Irving Berlin, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, grew up in a tenement in New York. He was poor, but he just never knew it. In ”Irving Berlin and Ragtime America” (Limelight), Ian Whitcomb quotes the great American songwriter: ”You know, you never miss luxury until you`ve had it. I never felt poverty because I`d never known anything else. I was a boy with poor parents, but . . . I didn`t starve; I wasn`t cold or hungry. There was always bread and butter and hot tea. I slept better in that tenement house than I do right now in my nice bed in Beekman Place.”
Tom Hanks seems like such a nice guy, but he`s got his darker edges. In the March issue of Playboy, he says his character in the movie ”Punchline”
came close to that dark side. ”He is extremely competitive. He is unable to balance his daily existence so that real life and what he does for a living have an equal weight. I`ve certainly had those problems; I think any actor has. The only time you really feel alive is when you`re working. I think that`s what really drives actors absolutely stark raving mad and why they develop ulcers and drug problems.”
When people say, ”They don`t make `em like they used to,” they couldn`t be talking about ”The Beverly Hillbillies,” could they? In the early `60s it was consistently the No. 1 show. Why? In ”The Beverly Hillbillies”
(Contemporary Books), Stephen Cox tries to find an answer. The show didn`t win critical acclaim. In fact, to reviewers, the show was ”despicable.” But, says Cox, no one could stop it. The show led to a boom in plaid shirts and overalls and wound up with eight entries among the all-time top-rated individual episodes, more than for any other show. Some things are simply beyond reason.
