That Week in American Weekly

True to the magazine’s roots, the cover that week was a glamour girl illustration by British pinup artist David Wright. The latest installment of the magazine’s regular feature “Album of Famous Mysteries” presented the shocking case of an Austrian woman who starved a young girl to death. “A New Day for Yesteryear’s Child Stars” brought readers up to date on the careers of the child stars of the 1920s and 30s, including Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, Mitzi Green, Baby Rose Marie, Jean Darling (of Our Gang appearing on Broadway in “Carousel” in 1946), Mary Small, Virginia Weidler, Mickey Rooney (already twice married), Jackie Cooper, Freddie Bartholomew, Deanna Durbin, Anita Louise, Bonita Granville and Judy Garland.

With war brides now arriving by the shipload in the United States, the magazine ran “Happy Cargoes” by Irmis Johnson, a history of the shiploads of women who had arrived in the US to join or find husbands in the nation’s early years. Science editor Robert D. Potter contributed “Farewell to Ugliness,” third in a series, which lauded a brighter peacetime future for American women thanks to advances in plastic surgery first performed at Army hospitals. A onetime French equestrienne star, Rachel Dorange, now driving a hansom cab in Paris after an unhappy love affair, was the subject of a photo feature.

The supplement managed to combine scandal with literary respectability by publishing George Bernard Shaw’s account of the marriage of 46-year old artist George Frederick Watt to his 16-year old model, Ellen Terry, a pairing that had set tongues wagging in the Victorian Age. Shaw originally had written the article for the London Sunday Observer on the occasion of the publication of a new biography of the 19^th-century artist, The Laurel and the Thorn. Shaw had a long, passionate, but platonic relationship, largely through correspondence, with Miss Terry, who had become one of the most noted actresses of the her day. Shaw wrote that her short-lived early marriage never amounted to much for either partner and that the couple had remained on friendly terms afterwards.

The food section now was under the jurisdiction of the amply qualified Florence Brobeck, the former head of the Herald-Tribune’s authoritative Home Institute. Other service sections had been started as well. That week, in addition to Miss Brobeck’s recipes for shad, a seasonal delicacy, the magazine included decorating tips from Jane Ten Broek, an article on eye makeup by Sally Young, recipes for drop cookies, and gardening advice from David Platt who recommended moving beyond the staples like beans and peas in the Victory Garden this year to introduce luxuries like asparagus, strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, herbs and salad greens.

Other features on the week of April 14 included a story on the accidental discovery of bacitracin, one on a German refugee who was bringing hope to “London’s malformed children” through her healing exercises, and “Making the Whole Atom Work” by Hearst science editor Gobind Behari Lal, who had shared a Pulitzer in 1937 for collaborative science reporting.