Word: mirthful
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Rohatyn, the head of Lazard Freres and among those most commonly mentioned for Treasury Secretary, as touting Republican Robinson for that job in a Dukakis Administration. Score one for Rohatyn. It then quoted Robinson as saying he has no desire for a Cabinet post. "There was a lot of mirth in the office over that one," a Wall Street colleague recalls...
...leader of Israel's association of secular humanists. But the diminutive, soft-spoken Steinsaltz inspires superlatives from all Jewish factions. In recognition of his achievements, he has just been named winner of the 1988 Israel Prize, his nation's highest honor. The rabbi greeted the news with characteristic mirth: "Gee, one gets that a year before one dies...
...fronting the Police Academy farces. The story -- of three roguish bachelors forced to care for an abandoned infant -- cradled few surprises and, for great barren stretches, got lost in a draggy drug plot. The film's direction had all the comic subtlety one would expect from that Merlin of mirth, Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy. Maybe the producers thought he was Doctor Spock...
Dorothy Herrmann's recent biography, S.J. Perelman: A Life, points out what any sensible reader already knows: humorists are not a sunny breed. They pick up their tribulations by the wrong end, and that provokes mirth. But after the audience leaves, the anguish remains. Perelman's boon companion and brother- in-law, Novelist Nathanael West (Miss Lonelyhearts), died young (36) in a car crash. Perelman never fully recovered from the blow, nor did his wife Laura, who descended into alcoholism. Many of his best letters deal obliquely with the disappointments he felt with his family and his work...
Woody Allen, of course, can be funny when he wants to, and Radio Days certainly has its moments of mirth. But ever since becoming an "auteur director," Allen has avoided going for outright laughs--which is a shame, since he is still a better comedian than he is a serious artist...