Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

by Clifton Fadiman

  “A notorious tiepin was once flaunted by Barney Barnato, the cockney ‘card’ who sold the Kimberley tip to Cecil Rhodes for a bucket of the sparklers. After he had retired to Park Lane, this man with a heart of pure diamond became a famous giver of gifts and a well-known wag. Once, when he was bidden out on the town by some friends, the invitation arrived too late for him to go home and dress, so on his way to dinner Mr. Barnato popped into an outfitter on the Charing Cross Road and bought a pair of paste studs and a paste tiepin of splendiferous vulgarity. Over dinner, as the champagne flowed and the Whitstable oysters slipped smoothly down the throats of one and all, the Diamond King’s fellow roisterers were unable to take their eyes off the beacon of light glittering on his shirt front.

  “‘By Jove, that’s a cracker — good old Kimberley!’ one of them finally exclaimed.

  “Barnato waved his Romeo y Julieta expansively. ‘Anyone who wants it — all he has to do is pay for the wine tonight,’ he said.

  “They almost knocked the wine steward over in their rush to pick up the tab; and only when copious Krug for six had been duly paid for did Barnato reveal that the tiepin, together with the studs, had cost him ninepence.”

  — DAVID FROST and MICHAEL DEAKIN,

  David Frost’s Book of Millionaires, Multimillionaires, and Really Rich People

  BERNERS, Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron (1883–1950), British musician and artist.

  1 “One of his acquaintances was in the impertinent habit of saying to him, ‘I have been sticking up for you.’ He repeated this once too often, and Lord Berners replied, ‘Yes, and I have been sticking up for you. Someone said you aren’t fit to live with pigs, and I said that you are.’”

  2 “A pompous woman of his acquaintance, complaining that the head waiter of a restaurant had not shown her and her husband immediately to a table, said, ‘We had to tell him who we were.’ Gerald, interested, inquired, ‘And who were you?’”

  3 Lord Berners was lunching with guests one day when his butler came in with a large placard. “The gentleman outside says would you be good enough to sign this, my lord,” he said. Lord Berners read the message on the placard, “An appeal to God that we may have Peace in our Time,” and shook his head. “It wouldn’t be any use,” he replied. “He won’t know who I am — probably has never heard of me.”

  4 (Ballet dancer Robert Helpmann had been invited to take tea with the eccentric Lord Berners.)

  “Helpmann was shown into the drawing room of the peer’s mansion near Oxford and found him with an elegant silver tea service and a horse. Lord Berners greeted Helpmann, asked whether he took cream and sugar, and fed buttered scones to the horse. No explanation was offered, and after the animal had been told it had eaten enough, it was led out through the french window. Much later, Helpmann asked about the horse’s presence.

  “‘I’m very nervous,’ Lord Berners explained. ‘When people see the horse, they become as nervous as I am, so that after a while I get over it. Then we can have a normal conversation.’”

  5 At his estate in England, where he kept white doves dyed many colors, Lord Berners built them a tower and posted the following sign on its door: “Members of the Public Committing Suicide From This Tower Do So At Their Own Risk.”

  BERNHARDT, Sarah (1844–1923), French actress, famous for her interpretation of great tragic roles, her beautiful voice, and her striking personality.

  1 Bernhardt’s debut in the title role of Racine’s Iphigénie was unimpressive. The scrawny figure of the seventeen-year-old girl was not flattered by the classical Greek dress that she wore, and at the beginning she was plainly suffering from stagefright. At one point in the drama Iphigénie stretches out her arms imploringly to Achilles. As she did this a voice from the balcony called out, “Careful, monsieur, or you’ll impale yourself on her toothpicks!”

  2 When Bernhardt was twenty-two, she persuaded Félix Duquesnel, the owner of the Odéon, to give her a contract. His partner, Charles-Marie de Chilly, demurred, as he had no wish to gamble on the continuing success of a young actress who already had a reputation for a difficult temperament. “If I were alone in this, I wouldn’t give you a contract,” he told Sarah. “If you were alone in this, monsieur, I wouldn’t sign,” was the retort.

  3 Sarah Bernhardt was playing Cleopatra in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (one of her most celebrated emotional roles) to a packed theater in Victorian London. She stabbed the messenger who brought her the news of Antony’s marriage to Octavia, stormed hysterically, smashed some of the props, and finally, as the curtain fell, flung herself to the floor in a fury of despair. As the rapturous applause died away, a lady’s voice was heard to remark, “How different, how very different, from the home life of our own dear queen!”

  4 A friend, watching Bernhardt making up for the part of Cleopatra, was intrigued to see her painting the palms of her hands a terracotta red. “No one in the audience will possibly see that,” objected the friend. “Maybe not,” replied the actress, “but if I catch sight of my hands, then they will be the hands of Cleopatra.”

  5 The actress Madge Kendal, though an admirer, once complained that Bernhardt always acted in roles requiring such displays of passion that Mrs. Kendal felt she could not take her daughter to see her. Bernhardt replied, “But, madame, you should remember that were it not for passion, you would have no daughter to bring.”

  6 Clergymen across the United States, in fact, denounced Sarah Bernhardt from their pulpits as the “whore of Babylon,” thereby ensuring massive attendance at her performances. The Episcopalian bishop of Chicago having delivered a particularly effective piece of publicity, Bernhardt arranged for her agent to send him a note and a bank draft. “Your Excellency,” the note read, “I am accustomed, when I bring an attraction to your town, to spend $400 on advertising. As you have done half the advertising for me, I herewith enclose $200 for your parish.”

  7 It was such common knowledge that Sarah Bernhardt, celebrated for her almost skeletal thinness, was given to wild exaggeration that Dumas fils was driven to comment, “You know, she’s such a liar, she may even be fat!”

  8 In 1915, as the result of an accident while Sarah Bernhardt was playing the title role in Victorien Sardou’s drama La Tosca, one of her legs had to be amputated. While she was convalescing, the manager of the Pan-American Exposition at San Francisco asked permission to exhibit her leg, offering a fee of $100,000. Sarah cabled two words in reply: “Which leg?”

  9 An admirer of a certain young English performer was discussing her acting with Sarah Bernhardt, who was not at all convinced of the young woman’s talent. “But surely,” said the man, “you will at least admit that she has some wonderful moments.”

  “Maybe, but also some terrible half-hours,” countered Sarah.

  10 Sarah Bernhardt was so idolized by her colleagues in the Paris theater that the callboy would notify her of the first-act curtain with the words: “Madame, it will be eight o’clock when it suits you.”

  11 Shortly after World War I, Lucien Guitry was asked to play opposite Bernhardt in a charity performance. The great actress was by now in her seventies, her former beauty had vanished, and she walked on a wooden leg. The magical quality of her voice, however, and her ability to deliver even the most ordinary lines with emotion still shone through. At the first rehearsal of the scene, Bernhardt read to the end of her first long speech and waited for Guitry’s reply. Hearing no response, she looked up from her script to find him overcome, tears running down his cheeks.

  12 In her later years, Sarah Bernhardt lived high up in a Paris apartment block. An old admirer arrived at her door one day, gasping for breath after the long climb. When he had recovered his strength a little, he inquired, “Madame, why do you live so high up?” “My dear friend,” replied the actress, “it is the only way I can still make the hearts of men beat faster.”

  BERNOULLI, Jacques (1654–1705), Swiss mathematician.

  1 “[Bernoulli] had a mystical strain which… cr
opped out once in an interesting way toward the end of his life. There is a certain spiral (the logarithmic or equiangular) which is reproduced in a similar spiral after each of many geometrical transformations. [Bernoulli] was fascinated by this recurrence of the spiral, several of whose properties he discovered, and directed that a spiral be engraved on his tombstone with the inscription Eadem mutata resurgo (Though changed I shall arise the same).”

  BERNSTEIN, Henri (1876–1953), French dramatist.

  1 Shortly before his death Bernstein visited Hollywood. He was unimpressed. “Genius and geniuses every way I turn!” he lamented. “If only there were some talent!”

  BERNSTEIN, Leonard (1918–1990), US conductor, composer, and pianist.

  1 Bernstein’s father was criticized for not having given his talented son more encouragement when he was a child. “How was I to know he would grow up to be Leonard Bernstein?” he protested.

  2 Arriving at an airport one day, Bernstein was asked by a photographer if he would mind posing for a picture astride a motorcycle. Bernstein objected. “I don’t ride a motorcycle,” he said. “It would be phony.” The photographer tried to persuade him. He showed him the controls, explaining briefly how to operate them. “I’m sure you could ride it if you tried,” he said encouragingly. Bernstein climbed onto the machine and, to the horror of his colleagues, shot off at top speed across the airfield. After a few other maneuvers he returned, grinning broadly. “Now you can take your picture,” he announced. “I’m a motorcycle rider.”

  3 At an opera rehearsal that featured an especially difficult singer, Bernstein finally lost his temper. “I know it’s the historical prerogative of the tenor to be stupid,” he shouted, “but you, sir, have abused the privilege.”

  4 Talking with his fellow composer Ned Rorem one day, Bernstein said, “The trouble with you and me is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that’s impossible. You just don’t meet everyone in the world.”

  “The perils of irony were never better illustrated than in the following example: Lord Justice Bowen, when acting as a Puisne Judge, had before him a burglar who, having entered a house by the top story, was captured below stairs in act of sampling the silver. The defence was more ingenuous than ingenious. The accused was alleged to be a person of eccentric habits, much addicted to perambulating on the roofs of adjacent houses, and occasionally dropping in ‘permiscuous’ through an open skylight. This naturally stirred the judge to caustic comment. Summing up, he is reported to have said:

  “‘If, gentlemen, you think it likely that the prisoner was merely indulging in an amiable fancy for midnight exercise on his neighbour’s roof; if you think it was kindly consideration for that neighbour that led him to take off his boots and leave them behind him before descending into the house; and if you believe that it was the innocent curiosity of the connoisseur which brought him to the silver pantry and caused him to borrow the teapot, then, gentlemen, you will acquit the prisoner!’

  “To Lord Bowen’s dismay, the jury did instantly acquit the prisoner.”

  — DANIEL GEORGE,

  A Book of Anecdotes

  BERNSTEIN, Robert (1923–), US book publisher.

  1 As a quite young man, Robert Bernstein had a job at New York’s radio station WNEW. Albert Leventhal, head of sales of the publishing house of Simon and Schuster, liked the looks of the tall, red-headed, engaging Bernstein and enticed him into publishing. Bernstein turned out to be a phenomenon of energy. Once Leventhal, happening to enter the office at the early hour of 7:30 AM, found his protégé already busy at work. Bernstein looked up at his boss and said: “I’m ambitious. What’s your excuse for being here at this unearthly hour?”

  BERRA, Lawrence [“Yogi”] (1925–), US baseball player who is most famous for his verbal confusions.

  1 His minor-league batting coach once told Berra to concentrate better on the pitches he was facing. But doing so led to more strikeouts for Berra, who, after one disastrous inning during which he struck out in three swings, said, “You can’t think and hit at the same time.”

  2 Taken to a famous restaurant of which he had never heard, Yogi looked around the packed place and observed, “No wonder nobody comes here — it’s too crowded.”

  3 Yogi Berra read only the sports pages, so he was clearly at a loss when introduced to novelist Ernest Hemingway in a restaurant. Someone asked Berra if he had ever heard of the famous author. “I don’t think so,” Berra admitted. “What paper does he write for?”

  4 On “Yogi Berra Day” in St. Louis, his home town, Berra opened his acceptance speech by saying, “I want to thank all the people who made this night necessary.”

  5 Berra once received a $25 check for a radio interview with sportscaster Jack Buck. Berra glanced at the check, which was made out to “Bearer,” and promptly complained: “How the hell long have you known me, Jack? How could you spell my name like that?”

  6 Having ordered a pizza, Berra was asked whether he would like it cut into four or eight pieces. “Better make it four,” said Yogi. “I don’t think I can eat eight.”

  7 Said to have gotten his nickname because he sat cross-legged like a yogi from India — or so said his boyhood chums, after seeing a movie set in that country — Berra was once told by New York mayor John Lindsay that he looked cool in his new summer suit. “Thanks,” replied Berra, “you don’t look so hot yourself.”

  8 It is said that when he emerged from the movie theater after seeing Dr. Zhivago and was asked his opinion of the film, he replied, “It sure was cold in Russia in those days.”

  9 Another Dr. Zhivago story has Berra coming home early after a game had been rained out and asking his wife where she had been that afternoon. Told she had taken their son to see Dr. Zhivago, Berra reportedly asked, “What the hell’s wrong with him now?”

  10 One day Berra participated in an interview with Bryant Gumbel, during which he was asked to do some free association: Gumbel would mention some names, and Berra would say the first thing that he thought of in response. After going over the format a few times, they were ready to begin. Gumbel said, “Mickey Mantle.” “What about him?’ responded Berra.

  11 He loved to read comic books in the dugout, a habit that made him the target of much teasing. But Berra had a good rejoinder to his teammates: “If that’s so silly, how come every time I put one down, somebody else picks it up?”

  12 When Phil Rizzuto complimented him on his beautiful new house in Montclair, New Jersey, Berra demurred: “It’s nothing but rooms.”

  13 In the early 1980s Berra was a coach with the Houston Astros. When he got into a hot tub after a game, he yelped. A trainer asked if the water was too hot. “I don’t know,” said Berra. “How hot is it supposed to be?”

  14 When he was first named manager of the New York Yankees in 1964, someone asked him if he really felt qualified to do the job. “You observe a lot by watching” was his response.

  15 Berra once arrived ten minutes late for a meeting with Joe Garagiola, a lapse that left Garagiola unhappy. After being rebuked, Berra pleaded, “But this is the earliest I’ve ever been late!”

  16 Driving with his wife to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, Berra realized that they were not only very late but hopelessly lost. When his wife complained, Yogi told her, “That’s all right. We’re making good time, though.”

  17 Commenting on a season when baseball teams were not drawing the attendance they hoped for, Berra said to baseball commissioner Bud Selig, “If the people don’t want to come out to the park, how are you gonna stop them?”

  18 Berra’s malapropisms and verbal stumblings have become legend, of course. He is now more famous for his stumbles in interviews than for his prowess on the baseball diamond. In response to those who made fun of his gaffes, he once said, “I really didn’t say everything I said.”

  BETTY, William Henry West (1791–1874), British actor.

  1 After Betty’s triumph, the English stage was be
set by a multitude of juvenile imitators. Dorothea Jordan, the actress who was mistress of the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), surveying the throng of would-be Bettys, exclaimed, “Oh, for the days of King Herod!”

  BEUNO, Saint (d. c. 640), abbot of Clynnog (North Wales).

  1 When the chapel in which the saint’s bones were believed to be interred was being renovated, it was necessary to open the tomb itself. This offered an opportunity to discover more about the relics. An anthropologist was called in to inspect the skeleton. He pointed out that its pelvis contained the bones of a fetus. The man in charge of the renovation was unsurprised. “Saint Beuno was a very remarkable man,” he observed.

  BIALIK, Chaim Nachman (1873–1934), Jewish poet, born in the Ukraine.

  1 (A few days before Bialik’s death, the newspapers were full of speculation that he would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.)

  “When the prize was awarded to another writer, Bialik was asked for his reaction. ‘I’m very glad I didn’t win the prize,’ he said. ‘Now everybody’s my friend and feels sorry for me. My, my how angry they are on my behalf! “Now isn’t that a scandal,” they say. “Imagine such a thing — Bialik, the great poet Bialik, doesn’t get the Nobel Prize! And — tsk! tsk! — just look who they gave it to! To X, that so-and-so! Why, he can’t even hold a candle to Bialik!”

  “‘On the other hand, what if I had been awarded the Nobel Prize? Then, I’m sure, some of the very same people who are now so indignant on my account would have said, “Nu, nu, what’s so wonderful about getting the Nobel Prize? Why, even that poet Bialik got one!”’”

  BING, Sir Rudolf (1902–97), Austrian-born opera administrator best known for his years as general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera.