Cinema (Illustrated)

* Esther Williams's second son weighed six English pounds at birth, even though he was born a month and a half before his time. Esther comments: "Imagine how much he would have weighed if I had carried him the full nine months!" The birth took place only twenty minutes after Esther entered the hospital!

* Since parting from her husband, Linda Darnell has taken to keeping to her house most of the time. In her free hours she spends the time either sewing or painting a picture of her little daughter. It is worth mentioning that Linda has an artistic gift beyond dispute.

* Harry James can no longer bear to be parted from his wife Betty Grable while he works. So he has decided to join his band only on weekends — and to work then only in places near Los Angeles.

James and his wife are now taken up with horses, and they are often to be seen at the racetracks.

* John Agar's divorce from Shirley Temple has not had the least effect on her standing as an actress. No sooner had her work on her first film ended than she signed with Warner to act in a new film in which she appears with Kirk Douglas and Virginia Mayo.

Agar still refuses to comment or to speak about Shirley, though he visits his daughter once a week.

* Perhaps the most famous of the love stories whose telling Hollywood is passing around this season is Frank Sinatra's love for Ava Gardner. He flies to Hollywood to see his sweetheart whenever the chance offers. The charges for his telephone calls to her over the last three months have reached 3,600 dollars — the equivalent of 14 thousand Lebanese liras!

* Fred Astaire has decided to take a vacation lasting six months. No doubt he is in the direst need of rest, for he has taken part in twenty-five films in the course of the past seventeen years.

Fred Astaire is married to a wealthy woman from Boston, and has three children.

* Every Saturday "Pia" speaks to her mother Ingrid Bergman by telephone across the ocean. The great actress is now making an effort to bring her daughter to Rome, so that she may see her new brother, Roberto Rossellini, whom she longs greatly to see. Well-informed circles in Hollywood say that Dr. Lindström, Ingrid's former husband, who showed great opposition in the divorce, has softened, and that he will allow his daughter to go to visit her mother and brother.

* Linda Christian Power stayed away from the wedding party of her sister Ariadna. The reason for this is that Linda has quarreled with her family and broken with it. Tyrone Power has kept apart from this quarrel, and commented:

"I have worry enough minding my own affairs!"

* On the desk of the Paramount studio pile up the many letters from admirers of Dorothy Lamour, asking that the studio bring out a new film in which Dorothy appears with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. But the studio's management holds that the appearance of Hope and Crosby each in a film apart from the other brings in more money than their appearing together in a single film.

* "Gary Cooper" was asked his opinion of woman, and he said:

I respect woman because, if a man fails in all his endeavors, he can still think of woman and call to mind the modesty and the chivalry that remain in this world.

It is agreed that women are the source of most of the good in men, and without women men would be hard of heart. Man, always, does not hope for good in himself or for himself alone; woman, as a rule, makes him feel that he is of worth in life. And women are skilled at supplying men with the spiritual side they need, as the art of painting needs the poetry of the artist.

And to my thinking, I respect women for being more thoughtful than men, and more fair and more compassionate toward those to whom they attach themselves. A man always feels that he cannot render enough of the service he wishes for the people connected with him.

* Jane Russell holds that the number of divorce cases would fall greatly if married couples took to devotion and attended church more than they do.

It may be mentioned in this connection that Jane did the impossible, and succeeded, in preserving her brother's married life from stumbling and divorce. That is why in Hollywood today she is called the great reformer.

★ Rumors are current in Hollywood to the effect that relations are strained between Tyrone Power and his wife Linda Christian. The source of these rumors is Cesar Romero, who returned lately from London and affirms that the state of things between the couple is unsatisfactory. When Cesar was asked about the truth of what the newspapers and magazines have written about his own relations with Linda and his being seen with her in London's night clubs, he answered: "Tyrone was absorbed in his new film — Mister Roberts — and was working every evening at the studio; for that reason, and because I am an old friend of the family, I would escort Linda to the cinemas and the amusement halls... purely out of courtesy!"

★ Rumors reaching Hollywood say that Merle Oberon, of whom nothing has been heard for no short time, is seen most often in the company of the great British statesman Anthony Eden. Readers will recall that Eden divorced his wife a few months ago. And the cinema circles are asking: has Merle fallen in love again?

★ Robert Taylor has arrived in America, returning from Rome after an absence of seven months, spent acting in the film "Quo Vadis." It may be mentioned that the strain of the work has done its work on Robert Taylor: in the said period his weight dropped 18 English pounds.