The dog-droopy eyes, spray of grey hair and rumpled suits may not have set many hearts aflutter, but nowadays Albert Einstein's image is guarded as jealously as that of the hottest Hollywood celebrity. From entertainment moguls to educational innovators, anyone wanting to use a picture of the 20th century's most celebrated scientist must get permission from the Israeli university he helped found and which owns all the rights to his legacy.
"We have one objective -- perpetuating Einstein's memory with the proper dignity," said Professor Hanoch Gutfreund, a former president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who oversees a 55,000-item archive and trust willed by the German-born physicist.
With the world marking 100 years since Einstein published three seminal research papers -- including his theory of special relativity -- and changed scientific thinking about the universe forever, the campus expects a deluge of commercial applications to reproduce his by now iconic image.
Approval can prove pricey. According to media reports, director Steven Spielberg paid the university $600,000 to create an Einstein holograph for his 2001 science-fiction film "A.I".
Gutfreund estimated the trust had earned $10 million for campus causes over the past 15 years, but said posterity, not royalties, was the main criterion in assessing each request.
A bid by racy pop-diva Madonna to incorporate Einstein's image in one of her concert performances failed.
"It was just inappropriate," Gutfreund said without elaborating.
When the US Defence Department asked to use an Einstein portrait for a military project, the university turned it down citing the scientist's advocacy of conflict resolution, nuclear arms controls and human rights.
This range of passions, Gutfreund said, accounts for the wide interest Einstein inspires 50 years after his death.
"In many ways, he symbolised how many of us remember the 20th century -- the whirlwind scientific advances, the intense social and political activism," Gufreund said.
A Zionist, Einstein spoke at the founding of the Hebrew University in 1923 and served on its first board of governors.
It was quite a leap for a genius who had muddled through the Polytechnic School in Zurich and, failing to find a job in a university, worked for the Swiss Patent Office and spent his spare time working on theoretical physics problems.
In 1905, at the age of just 26, Einstein published landmark papers on Brownian motion, special relativity and the photoelectric effect. His latter work earned him a Nobel Prize in 1921.
"Einstein was something of an overnight success, which could also go a long way to explaining his appeal. Everyone likes that sort of 'star is born' story," Gutfreund said.
In 1933 he escaped the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany by accepting a position at Princeton University in the United States, where he spent the rest of his life.
"We remember (him) now mainly as an older man, the benign and unkempt sage on a poster and T-shirt," said Martin Rees, a cosmology and astrophysics professor at Cambridge University.
"That's surprising because his great work was well over by the time he was 40."
Despite Einstein's support for Israel, he turned down an offer to take the ceremonial presidency in 1952, saying he felt he was too old and lacked the aptitude and experience to deal with people and carry out official duties.
The Hebrew University archive is open, by special arrangement, to visitors who want to leaf through Einstein's research notes and letters. Much of the material is available for viewing at the Web site www.albert-einstein.org.