I asked him if he would ever write about darker subjects, like his poverty-stricken childhood (the Senator once worked as a janitor), or about controversies in his public career.

The Bush campaign release ridiculed Mr. Dole for telling audiences about his poverty-stricken childhood in Kansas.

Her negative attitudes were the result of a harsh life: a sickly, poverty-stricken childhood, the horrors of the war, the struggle to bring up two children and look after an invalid husband.

In the course of the talk, Barrie recalls his poverty-stricken childhood, his mother whom he revered and other individuals and poignant biographical events that shaped his career.

There has even been some skepticism that Frank McCourt could possibly have recalled all the heartbreaking conversations and excruciating detail of his poverty-stricken Irish childhood in his memoir, "Angela's Ashes" (Scribner).

Bailey chronicled Trick's poverty-stricken childhood, crime-laden adolescence and eventual incarceration for drug trafficking, leading to his redemption and fame against the backdrop of Miami.

Ms. Hutton's electric presence in films like "The Fleet's In" and Preston Sturges's "Miracle of Morgan's Creek" masked emotional problems rooted in a poverty-stricken childhood.

Huseyin Kenan is a sensitive and talented musician who has struggled to overcome the emotional pain of a difficult and poverty-stricken childhood, and the grudging charity of his relatives.

An old vaudeville actor, Benny Lomansky, recalls his poverty-stricken childhood and the gossip around the tenement stoop, reliving the struggles and triumphs of his family and neighbors.

What he's really trying to do with his humor, Mr. Buchwald says, is get even for a dark, poverty-stricken childhood.