Some marriages begin with the highest of hopes. When Laurence Olivier married Vivien Leigh, he was a little more practical. He gave her a wedding ring that was engraved: ”The last one you`ll get, I hope.” Writer Anthony Holden shares other details about the Olivier/Leigh marriage in ”Laurence Olivier” (Atheneum). He says that the best man was Garson Kanin, who had a sneezing jag during the ceremony and that the couple was married by a drunken judge who forget to read the bride`s vows and cried ”Bingo!” when the ceremony was over. Perhaps that`s why Olivier, writing his memoirs three decades later, got the date of the wedding wrong.
What`s new? Popular Science magazine took that question very seriously when it came up with the 100 best new products of 1988. Their choices include a spot remover for gum, a T-shirt made of Polytherm that keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter, a VCR that`s programmable by phone, a typewriter that beeps if you type a cliche, a 3-D camcorder and, best of all, a seedless watermelon.
Before there was Warren Beatty, there was Gary Cooper, who was known as
”the king of the bedroom.” In ”Cooper`s Women” (Prentice Hall), writer Jane Ellen Wayne quotes some of his famous private-life leading ladies. Joan Crawford: ”Gary made every woman feel as if she were the only woman in the world.” Ingrid Bergman: ”Every woman who knew Gary fell in love with him.” Tallulah Bankhead (who went to Hollywood to have a romance with him):
”Mission accomplished.” And Helen Hayes: ”If Gary had asked me, I would have gone away with him.”
