A relative success
At the 1931 Hollywood premiere of "City Lights," fans cheered Charlie Chaplin as he strolled the red carpet next to Albert Einstein . The German-born physicist already rivaled Chaplin as an international celebrity, and Chaplin knew it. As recounted in Walter Isaacson's massive new biography, "Einstein: His Life and Universe," Chaplin turned to his friend and said, "They cheer me because they all understand me, and they cheer you because no one understands you."
If seldom fully understood by the lay public, Einstein, who had a deep love-hate relationship with celebrity, found himself easily (and avidly) assimilated into pop culture as his fame spread, popping up in novels, movies, plays (including "Einstein's Dreams," now at MIT), even opera ("Einstein on the Beach" ). Sometimes appearing as himself, sometimes as the stereotypical scientist-professor sporting a white lab coat and hair that defied gravity, Einstein grew to be a cultural icon on par with Elvis, Marilyn, Marlon, and Joltin' Joe.
These baby Einsteins could be mad as hatters (think Peter Sellers in "Dr. Strangelove") or absent-minded (Jerry Lewis in "The Nutty Professor"), antic (Christopher Lloyd in "Back to the Fu ture") or manic (Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein"). Yet all owed a substantial debt to the man who formulated the theory of relativity and was named "Person of the Century" by Time magazine in 1999.
Actors who've played Einstein as Einstein include Robert Downey Jr. (in "That's Adequate" ), Elliott Gould ("Mentors" ), and Ben Kingsley (in an untitled film due out next year, costarring Danny Glover as Paul Robeson ). As an endearing portrait of the aging physicist in his Princeton University years, however, Walter Matthau's performance in the 1994 romantic comedy "I.Q." stands tall in time and space.
Matthau, in one of his last major screen roles, plays Einstein as a scheming uncle aiming to fix up his brainy niece (Meg Ryan ) with a car mechanic (Tim Robbins ) who may not know quantum physics but exudes passion, taking Einstein for a spin on his motorcycle in one of the film's most charming scenes. "I.Q." is hardly perfect, but Matthau is perfectly cast. Better suited to the role, perhaps, than Ludwig Stossel , the actor who played Einstein in the 1947 MGM docudrama "The Beginning or the End," about the making of the atomic bomb. Einstein went on to vigorously oppose the nuclear arms race, while Stossel became best known for starring in Swiss Colony wine ads as "that little old winemaker, me."
JOSEPH P. KAHN
