The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 185

Presenting a Good Man At His Worst By Arnold Zeitlin Easy -Going Bern Hoffman, Baltimore Actor, Is a Hit in New York as Villainous McGoon in "Li'l Abner" says Bern. "One afternoon I'll be putting in storm windows. A few hours later I'll be surrounded by glamor along Shu-bert alley in the heart of Broadway." The violent life he has led on stage and screen sometimes catches up with him at home. His son went into near hysterics shouting, "Daddy, the sheriff is going to get you," when he saw "Nocturne," an old film with Hoffman and Raft on television. His daughter takes a more sophisticated slant.

She saw one television show which opened with a marrow-freezing scream and a body crashing through the air. She turned with a smile to assembled friends and relatives and announced proudly: "That's my daddy." Bern was 30 when he started acting professionally after sidetracking careers in medicine and engineering. "I got a theory," he says. "When you work twice for the same guy in show business, you've arrived. I worked for Michael Kidd, the director, in 'Guys and Dolls' and now 'L'il I have arrived." ALTIMORE'S gargantuan Bern Hoffman is easily the nastiest character imaginable behind footlights.

He has traded villainies on the screen with the likes of George Raft. He has been a vicious killer on television and a crude Broadway musclcman in the musical "Guys and Dolls." Now he is at his worst which is really his best) as the earthy Earthquake McGoon shudder in the colorful New York musical "L'il Abner." Bern is bent on busting (sob) up the romance of lovely Daisy Mae (sigh) and ail-American hillbilly L'il Abner. Who could be nastier? "My heart isn't with Earthquake," Bern says apologetically. "I have a theory. Your personality has to fit the role.

As far as personality goes, I'm not the McGoon type. I'm easy going." Despite his personality, his size (usually abetted on stage with a day's growth of beard) has put Hoffman on the wrong side of the law for most of his fourteen years as film, stage and television actor. ERN, 43, is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs a solid 285 pounds, dimensions which once helped him win interscholastic wrestling honors and a place on the all-Maryland football team while he attended Loyola College. He was a six-letter man at City College. Talkative, almost philosophical, describes Bern, who is the son of Mrs.

Rose Hoffman, 2811 Keyworth avenue. A brother, Sam, lives in Baltimore, and a sister, Mrs. Sarah Music, lives in Washington. Hoffman, his dark hair shaggy for the McGoon role, habitually wraps his bulk in doublebreasted suits. A cigar (four a day) stuck in his face, his half-rimmed glasses on his nose, he looks every inch a sinister "smart-lawyer" type.

rL IARDLY impatient at his bulk, he once walked out on a photographer who posed him with a stretched neck to hide a double chin. He walked irito another photographer's studio and ordered its proprietor to "Stand me against a wall, shoot a picture and let it go at that." Offstage, Bern is a dedicated, domestic soul. He and his fam-" ily live in a suburban six-room home on Long Island. He has a trimmed backyard, complete with barbecue pit. He worries about commuting through traffic and makes his own plumbing and electrical repairs.

He builds furniture for a hobby. When he and his wife get a free evening, they are apt to visit his mother-in-law six blocks away. Bern and his wife, Diana, celebrated their twelfth wedding anniversary January 1. Their children are Lois, 10, and Kenneth, 4. "I live in separate worlds," 1'.

nr. ERN started working at 9 carrying Sunpapers. cleaned up the night Coolidge was elected. I was selling papers a quarter He was raised in the on Page 30 1 (RED -rAl 111 Ml 1 ink an I ff Iff 501 Earthquake McGoon in the New York musical "L'il Abner." is played by former Baltimorean Bern Hoffman. His large build and football background at Loyola College suit him for the role.

In group he is with Mammy and Pappy Yokum. L'il Abner, Daisy Mae..