How PEOPLE Changed These Brothers' Lives

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday August 05, 2002 01:00 AM EDT

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There's no such thing as bad publicity. Just ask brothers Mark and Bruce Becker, who, along with George Clooney, Justin Timberlake and others, were among those named by PEOPLE in its June 24 issue as two of America's top 50 bachelors. According to The New York Times, the brothers, who own and operate a kosher ice cream company in Queens, N.Y., called Max & Mina's on Main Street, the day the issue hit the stands they had about 50 messages on the answering machine at their store. One example: "Hey, this is Susan from Texas. I love ice cream. Give me a call." Then the real wooing began. The Times reports that one mother in Palm Springs, Calif., offered Mark, 28 (and "flirtatious but clearheaded," says PEOPLE), and Bruce, 34 (and in possession of "a really good heart"), two all-expenses-paid trips out West to meet her two daughters. A thong, a poem and a slipper (with a note reading, "Call me if you want the other one") also came in the mail. The boys' mother, Elinor Becker, calls all the attention "something I never dreamed of ... I mean, do you expect your children to be listed among Ben Affleck, and who's that other one? Clooney?" Not that her handsome offspring necessarily needed PEOPLE's help to begin with. "It's not really hard to meet people when you're in ice cream," Mark told The Times. Case in point: Brother Bruce is already seeing someone.

Check out PEOPLE.com's special on Hollywood's Hottest Bachelors 2002.