Word: wits
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Henri Navarre is an individualist, but a cold and aloof one whose quota of wit, urbanity and charm shows itself only at small, usually intimate gatherings. "He is just a retiring man who suffers in society," says his only son, Jacques, 27, who is a businessman in Paris. Attractive to women, a man of taste (his Paris apartment houses a Goya, a Reynolds, a portrait of Madame's distinguished Napoleonic ancestor Murat), and a fancier of cats (because of their independence and aloofness), he was once described by a friend: "There is an 18th century fragrance about...
Into the Gap. By the time Winchell got to the big radio money in 1944, Edgar Bergen was the world's most successful ventriloquist. But was it ventriloquism? On a sightless medium, it was less an illusion than high aural comedy by a man with a natural wit and an educated larynx. Television was another matter. Bergen, his technique rusty after radio, made a few exploratory TV appearances, then went off to semi-retirement to think things over and work on his movie autobiography (From Little Acorns). Into the gap streaked Winchell, his ventriloquial skills razor-sharp...
...Sword and the Rose (Walt Disney; RKO Radio) is an old-fashioned piece of historical romance done with stylized charm and sly wit. Based on Charles Major's popular 1898 novel, When Knighthood Was in Flower, it tells the love story of Princess Mary Tudor (1496-1533) and Captain of the Guard Charles Brandon. Before the two lovers were married in 1515, Mary had to overcome the objections of her brother, King Henry VIII, submit to a short-lived political marriage with aging, ailing King Louis XII of France, and, according to the movie, contend with the machinations...
...Odor of Dead Fish. At wit's end by Feb. 3, 1927, Lindbergh dashes off a telegram to an almost unknown San Diego outfit called Ryan Airlines, gets an answer back the next day: "Can build plane . . . Delivery about three months." Lindbergh heads for the coast, finds Ryan Airlines in a dilapidated waterfront building with no flying field, no hangar, no sound of engines-only the pervasive odor of dead fish from a nearby cannery. But the competent chief engineer, Donald Hall, impresses Lindbergh. The order is placed. With five other transatlantic flights poised to go, a race against...
...During the 1944 campaign, anti-New Dealer Knutson unwittingly played the foil to F.D.R.'s wit by spreading an unfounded rumor: Roosevelt's pet Scottie, Fala, had been left behind during a presidential tour of the Aleutians, and a destroyer had been dispatched 1,000 miles just to bring the dog home. For F.D.R., this was a golden opportunity to add a homey touch to his famed Teamsters' Union address: "Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons . . . They now include my little dog Fala...