Blame and Fame

Let's sort of like blame dad for our fortune.

It's a frequent theme in books and now part of the marketing for Martha Frankel's memoir of how she became a poker junkie, Hats & Eyeglasses: A Family Love Affair With Gambling." He shared gambling secrets when she was 4, is at the track and dad's poker games as a good luck talisman by age 10 and rebels against life when she is 15 and he dies.

It is much rarer to castigate the father for success in the movies, but that is what Daniel Day-Lewis offers in the run-up to his likely acceptance of an Oscar for "There Will Be Blood," an on-screen family drama. His famous poet dad, Cecil Day-Lewis, held him back. Uh-huh?

It's an unlikely whinge — dad the damned success..

** Good or bad, it's never easy to be a dad. **