Word: skillful
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Correcting Nature. Author Hesketh Pearson has proved his skill as an anecdotal biographer before this, e.g., in G.B.S., Disraeli, Dickens, Oscar Wilde. In The Man, Whistler, he does a similarly deft job on an expatriate Yankee who was not only the most uncrushable wit of his day but an artist who believed he existed to correct and perfect Nature itself...
...chose doers, despising the contemplative and the idealistic-the kind who in other nations joined the party in the credulous '30s. Stalin was an administrative genius-with the advantage of being able to concede his errors and bury his mistakes. It took skill to pick devoted men, to enlist their talents while subduing their ambitions, to reward or discard, flatter or blackmail, soothe or scourge, at the necessary moment. Stalin governed by a cunning balancing of tensions, and was himself aloof and unhurried...
Although Beck showed little of his rebounding skill, his remarkable, rapid passing set up more than enough points to offset the lack. While a crowd of his townsmen from nearby Fairhaven cheered him on, Penn's Bar Leach scored 13 points...
Says Eugene Segal, part-time correspondent in Cleveland: "A reporter's illusion that he is a pro, doing a kind of work that requires long practice and highly specialized skill, is deflated when his wife fills in for him during his busy periods. Mine was a chemist and nutritionist. Now she raises children, runs a big household, designs clothes, manages money like a corporation comptroller, and organizes recreational activities at a junior high school ... I keep finding out that there's no end to that woman's resourcefulness when I call on her to serve...
When Miss Davis scornfully berates her predatory relatives or falteringly comforts her daughter, the picture is carried along by her skill. To watch her clerking in a department store or collapsing at a filming is not sympathetic however, only ludicrous. Her problems seem unimportant because Margaret is never abandoned or alone. Vacuous Sterling Hayden is always standing by, ready to accept her debts, her neuroses, and her teen-age daughter. When Margaret finally makes the obvious choice between a healthy suitor and a sickly career, it is not because she has grown or gained insight during the picture. Rather...