Word: balding
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Johns Hopkins' William Foxwell Albright, 67, expert in Palestinian archaeology. Big (6 ft.), bald Sand-Sifter Albright began to explore Palestine in the days when such explorations consisted chiefly of dismounting from one's camel and commencing to dig. A scholar instead of a treasure hunter, he painstakingly collected and fitted together pottery fragments scorned by some earlier diggers, succeeded in bringing a large measure of order to the history of Palestine in the 3,000 years before Christ. Among his qualifications for archaeology: great physical durability and a command of some 25 languages, including enough...
...Charles Sparks Thomas, 60, bouncy, bottle-bald former Secretary of the Navy (1954-57), was named president of Trans World Airlines, a job that eccentric T.W.A. Owner Howard Hughes has found hard to fill since the death of Ralph S. Damon 2½ years ago. Carter L. Burgess piloted T.W.A. for a year until falling out with Hughes last December; since then, Chairman Warren Lee Pierson has acted as president, and T.W.A., with no firm, clear-cut leadership, lost $14 million in the first five months of 1958. To pull up T.W.A., Hughes picked an old airman. Californian Thomas climbed...
...Rhythm Section. To feel Gulbenkian's anger, an acquaintance once said, was "to know the electric chair without death." The danger signal was an open-palmed slap, slap, slap on the bald dome, often followed by the saliva-flecked roar, "You are a broken reed I" If Gulbenkian was something of a solid gold Scrooge, he also had Scroogian fears. According to Young, the sordid 1920 murder of a Manhattan pawnbroker named Gulbenkian, no kin, scared him out of ever visiting the U.S. He reputedly kept a ton and a half of gold in his London safes, presumably against...
Sadhu is the Sanskrit word for "straight," and the straight-living, ascetic sadhus of India were once the bearers of Hindu holiness. Robed in saffron or stark naked, smeared with ashes or painted vermilion, shaven bald or mat-haired, they wandered through the world with their begging bowls, dispensing sacred teaching, sage advice and examples of the unworldly life. Inevitably another breed of sadhu arose that was anything but straight. Trading on the enormous prestige of the holy men, these daubed wanderers move from village to village dispensing magic charms and quack cure-alls and mulcting the credulous peasants. Today...
...naturally, hate him. One tough character, who has since been murdered in an underworld row, threatened to kill him. Recalls Père Pigalle with a laugh: "His women disappeared. He got it into his head that it was I who was taking them away. Imagine it-with my bald head and more than 70 years!" On another occasion two would-be assassins rang the priest's doorbell, pistols in hand. "I implored them: 'Not at this hour-you'll wake everybody up. Put your playthings away and come in if you like.' Finally, they each...