-Playwright Jean ("Bird-catcher") Cocteau has long been an opium smoker, makes no apology for his vice, once wrote a book about it, regards it as an interesting part of the most interesting personality he knows. When the French police, who had always looked the other way, arrested France's Public Opium Smoker No.1 on charges of opium smoking last summer, wealthy French Elégants suspected that M. Cocteau had got in the habit of giving it to his friends among the poor—sailors, waiters, etc., on whom the authorities, for fear they might turn to crime to satisfy their expensive craving, crack down. Last week Jean Cocteau was found guilty, given a one-week suspended sentence.

When beefy, bullet-headed Valentine Edward Charles Browne, Viscount Castle-rosse, England's No. i chitchat columnist (Daily Express), fell sick in London's Claridge's Hotel, he disobeyed his doctor's orders by continuing to gulp champagne, devour oysters, receive socialite friends. Result: his doctor moved him to a maternity ward.

One of the reasons Cinemactress Helen Vinson gave last December for suing Fred Perry for divorce was his insisting that she sit through all his tennis matches. Last week, after Tennist Perry had been trounced three times in a row by Donald Budge on their first joint professional tour, Miss Vinson withdrew suit, rejoined her husband.

Ettie Rheiner Garner, 61-year-old wife and secretary to the Vice President of the U. S.. posed in her office on her adjustable exercise machine (see cut}. It is adjustable so that Mrs. Garner can also get a work-out sitting down, or lying on her back. "I am handicapped," explained she, "because I can't take off my dress in my office. I just pin up my skirt and shut the door."