Geniuses are socially inept?

I wonder if the three most interesting people I may have met in my thirteen years in Bucharest were three actors I met by chance acting in a Steven Seagal film ( he is different from Stephen Spielberg) and staying in the Hilton. They delighted me. They did everything my mother told me one shouldn't do. They showed off like peacocks, poured out words and were funny and profound. Actors I saw have to be acute observers of human beings and therefore human nature.

We had dinner every night for a week. 

I just came across in my diary something one of them said to me:
‎"I've known three people I've considered geniuses, including Berkoff, and all three were completely socially inept."

I find this very reassuring but of course almost all socially inept people are not geniuses. Not even close. I am put in mind of the lines from a Peter Cook  and Dudley Moore  film which in my late 20s were my favourite joke.

Dud: You are a loony.
Pete: They called Galileo a loony.
Dud: Yeh and they also called a lot of loonies loonies.

One of the actors suddenly announced one evening, in a magnificent voice: 'The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. But that's the way to bet.' Pressed he thought it might be Damon Runyon and it sounds like Runyon.

I told him I envied him being an actor and he replied 'Well, it can be a very precarious life.' 'That's why I envy you.' 'YES!' he cried. 


Actresses someone said happen in the best regulated families. I would be very pleased if a son or daughter of mine went on the stage. Less risky than accountancy or law.