The Postcard
A postcard that was published by E. A. Sweetman & Son Ltd. of Tunbridge Wells. The image is a glossy real photograph. Note the 'H'-style black and white TV aerials.
The card was posted in Worthing, Sussex on Thursday the 23rd. August 1956 to:
Miss Eileen Perrett,
Room 212,
Ministry of Housing and
Local Government,
18/21, Chester Terrace,
Regent's Park,
London N.W.1.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Gardner's Hotel,
Worthing.
This is a nice hotel -
quiet & comfortable,
and at the moment
the weather has changed
for the better.
Our room faces the sea -
rather noisy at high tide
at night!
Best wishes,
A. Archie Betham."
Alas, the Gardner's Hotel (marked with a cross) is no more - it has gone the way of many small coastal hotels in the UK and been converted into flats. The building is now known as Jason Court.
Richard M. Nixon
So what else happened on the day that Archie posted the card?
Well, on the 23rd. August 1956, at the close of the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, incumbent President Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated for re-election, with incumbent Vice-President, Richard M. Nixon as his running mate.
Nat King Cole was among the speakers at the convention.
Peaches Browning
The day also marked the death at the age of 46 of Peaches Browning.
Peaches was born Frances Belle Heenan on the 23rd. June 1910. She was an American actress who was married to New York City real estate developer Edward West "Daddy" Browning (1875 – 1934).
Their story became one of the most sensational scandals of the Roaring Twenties. It is often cited in journalism history texts as an example of the excesses of tabloid newspapers during the era.
Peaches Browning - The Early Years
Browning and Heenan met at a sorority dance on the evening of the 5th. March 1926, at the Hotel McAlpin. They immediately began a very public courtship, despite the difference in their ages. Browning was 51, Heenan was 15.
Browning, who reveled in publicity, paraded Heenan in front of the paparazzi cameras as he lavished her with expensive gifts (spending $1000 a day on shopping trips) and took her to New York's finest restaurants in his distinctive peacock blue Rolls Royce.
On April 10, 1926, mere weeks after they met, Peaches and "Daddy" were wed in the village of Cold Springs, New York, far from media scrutiny.
Both Peaches' father and her mother gave their permission for the marriage, which took place in part to thwart a campaign by Vincent Pisarra of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to halt the relationship.
However on the 2nd. October 1926, Peaches and her mother loaded up their belongings and left the marital residence at the Kew Gardens Inn.
Under New York law at the time, divorce was only possible if one party admitted adultery, so Peaches tried to obtain a legal separation, claiming cruelty, while Browning filed a counter-claim of abandonment.
The White Plains, New York, trial drew intense coverage by New York City tabloid newspapers such as the New York Daily News, the rival New York Daily Mirror and the more disreputable New York Graphic, which published a series of notorious composographs of the couple.
The story was also covered in depth by the national newspapers, and the couple became well known in U.S. popular culture of the time. Their romance is referenced in the 1927 Gershwin musical comedy Funny Face and in F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "The Love Boat", published the same year.
Among the notable aspects of the case were Peaches' allegations of odd behavior by her husband, including the fact that he kept a honking African goose in their bedroom.
The phrase "Don't be a goof," which Daddy allegedly used as an insult to Peaches, came into national vogue, and later turned up in the lyrics of the title song from the 1936 Rodgers and Hart musical comedy On Your Toes.
The judge accepted Daddy's version of the facts, ruling that Peaches had abandoned her husband without cause, and permitted him a legal separation without any obligation to pay alimony.
Peaches' notoriety gained her a career in vaudeville. She was managed by Marvin Welt (1883–1953), one of the first theatrical agents to demand a percentage of total ticket sales from some of his clients.
Peaches remained legally married to Browning until his death from a brain hemorrhage, in 1934. She went on to have three more husbands.
Peaches slipped in her bathroom within her apartment at 423 East Fiftieth Street, and died at New York Hospital in Manhattan on the 23rd. August 1956.
Peaches was laid to rest in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Doris Day
Also on the 23rd. August 1956, the Number One chart hit record in the UK was 'Whatever Will be Will be' by Doris Day.
