1961-04-06 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 1961.

Clark

Gable's Baby

by

GODFREY WINN

No one

can have road the announce- ment of Clark Gable's widow being safe- ly delivered of the child of their union without being made once again over- whelmingly conscious of the irrefutable forces that control human destinies.

He had lived 59 years on this earth and had had five wives, but for all his fame and fortune, the one great longing of his life had eluded him. To have a son, his own personal stake in immor- tality.

And now, four months too late for him to see, his son is born..

So that many couples blessed with children themselves growing up around them will pity that fatherless child, comparing its future lot with that of their own offspring. Since surely there is a more genuine cause for pity in having to say: "This child has never seen and will never see its father." than having to say: "There is no money in that family for trouts or luxuries for any child.'

For is not the greatest luxury in life to be loved? Smile patronisingly at that, condemn it as a platitude. if you close.

But when a man or woman starts giving you a entn- logue of all their possessions, don't you have the same uneasy feeling that I do, that they are only trying to fortify themselves against the fears that confront them in the small hours of the morning? They are not loved. Except by themselves.

So we should not pity Clark Gable's son too much, since no child was ever more wanted by both its parents, though only one is left to tell him so.

To give him the overflowing love that so many child- ren for one reason or another are starved of so that they grow up feeling unwanted and thesperately insecure.

My father left iny mother when I was 16 years old andi thus for the rest of his life breanu a remote legend in our family. The wren kind of Herend

It will be different for Gable's sun. Wonderful stories will be remied

daring before his submarine was Bually reported "overdue."

The son was only a mail boy then, who slept always with picture of his father in uniform beside his bed.

Today

a

mall,

his father's haunted by trying to live up to prowess. not simply as on his father's mory. irresistible lover on the screen

it is a man's maU, AL "ports- evon and a hunter, with over- whekning virility, without fear.

Haunted

I hope with all my heart that the legend will never be allow-

hero in the eyes et the son who was all that was left to her.

blame her, or any I do not other mother faced with similar circumstances, though I do br seech Clark Gable's widow not to fall into the same fatal trap,

Struggle

I have seen many other son.,

He Is a perfectly ordinary especially only sons, unbearably young man, not particularly overshadowed by their father's good at anything but always own ready to have a try,

business

fame

that

All i

For hud

happened, beauty, she looked at them somer or later it would have listlessly.

For what she herself was re- clear to been marle only too

what child

she could the

that is legendorg membering, father had longed above all never forget, was that during she was else for a son and immediately her parents' lifetime it would have classed itself with so seldom the recipient of that disniny as pour substitute.

that Is spontaneous feeling I have seen that happen too, beyond price, the sense of truly I remember visiting the bene being wanted. of a millionaire with an oals child. She was a girl of 15 then.

Hurt

The Count, four years married, wins his expensive 'breach' fight

Paris,

BR PREACH of promise cases are so rare in France that it seems almost fitting that the first such case that I can recall should concern a man who until recently was one of the most eligible bachelors in Europe.

He is the 50-year-old Count Armand de la Rochefoucauld, a burly, beefy man with B'face tinted the colour of good efaret Now, four years after his marriage

un American divorcee, the Couch won an action for breach of promine which had been brought against him by BR Austrian-born woman with whom he had formed an preslation after the

war.

No promise

She claimed"}} modes! HK$1,200,000 compensation, but the court sternly ruled that no sush promise had in fact been made.

Arnand is the younger son,

of the redoubtable 00-year old Duc de Doudeauville who has been president of the Jockey

as some

scandal and to let Imagination As the Swits guard banking run riol, on the subject of the secrets as jealously Peugeot kidnapping affair.

ecuntries quard stomile secrets, I have lived through every the exact nature of the dispute big French post-war scandal has not yet emerged and invariably each one has ended with anti-climax.

This is not because the autho lea

have hunted then up hut simply because the vandols themselves never had the rami- fications that public opinion und the Press attributed 14 them.

in

Examining magistrates France who confuct the pre-

minary investigations consti tule a body of all-powerful watch-dogs of almost fanatical zeal, especially with the rich of public Agures who are involved. The examining magistrate in- vestigating the so-called Wolter scandal tuas been at it for three years and still

refuses to let

All I can reveal is that it concerns a numbered banking account which Farouk claims to be one of his.

HEADLINE OF THE WEER: Paria Prom re- porting on the English Bible "La Bible a ete rewritee,"

Dignified

now

HAROUK incidentally has

not set foot in Franca, or Monaco since he was

ship three years ago.

Club for the past 40 years. go of the case despite the fact

Ic is expected to Inherit that most

of the myths sur- the title after his father's desin rounding it have long been ex- given Monagesquo ¿itizen-

posed as such.

because his elder brother is known to be reluctant lo` âșe sume it.

Armand has been a colourful and splendidly Bohemiau gure in Parisien life ever since the "Twenties.

wish

If the Sidney Stanley scandal I am told by relatives here. had broken here instead of it that this is due to a having been reduced to its pro- on his part to avoid the lime per proportions by a tribunal it light for political reasons. would almost certainly havn resulted in the fall of a govern-

He is convinced that the

ment and accusations of corrupe monarchy will be restored in tion against every one who had Egypt and is preparing a suit- background for so much as brushed shoulders ably dignified

Its restoration. with Stanley.

Of the 20-odd Prime Ministera France has, had since the war J know of only one whose in-

tegrity I seriously doubt.

The Rochefoucaulds have been crowding the French and continental stage ever since the family was ennobled hy Francois I in the 10th century. In the Intervening centuries they produced the author of the famous Maxims, same rumark- able eccentrics a daughter who died recently lived with gipsley in a cave culside Granada-and married Eastern European tered public life. Royally and Spanish grandees,

The Rochefoucaulds wealth remains solidly based on land and they own buge estates in France and Spain.

They retain a strong peasant

know Jezers of former Ministers who art no richer

Incidental Intelligence; So many heads of state are visiting Paris — each

ono

now than when they first en- greeted by a soluta of guns

In dispute

-ond $0 many plastic bombs placed by opponents of General de Gaulle's Al- gerian policy are exploding, it is difficult to tell whether

sireak and a peasant's shrewd X-KING FAROUK is at the resulting bang is a wel

*

coming one or an act protest.

-(London Express Servic).

of

present engaged in a knowledge of the value of

dispute with money while the richest of the serious Rochefoucaulds is notorious in Geneva bank. Parks for his steadfast refusal to carry any money on him.

Scandals

NCE

again you can your pick of scandals in Paris and по

She sat between her parents Do we not all have that same at the long dining-room table longing, however much we may

allegedly footman behind her cover it up by a surface air of

tough indifference?

fri

in and success,

palities. So It has turned

almust

frin

with chair.

a

be

be

In his heart he knows much so, that berare his mother's obsession them sernelines has been unable to conceal It- enses for the psychiatrist.

Their whole existence. that she is disappointed that

comes one tong struggle lu although in appearance he has

make free of the bondage, to father. look of his the boy himself a distinct

Impact upon the own he lacks the da, the herdie their happen

ปร themselves world, to be not just a pale shadow of their celebrated parent.

to ce afraid. That easily. Jaderd, it happened 1

Cat

one of my man godchildren:

FO

stature.

It was so easy for the mother, His father was a submariner too easy, to rzek tu comfort who won The 1.5.0. and herself for her husband's loss performed incredible feats of by over-dramatising him na a

NEWS IN THE AIR.

Enter Britain's latest babies

A

By JAMES STUART

London.

BIG display of private and business aircraft

is being arranged at Coventry Airport from

April 28-30.

There the first of the new

BEAGLE range of British-made Home time. It seemed things light airplanes is to be shown were picking up at Gatwick for the first ilme. One will be which is to be used this summer · flown in by Peter Marefcid,

for some daily BEA and Air

chief of the BEAGLE concern France services in Paris. from the former Auster factory

at Renraby Loles.

DEAGLE is the new company formed by the Pressed Steel

But as I drove In, the car

dinner-dance, sir?" park man said: "Are you for the

Company with the old Auster Air-minded millions

Alreralt concern and F. G. Miles

at Shoreham. British lights air- PASSENGER Sures air

'The new

planes are eagerly nwalted at

the recent routes

make

→ Figures for

remarkable

time when, under lifting of import restrictions, reading. The big operators considerable numbers of Ameri- Flying tho "domestic" ena aircraft are being nɔld to British "owner-driver" and busi- American air routes - In- nes, Alers.

side the U.S.only lost

corried your

45,449,090

Not so busy

Gescoffed "White The biggest airline flew, more

NATWICK ÁIRPORT has passengers.

Elephant"-particularly out others each took more than of the summer holiday sea- 7,500,000.

■on.

But if it is not as widely used as an airport ng it might be, its restaurant provides a good place for dinner and dancing for people living in the nearby Birrey and Sussex towns.

The small local services took another 5,500,000. And another 5,470,028 flew on the inter- national routes in and out of the United States.

Three eftles, New York, Chlea-

go and Los Angeles, havo hell- cuplet servicur." Deźween them

I dropped in the other oven- they carried just on 500,000 peo

ing and found the ene park plo during 1960. fuller than I had soon it for

(London Express Katolce),

037 over-

However, make no mistake. The burden of a living father's

based personality, whelming confidence in his own be less OF A DOWCTS. can

child tha ady challenge to echoes from the grave.

And this the Gable child may discover I am afraid in the years ahead.

POGATIX'S

This

However, he great advantage. He is a mole child and so he will avoid all the complexes that might have been his had this so-publicised. se-wanted baby, turned out the end to be a girl.

Cummings

LAOS

Ar

Masterpieces alowed upon the wall. But there was no warmth in that ream.

There are those, of course,

The world really does look better

THROUGH ROSE-TINTED

dinner party conversation

scientists have DRITISH is complete without some

out how to well-informed found

inside moko the world took a little guest retailing the story of this

that better through spectacles--- by "rose-tinting" the Bur- "affair," who sialk like leopards through

forest, but they

face of the Tenses. She usually because they have been hurt er let down once too often, not because they truthfully be- furthest lieve that he travels

The daughter hardly lifted her head from the plate, cld not speak while her parents talked over her head to their guest,

Listless

Was

the

who travels alene.

do so

It is terrible to watch what can happen to a human being Yel my attention

But who is not loved or wanted by with them. Instead

was anyone outside working hours. clumsy fascinated

The by

and grow old They shrivel movements that the daughter before their time, made with her hands as though subconsciously

seeking

even now to become the boy they had passionately longed for, the heir to a fabulous throne.

When her father died, left her a great fortune, going to stay with her afterwards 1 recognised some of day's crop of babies. the pictures on the wall.

I wonder if you feel the same. While I exclaimed on their

(London Express Service).

Praise be that will hol happen to Clark Gable's son.

And it is for that reason, not because of the wealth that is father has bequeathed him, nor he the legend of his fame, that I and count this boy as one of soon mest

fortunate

among

the that

or

It is as well if you do not wish to stam yourself as a naive yokel to refrain from ex- pressing scepticism.

Anti-climax

France la the only country in the world where in malters of Feandals credulity in a positive mark of sophistication.

The obviou is never good enough: it in in French eyes 4 device by less-gified but powerful men to cover up a conspiracy.

Thus it is necessary to ba- lleve against all the evidence that a certain Minister is in- volved in the current bullding

SPECTACLES

contact with air, yet its power to transmit light was increased. Scientis have now found the

spectacles quite

to

The new glasses let In more way to give this near-invisiblo light and cut out

almost all tamih reflection--inside and out. They cheaply. cân be ordered from

and

optician. and cost about £1 extra. The lenses have a faint "bloom" on the surface, símil- ar to that on a deep-red rose,

The same effect can be seen lens, It was u chance - observation *bout

on a camera

that

camera lentes, made 70 years age by a London expeit, led to today's development,

tarnished look on

A

Fewer 'lamps

spokesmara for one of Britain's biggest optical manus "Normally, facturers told me: glass reflects about five per striices cent of the light that It. This process

The reduces reflection to one or two per cent. The lenses also look bei- ter

outside, from

because of

4

The expert, Mr Dennis Thy dancing lights - images lor, noticed Uut some glass lamps or windows-do not ap-

pear so much." toole or a

FOOTNOTE: The "bloom" is applied by heating magneslúm fuorido powder

little molybdenum trough within

foot

the spectacle lences, Incide a vacuum champ- ber. The gas produced con- densen om the glass to forn a fine, hard alm. The procesa is now also being used on the Continent.

Peter Fairley

~~(London Express Setzlch),

TO THE BRINK &

BACK - AS WALKED BY J.FOSTER DULLES

TALKING

POINTS

He that hath no honey in his pot, let him have it in his mouth.

-GEORGE HERBERT.

The masters.

people

tho

-EDMUND BUkitk.

are

and I thought it way the featuteps of Rocasvelt 1 was to follow in!”

London - Kapress Bervice,

Thirty-fivo is a very at- tractive uge

OSCAR WILOR.

-Chonden Ausreis Retilen),