FOR YEARS, as a young man, columnist Sydney J. Harris said he could never understand the meaning of the old saw, “Nothing succeeds like success.” He went on to explain, “What it means, of course, is that success carries an impetus of its own, quite apart from the talent involved.”

Harris wrote in a column in 1982:

“There is a story, well attested to, that Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and came in third. Also, that Heifetz, in the days of his fame, played