Word: boyhoods
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After 59 years, eleven Broadway musicals and 31 movies, twinkle-toed Hoofer Fred Astaire published his highly informal, do-it-yourself autobiography titled (on Noel Coward's suggestion) Steps in Time (Harper; $4.95). More a theatrical log than a self-portrait, the book brings Astaire from his Omaha boyhood (papa was a brewer of Austrian descent) to the pinnacle of popular dancing, a position he has enjoyed for half his life. Astaire fans will be elated to hear that the end of his career is nowhere in sight. Writes the mellowing top-hatter: "What is this age bit that...
...whose rippling biceps seem to make visible bulges on the television screen. The son of a Bronx truck driver, Rocky grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, played ball just across the street in Macomb's Dam Park. Naturally, the Yankees were his boyhood heroes. Naturally, the Yankees gave him a tryout when he was only 16, but let him get away when the Indians topped the Yankees' half-hearted bid with a still modest offer of $3,000. Last year, in his second full season with Cleveland, he blasted 41 homers, just one short of matching...
...Colossal Effrontery." Son of a Virginia shoe jobber, Lewis Strauss (pronounced straws) was born in Charleston, W. Va., raised in Richmond. Chosen valedictorian of his high school class, he combined his two boyhood passions, physics and religion, in an address entitled "Science and Theology: A Reconciliation." "Fortunately," says Strauss, "this colossal effrontery has not survived...
Battle for the Bomb. A Reserve lieutenant commander, Strauss headed for Washington at the outbreak of World War II to do deskbound Navy duty. Bad eyesight, the result of a boyhood rock fight, kept him out of shooting war. In wartime Washington, he originated the morale-building idea of awarding an "E" (for Excellence) pennant to outstanding war plants, helped set up the Office of Naval Research, wound up with the rank of rear admiral and the top medals a chairborne warrior could win: Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit...
...next 20 minutes, held them intent. Speaking without notes, the President spoke on a subject to which he has dedicated himself: the absolute U.S. necessity for an "expanding, healthy and vigorous economy" based on a "sound dollar." In so doing, he drew on the lessons of his boyhood and early Army career, and as rarely before, he demonstrated the highly personal basis for many of his presidential policies...