Word: breaking
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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They are, manifestly, a diverse, and therefore amiable set of cruise companions, and unless one has read the book, it is impossible to break the case before Poirot does. The trouble with the thing is that though Shaffer (the author of Sleuth) can outline a highly stylized murder-mystery character, he seems to lack the energy to fill in the kind of details that can, in masterly hands, utterly charm and disarm. There are possibilities, for example, in the bickering of Davis and Smith, but they peter out. There are promising hints of giddiness in Farrow's lovelorn posturings...
...Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck, Hollywood beguiled audiences with sentimental tales of working-class women who dreamed of escape to a better life. These days the genre lives on, but in a much revised form. Instead of women, the protagonists of these films are now men, young Italian studs who break out of ethnic urban ghettos to become Somebodies. It's a formula that has already produced a pair of smash movies, Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, as well as new stars to go with them. Bloodbrothers is the latest entry in this sweepstakes, and it too has a fresh...
...late Totie Fields' mother died when Totie was five; Art Buchwald's mother died shortly after his birth. David Steinberg's older brother died young, says Janus, "and the family never stopped mourning." In general, the psychologist believes, these comedians had overprotective, constricting mothers and a drive to break out of the Jewish world and gain general acceptance. Says he: "Only a few will talk about their Jewishness with any sense of pride; Alan King, Jack Carter and Don Rickles are rare exceptions. But most of them talk about their work for non-Jewish causes or what they...
...prominence before the 1950s grew up in large, Yiddish-speaking immigrant families in Brooklyn or on Manhattan's Lower East Side. About 80% came from kosher homes and 90% later anglicized their names. Younger comedians are better educated, have less contact with Jewish ritual and are more likely to break away from traditional Jewish humor to deliver social or political messages in their acts. Says Janus: "The older ones changed their names and relieved their tensions with booze. The younger ones lie about their age and dabble with pills and coke...
...angriest and most frustrated Jewish comedians, according to Janus, are the "Catskill comics" who have never been able to break away from the Jewish resort circuit and play to outside audiences. Says the psychologist: "There are 30 to 40 of them you've never heard of, all making over $100,000 a year. They all say, 'Don't mention me as a Catskill comic...