Noteworthy Pearlmans

The most famous, I think, must be Itzhak Perlman, who is the earth's most versatile and distinguished violinist -- and is also father of five next-generation members of the musical tribe. Almost as widely known but perhaps not so spectacularly talented, is Rhea Perlman, better known as Carla Tortelli, mother to many. The most brilliant of the clan, and certainly the most eccentric, is Grigori Yakovlevich ("Grisha") Perelman, the mathematician who solved Poincare's conjecture and then refused both the Fields Medal (the Nobel Prize of mathematics) and the $1 million Clay Millennium Prize. Grisha demonstrated what most of us simply take for granted: that any closed three-dimensional manifold where any loop can be contracted to a point is really just a three-dimensional sphere. There's also Ron Perelman, a consummate and ruthless corporate raider, once the richest man in America, now, alas,  fallen to 18th -- nor any longer contracted to nonce-wife #4, Ellen Barkin. The most amusing of all Pearlmans is surely Brooklynite S. J. Perelman, screenwriter of two great Marx Brothers vehicles -- Horse Feathers and Monkey Business. The most reprehensible of the cousinhood is certainly Lou Pearlman, accomplished Ponzi-artist and the mogul behind the bubble-gummy Backstreet Boys, whom he used and possibly sexually abused to the tune of $300 million -- and who is now serving a 25-year term in federal prison. Infinitely more respectable is the composer and conductor Martin Pearlman, who learned his trade at Cornell and who is a harpsichordist as well as the founder of the Boston Baroque. Nor should any Pearlman census overlook Ron Perlman, aka Amoukar the Ulam, who many years ago quested for fire. Nor sportwriter Jeff Pearlman, pitcher Jon Perlman, writer Edith Pearlman, film critic Cindy Pearlman; nor the great rhetorician of a prior generation, Chaim Pearlman.

And also: standing at the top of the heap in the world of fiction is The Wire's incorruptible Maryland Assistant State Attorney, Rhonda Pearlman.

Comments

[J. Non-Pearlman]

Don't forget Adam Pearlman, a.k.a. "Adam Yahiye Gadahn" and "Azzam the American." Might beat out Lou in the reprehensible category.