Everything your mother never told you about what`s really important about where you work is in ”The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America” (New American Library). In it you`ll learn that Leo Burnett gives you $3,000 adoption aid, Apple pops for a home computer, the Reader`s Digest lets you take Fridays off in May, Time Inc. pays for your taxi home when you work late and Hewlett-Packard gives the best employee parties. And your mother was wrong when she said there`s no such thing as a free lunch; Northwestern Mutual Life serves it.
Did you ever wonder where Alfred Hitchcock got the idea for all those wonderful chases? From British director Michael Powell, that`s where. In his autobiography, ”A Life in Movies” (Alfred A. Knopf), Powell tells about their collaboration on the screenplay of ”Blackmail.” Powell suggested that they do a chase through ”some bizarre location that is entertaining in itself,” such as the British Museum, which ”Hitch, being a Londoner, had never been near.” But he saw the possibilities, and Powell takes credit for being the inventor of the ”Hitchcock Climax, which led us all on many a delightful dance from Tower Bridge to Mt. Rushmore.”
Old feuds die hard. It`s hard to believe that back in the `50s the rivalry for the title of Pasta Queen between Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren was so intense that news of a ”peace conference” to settle their differences was considered hot stuff. Loren extended the olive-oil branch and said: ”Gina can name the date and time. I hope the arguments about our measurements will end once and for all.” Now, 32 years later, when asked about the long-ago rivalry, Lollobrigida purrs: ”It was never real. I was already an established star. She was just starting out. I had no interest in it.”
REPLAYS
”No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.” –Florida Scott-Maxwell
”Dear Mother: I`m all right. Stop worrying about me.” –A 17-year-old Egyptian girl in a letter she wrote c. 2000 B.C.
”You can choose your friends, but you only have one mother.” –Max Shulman
