Jew Eat Yet?

Who Am I, Anyway?

This photo was taken during a family trip to Israel in the early 1970s. I was slightly younger than my daughter is now. The photo is interesting to me for a number of reasons. First, I remember that maroon shirt with the outside yellow stitching like I had it on this morning. I can remember exactly how it felt against my skin. I also remember those shorts. (Or should I call them hot pants? Oy.) I cut them down myself from some old worn out bell bottoms I had. I’m surprised my mother let me pack those for a trip to the Holy Land but I’m sure I wore them every day. I see my dearly departed long hair for which I also have a strong sense memory, like those war veterans who can still feel pain in a leg that was amputated years earlier. But I’m most interested in my expression, my seemingly happy, carefree demeanor. And the fact that while I vividly remember the shirt, the shorts, the hair, even the rings on my fingers, I don’t feel the slightest bond of recognition with that kid in the picture.

My grandparents had ferreted us away to Israel that summer over three decades ago to get away from an ugly situation at home. My parents were already divorced but had attempted a reconciliation that was a disaster. Now they were at each other’s throats and could not be in the same room without a scene. It would take years for the healing in our family to begin. We were living with our dad and that created even more drama and angst. As I’ve written before, my parents did come back together in the end, and were very close when my mom died ten years ago. My father spoke at her funeral. 

But I’m fascinated by these 1973 snapshots from a Jerusalem hotel room because they were taken during the time when I believe I was completely checked out. My emotional Ground Zero. Something keeps bringing me back to those years. No matter what I write about, I always seem to circle back to the early 70s. I’ve been thinking a lot this week about memory. My recollections of that time are real to me, but I’m learning that memories are fluid, always changing. What I remember of myself as a kid is colored by my perception of my inner life, which often diverges from the factual reality of my outer experience.

In the past few days, I’ve reconnected with a bunch of people from my past through that ubiquitous online networking tool called Facebook. I first joined Facebook last year to monitor my daughter’s online activities. I didn’t really get it and couldn’t understand why anyone would spend time there making so-called “friends” and communicating in such a staccato fashion. But now I love it. I was trying to explain Facebook to my dad yesterday and it wasn’t easy. Totally different from a blog, a tool that helps you get a quick overview of people from wildly different parts of your life. The entry points on Facebook are very flexible. You can be a part of a community that you simply observe from afar, you can drop in quick comments about something very specific, or you can communicate with people in a very in-depth way. The beauty of Facebook is that there’s no pressure to respond. It’s not like an email or phone call where you feel some sense of obligation (or guilt) to reply.

Have you noticed that Facebook has reached some kind of tipping point lately? Suddenly everyone I ever knew seems to be joining and furiously linking to each other, including people I haven’t spoken to in 30 to 40 years. This week it was my old friends from Peterson School in Chicago, a place where I spent much of my time between the years of 1964 to 1972. A bunch of my classmates went on to Von Steuben High School with me but in some cases I have less memories of those years than I do of that earlier time at Peterson. Several years ago I wrote about Peterson School and included some of my old class photos. Here’s another one I found and just uploaded to Facebook: 

This was my first grade class in the 1965-66 school year. Can you spot me? I’m third from the right in the first row, looking a bit shell shocked in my suit. You wouldn’t believe how many of the kids in this photo I suddenly find myself “friends” with on Facebook. It’s fascinating to me to resume conversations with people I last spoke to when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. There’s a strange kind of healing that takes place when I talk to some of these folks—like the one that occurred between my parents years after their ugly divorce.

Barbara Wittert, the cute-as-a-button girl on the far left in the first row now lives in London with her husband. She joined Facebook a week ago and is making friends as fast as she did at Peterson School. Behind her to the right is William Tong, whose family owned Tong’s Tea Garden, our neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Bill has been posting many photos of the old days on his Facebook page. In addition to being a geologist for the EPA, he is in three bands and is a natural born archivist. The blond girl sitting down in front of me is Hilary Kaye. Her family moved away after grammar school and we completely lost touch. It was great to reconnect this week after so many years. She works at a college in Illinois, has three children, and teaches people how to play the mountain dulcimer. Who knew?

The year after the above photo was taken, Hilary and I were part of what she now calls a “social experiment.” Instead of going on to third grade, we were moved from second into fourth. That is a big jump at that age. I was already one of the youngest kids in my class so the switch made me almost two years younger than my new classmates. I was fascinated to hear Hilary’s thoughts today on the subject—that, like me, she now questions the wisdom of such a move. And the reasons for it. Looking at the class picture, I know it wasn’t because we were “smarter” than the other kids and we certainly weren’t more mature. I asked my father if he remembers having any misgivings about that decision and he said they talked about it, but immediately decided that it was better to be way younger than the other kids than to be bored in school. Bored? I don’t think I would have been. I don’t remember feeling at all upset that I’d be leaving my friends from that grade. It took a few years for the complete social paralysis caused by being so much younger than everyone else to set in.

Here I am with my seventh grade class. This was the first year that Peterson School had color photos and I wrote on the back of the print: “This picture cost $2.00—outrageous!!” Notice what a shrimp I am in the photo. I’m the geek on the far left of the first row wearing a double-breasted brown suit with dark brown piping. Standing next to me is Steve Wagner, one of the coolest kids at Peterson School, looking like he just finished rehearsals for “Godspell.” I’ve recently been in touch with 13 of these kids, even though I have very few memories of speaking to any of them when I was actually their classmate.

Here’s my point: I am consistently shocked by the memories these people have of me from back then. When I look back at those years, I think of a sad, quiet boy. One who had few friends, was a real loner, and just didn’t want to be noticed. That’s my current version of my childhood. But here are a few of the comments I’ve received recently: “Remember all the phony phone calls we constantly made?” “I thought you and your siblings were such cool kids.” “Remember when you would imitate the teachers and make fun of them in front of the class?” “I loved those great parties you had at your house.” “You were such a happy, outgoing kid.” “Remember the time you came to school and pretended you were Bob Fosse?” Huh? Who are they talking about? That can’t possibly be me. Bob Fosse? Seriously?

Taking a new look at those photos I realize how skewed so many of my memories are. But are my perceptions less “true” than the ones others have of me? Not necessarily. Some people I know don’t understand why anyone would want to connect with people from the past via Facebook or any other medium. These are the people who have no interest in looking back. They would never attend a class reunion, they throw out old letters and photos without a moment’s hesitation, and they are very turned off by personal blogs. They accuse people like me of living in the past. There may be unhealthy elements to my obsession with the past, I admit it. But I also believe that revisiting those fluctuating biorhythms of memory can truly help me understand who I am today.

Oscars 2009: My Personal Best!

Woo-hoo, I can’t believe it—after acknowledging how bad I am at predicting Oscar winners, I hit it out of the ballpark this year and guessed right on all four acting awards (even Penelope Cruz!) as well as Best Picture and Best Director. I also nailed both of the writing awards and the best animated feature. The only category I missed was the one I was the most sure about. I was truly shocked that Israel’s “Waltz With Bashir” didn’t win. The Japanese film that did was the only one of that bunch I didn’t see. I’d like to accuse the Academy of anti-Semitism but I can’t. My friend was on the Foreign Film nominating committee and I went with her to many of the screenings which were so full of middle-aged Jews I felt like I was at my grandfather’s synagogue.

This was one of the best Oscar shows in memory, in my opinion, especially compared to last year’s drudgery. I was very skeptical about all the hoo-ha the Academy was making about keeping the presenters a secret and how they were going to shake things up this year. I couldn’t imagine any scenario where this would pay off but they found it—at least for the acting awards. I LOVED having former winners from each category introduce the nominees individually before presenting the award. That was a stroke of genius. It created, in most cases, real emotion, appropriate acknowledgement of the nature of the Academy and the voting by these folks’ professional peers, and a moving tie-in to the Oscars’ gloried past. My only complaint is that they should’ve asked more of the old-timers to come out in these segments. Kendall wanted either Olivia de Havilland or her sister Joan Fontaine to be one of the Best Actress presenters since they are among the very small group of women left who won back in the old days. (Who else is there? Is Luise Rainer still alive? Jennifer Jones? I would have also liked to see Patricia Neal or Joanne Woodward.) In any event, it was a brilliant move. I wonder if it’s something they'll try again next year. They’ll run out of living actors very soon so they’ll have to think of something else.

Let’s face it—a truly ghastly show is way more fun to talk about and, believe me, I was at no loss for words in 2005, 2006, 2007, or 2008. Since I actually enjoyed this year’s telecast, I find I have much less to say. But here are some brief (for me) comments on the evening.

The Big Opening. I can’t imagine how nerve-wracking it must have been to do such a complicated musical number involving so many people and so many set changes live in front of millions of people. I have to give Hugh Jackman and everyone involved a lot of credit for pulling this off. The hand-made set conceit (because of the recession) was sorta funny even though the curtain the Academy had made to frame the arch of the Kodak Theatre featuring over 100,000 Swarovski crystals flown in from Austria was hardly a nod to tough economic times. But I’m glad they didn’t go overboard with the recession talk, I don’t think it was mentioned again after the opening bit and despite rumors that some of the glamour would be toned down this year, it did not look like the Academy members were shopping at Ross Dress for Less. Only someone with Hugh Jackman’s natural charm could pull off the line in the song about “swimming in a sea of excrement” as he lovingly looked into Kate Winslet’s eyes. My least favorite section in the number was the German techno-pop bit for “The Reader,” especially since the main point was to stress that Jackman hadn’t seen the film. On the other hand, what were they going to do—make fun of Hanna Schmidt’s role as an SS guard at Auschwitz? The best part was the funny “Frost/Nixon” tribute with Anne Hathaway unexpectedly getting to shine and demonstrate her excellent singing voice. Who knew?

¡Digame, Penelope! We all cheered when they unveiled the great new way to present the acting awards, especially starting with the luminous Eva Marie Saint (can you believe she’s turning 85 this year?) and the always hot Angelica Huston. We had a few comments about Goldie Hawn’s eye-popping breasts, but enjoyed what all of these women had to say, including Whoopi Goldberg and the talented Tilda Swinton. Despite my prediction, I was still shocked when Cruz won and found her speech endearing. Ay, dios mio, her Spanish makes me hot under the collar. Hope she makes some more Almodóvar movies, if for no other reason than to hear her speak in her glorious native tongue.

Funny/Not-So-Funny Presenters. Tina Fey and Steve Martin were the funniest. By far. When they started to get too cloying, Martin interrupted at just the right moment, begging Fey not to fall in love with him. I thought the Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman bit was much less successful. True, Stiller was doing a killer Joaquin Phoenix, but I’m not sure how that played to audiences around the world who may not be aware of Phoenix’s latest eccentricities. If Joaquin is faking his new persona, Stiller’s impression is kinda funny. If he’s serious, it’s pretty mean. Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black tried to be amusing but it came out as awkward. Maybe that’s because the director couldn’t resist repeatedly showing Aniston’s ex-husband and his Perfect Wife™ sitting just a few feet away from poor Jen with smiles plastered onto their faces. Oy. Oh, and WTF was Zac Efron doing in three different segments on the show, I just don’t get it. Is that the producers’ attempt to appeal to a younger audience? Get him off that stage. And fellow teen heartthrob Robert Pattinson (from “Twilight”) has not yet earned the right to be so weird. Jessica Biel presenting all the tech awards? Who is she again? Sore Loser of the Year Award goes to blowhard Bill Maher who presented the Oscar for Best Documentary even though his film “Religulous” was not nominated. Did he really have to diss people's “silly gods” in his speech? Even though I agree with Maher on many issues, he often gives liberals a bad name and comes across as smug and elitist as Stephen Fowler from “Wife Swap.”

Best Film Clip. I’ve been reluctant to jump on the Judd Apatow bandwagon but I have to say that his short film about comedies starring James Franco and Seth Rogen was the funniest thing on the show, especially when it showed the two of them laughing hysterically at clips from “The Reader” and “Doubt” and having a special moment with each other during “Milk.” Nice touch to have cinematographer Janusz Kaminski join them in the clip and on stage. He seems like a good sport. Kaminski is (surprise, surprise) working on the new Apatow film right now and then returns to frequent employer Steven Spielberg for his upcoming movie about Abraham Lincoln starring Liam Neeson and Sally Field. That film will either be the butt of all jokes at the 2011 Academy Awards or will win ten Oscars.

Maybe I Don’t Like Musicals After All. Kendall and I kept looking at each other during the splashy salute to musicals starring Jackman and a smokin’ hot Beyonce and wondering why we weren’t enjoying it more. Again, they managed to pull off an incredibly complicated live sequence, but I just felt there was no rhyme or reason to the selection of songs they paid tribute to. I was straining to find a running theme, any excuse for the odd assortment of musical bits, but the number was devoid of clarity and paid scant attention to the golden age of musicals. And then Zac Efron appeared again, wandering aimlessly through the set with his girlfriend. Huh? And the girl from “Mamma Mia” barely getting to sing a note and looking confused. Better they should have brought Anne Hathaway back on stage.

Most Moving Moment. It was hard not to shed a tear seeing Heath Ledger’s family go up to accept his award. I still don’t think he would have even been nominated for that part if he were alive but I have no problem honoring his work in this way, he was certainly a gifted actor and it’s sad that his life and career were cut short. This was our second take of the five actors introducing the nominees and again we were hoping for more old timers. Let’s see, who’s still alive who won this award? Not many, I guess. George Chakiris could have been asked. I saw him at Cyd Charisse’s funeral last year and he looked great. Wow, after him I think Joel Grey is the earliest recipient who’s still with us and it was nice to see him there (he looked about 15 years old in the clip of him winning for “Cabaret”), then Christopher Walken who appropriately introduced the crazy guy from “Revolutionary Road,” a part that would have been perfect for Walken thirty years ago. Ouch, Alan Arkin got Philip Seymour Hoffman’s name wrong, but maybe he was distracted by the RIDICULOUS knit gangsta hat Hoffman was wearing. Come on, Phil, what were you thinking, didn’t you have time to wash your hair before the show? Meryl Streep should have ripped that thing off your head when she passed you on the red carpet.

Jerry Lewis. Oy. You gotta give 83-year-old Jerry Lewis credit for raising billions of dollars for Muscular Dystrophy (even if some of his “kids” have turned on him) but the Eddie Murphy intro and Lewis’s speech were lackluster at best. I thought he was going to launch into some Mickey Rooney-like rant but he was appropriately grateful and boring as hell. This was the one chance in the evening for a true hiding-under-the-table-in-horror-and-humiliation moment but instead it was just uncomfortable. The clips showing Lewis’s career should have been better and if he really had courage, he would’ve brought up the Holocaust movie he made but never released where he played a German clown sent to Auschwitz who makes people laugh in the gas chambers. I’m not kidding, look it up! It was called “The Day the Clown Cried” and Lewis refuses to talk about it today. How perfect that would have been in this year of Holocaust movies. 

Honoring the Dead. I worship Queen Latifah and I thought her performance of “I’ll Be Seeing You” was perfect for the sequence where we pay tribute to all the people who died last year. Bad camera work, though. Sometimes they pulled out to show Latifah singing so that the screen showing the honorees was too small to read, even on our friends’ new HD widescreen set. Names were missed that way. But I was watching closely and, if I’m not mistaken, at least one important Academy member was left out. Where the fuck was Irving Brecher, whose funeral I attended last November. Hello? The man wrote the Marx Brothers movies, for God’s sakes, not to mention other classics like “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “Bye Bye Birdie.” I was screaming at the set which got Kendall going again about what was probably the worse omission in Academy history: not mentioning actress Dorothy McGuire following her death in 2001. When called on it by outraged fans, they claimed they didn’t have enough time in the segment to list everybody. Not okay.

Kate Winslet and Sean Penn Bring It Home. Two more chances to listen to former winners toasting the nominees. Only Sophia Loren could talk to goddess Meryl Streep in such a sassy tone, I loved it, and Streep seemed genuinely moved. Loren is exactly my mother’s age, she’ll turn 75 this year, and she is as gorgeous as ever. Loved what Shirley Maclaine said to Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman looked a little pained up there but those were nice words to Angelina Jolie, I thought Hallie Berry was the perfect choice to honor Melissa Leo, and I was surprised Marion Cotillard’s English was so good in her lovely tribute to Kate Winslet. Great to see Winslet and Streep nominated together, they are both so talented, so brilliant, so incapable of a bad performance even when they appear in God-awful movies. Loved Winslet’s speech and I think the best moment of the whole evening was when Winslet asked her dad to whistle so she could find him in the crowd. And he did. Sean Penn reminded me again why I hate awards shows. I wanted him to win for “Milk” so desperately over Mickey Rourke and then the second he did I felt bad for Rourke, wishing he had won. On the other hand, Mickey can’t complain after Sean’s strange mention of him in his speech. I had no problem with Penn’s shaming remarks about the passage of Prop 8 even though I read several complaints about his “liberal speechifying” today but why oh why did he forget to thank Harvey Milk himself as well as his gorgeous wife Robin Wright Penn? Or did he thank her? Kendall was sure that when he thanked his “best friend,” Sata Matsuzawa, that was some kind of code for his wife. I also thought he might mention his actor brother Chris who sadly died a few years ago.

Did I say “brief?” Who am I kidding? And I haven’t mentioned the big winner of the evening, “Slumdog Millionaire.” Badhaayiaan, people. It was nice to see all those kids from the movie there although they disappeared after the red carpet. They were probably sitting in the third balcony. My friends enjoyed being at the show, said the hors-d’oeuvres and champagne were excellent, that the crystal curtain was spectacular in person, and that they were sitting near former screen goddess Jane Russell.They also described the Mengele-like selection on the red carpet—really big stars go to the left to run the gauntlet of reporters and photographers and everyone else goes to the right, to get in line for the bathrooms and drinks. All in all, the evening was a refreshing tribute to some particularly good Hollywood product. Kudos to Bill Condon and Hugh Jackman for pulling it off.

Oscar Pre-Show 2009

Just a quick note from seedy Hollywood Boulevard. I’m at a coffee shop directly in front of the Kodak Theatre where the Academy Awards will be handed out tonight. I’ve never seen this town shut down to this extent. With all the security, bomb squad vans, police dogs, and ugly concrete barriers, Hollywood looks like the Gaza Strip on full alert. I practically had to get an internal body cavity search just to walk down the street.

They’ve even chased away the costumed characters who hang out at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre every day. I just snapped this photo of Superman, my former gay lover, none too pleased at being forced behind the barricade. I also spotted Darth Vader ripping off his helmet in disgust as he saw his tourist dollars disappearing as fast as Princess Leia’s home planet of Alderaan when it was attacked by the Imperial Death Star. 

Speaking of Carrie Fisher, I stepped over Debbie Reynolds’ star on the Walk of Fame a minute ago and found myself thinking back to when the Oscars were a truly glamorous event full of real movie stars. Not that I’m trashing this year’s nominees, I actually think it’s one of the most deserving bunches in years. I stand by my predictions but have a sinking feeling that Mickey Rourke is going to beat out Sean Penn. If longshot Penelope Cruz wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, as I predicted, I will scream so loud I may puncture the developing eardrums of my unborn children (I read that this is the week when they can actually start getting startled from loud noises outside of Kendall's body).

There’s been a ton of press about all the SURPRISES in store for viewers this year and a lot of attempts at creating buzz about the SECRET presenters. Double yawn. Do they really need to shake things up for this awards show? Is that really going to attract more viewers? I think not. Remember the last time they tried that and presented some of the awards in the audience and for others had all the nominees gather on stage so we had to stare at the losers? What a debacle. The only thing that gives me hope the show won’t be a total disaster is the fact that Bill Condon is producing it this year. But I’m terrified by the “leaks” I’ve heard so far, that they’re changing the order of how the awards will be presented to follow a “narrative.” Please don’t. Host Hugh Jackman will apparently not be doing an opening monologue. My guess is that he’ll sing some kind of movie medley. Beyond that, I have no clue, except for one thing: how much do you want to bet that President Obama will make an appearance one way or another?

As I’ve mentioned, my friends Helena and John are attending the awards this year and I’m going to stop by their place in a few hours to catch them dressed to the nines as they drive off in their limo (see above—that's "Sunset Boulevard" appropriately playing on the TV behind them). Helena received a long list or rules from the Academy on what she can and can’t bring with her tonight (no cameras, of course) but I look forward to her first-person account. It’s fitting that she is my only childhood friend who is in the Academy. The first day I met her, in our 7th grade class at Peterson School, she hoisted her leg up on my desk and started crooning “Falling in Love Again” in full Marlene Dietrich accent. She hasn’t changed much since, and told me she picked her dress for tonight because it reminded her of something Hedy Lamarr would wear. Helena and John are both founts of information about Old Hollywood which is as it should be for Academy members. She frequently tells me horrifying stories of movie bigwigs she works with who are painfully ignorant of their industry’s gloried past (“Who’s Clark Gable?”).

And now, friends and moviegoers, I’m going to take my life in my hands and try to get OUT of Hollywood. May the force be with me.

 

France Apologizes to Jews (Yawn)

Did you hear the news earlier this week? France finally recognized its government’s responsibility for the deportation of French Jews during World War II. Between 1942 and 1944, the Vichy government collected and shipped off 75,721 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps, including about 11,000 young children. Fewer than 2,000 survived.

True, the deportation orders originated with the occupying German forces but, unlike other European countries that tried to protect its Jewish citizens (Denmark being the most courageous example), French officials willingly complied and hunted down its Jews with a vengeance. For years the French government has tried to distance itself from the wartime actions of the Vichy regime claiming that this entity had nothing to do with them. But survivors such as Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld didn’t buy the distinction. “For us, it was France. The uniforms were French. The Germans did not always ask the Vichy government to do what it did.” Former President Jacques Chirac started the ball rolling in 1995 when he became the first French leader to say that the country bore some responsibility for what happened.

I guess it’s always a good thing when governments acknowledge negative past actions even if many of the victims and their descendents see it as way too little, way too late. Remember last summer when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution apologizing to African-Americans for slavery? Or last April when the Senate passed another resolution that apologized to Native Americans for “the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect?” Those weren’t the first attempts in this country to expiate past sins. In 1993 the Senate passed a resolution apologizing for the “illegal overthrow” of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893. Does that mean we have to give it back? And in 1988, President Reagan signed an act apologizing to the 120,000 Japanese-Americans who were held in detention camps during the war.

Whatever makes you feel better, white boys. These moves always seem like such incredible understatements to me. To sum up the tortured relationship between Native Americans and the groups that nearly wiped them out as “instances of maltreatment and neglect” seems like a joke. To officially “apologize” to African Americans for slavery in the year 2008? Really? I always wonder if these mea culpas actually represent some kind of true soul-searching and healing or if they are simply cynical attempts by politicians to woo certain constituents and/or head off any claims for reparations. 

That seems to be the case in France, at least partly. The ruling this week was the result of a case brought to the government by the daughter of one of the deportees who died at Auschwitz. She was asking for material and moral damages. After issuing a formal statement that “these anti-Semitic persecutions provoked exceptional damage of extreme gravity,” the French court was quick to add that the deportation had already been “compensated for” since 1945, ruling out any reparations for the victims or their families.

I wonder if the timing of this week’s admission has anything to do with the recent explosion of anti-Semitic incidents in France—in January alone there were over 100 such episodes. The rise in anti-Semitism is being blamed on the recent Israeli actions in Gaza as well as the global economic crisis, both insane justifications for attacks on French Jews and the ugly vandalism of synagogues and other Jewish venues in France. Not that such incidents ever went away completely.

There are over 500,000 Jews in France making it the largest concentration of Jewish people in Western Europe. When I married my first wife, a French Jew, in Paris, I thought that all 500,000 of them were in attendance. Our wedding was a huge affair and one that represented the two conflicting sides of France’s Jewish population: Old World Ashkenazi Jews whose ancestors hail from Eastern Europe but who’ve lived in France for generations, and Sephardic North African Jews who are more recent immigrants. Sophie’s mother was born in Occupied France during the war. It’s not something any of them like to talk about. Sophie’s father is part of the huge Sephardic community in France that arrived after the war from various Arab countries that were once French colonies.

We were married at a beautiful orthodox synagogue in the 9th arrondissement in Paris. The ceremony was officiated by the Chief Rabbi of France. The reception was held in the Bois de Boulogne and was probably the most lavish wedding I’ve ever attended, much less been a part of. It was over 15 years ago and most of it is a blur to me today. Sophie and I have both been happily married to other people for years now. 

The small group of Americans who came to Paris for our wedding stood out in the crowd not only because of a big difference in style and culture, but also because of the marked contrast of growing up Jewish in the United States versus Europe. It’s hard to put my finger on it, and I’m sure I’m grossly generalizing, but I find that European Jews project a different vibe on their Judaism than most American Jews, at least those who have grown up in big cities with large Jewish populations. I’m not sure how to describe it, other than to say that no matter how successful, educated, and integrated into French society these people are, they seem to remain more separate from the rest of the population because of their Jewishness. I’m sure this relates to their recent history, the one France is apologizing for this week, and the sense that at any moment anti-Semitism could rear its ugly head and put their survival at risk.

I’m not implying that the U.S. is immune from anti-Semitism. Especially lately. The same sparks that have ignited increased episodes of anti-Jewish demonstrations in Europe have hit home as well. Last month Kendall and I were stuck in traffic behind a rally on Wilshire Boulevard. We wondered what it was about and strained to see the placards the demonstrators were carrying. “We Love Hummus!” Kendall read. What? Was this some kind of protest organized by vegans? “No, I think it says ‘We Love Homos,’” I countered. Maybe this was a rally against the passage of Proposition 8. When we got closer, we saw the truth. The signs said “We Love Hamas.” This crowd on Wilshire was demonstrating in support of the terrorist organization whose charter talks about World Jewish Domination and calls for the obliteration of the State of Israel. Oy.

So, félicitations, France, for acknowledging your role in handing your citizens over to Nazi murderers. I’m sorry that I tend to be a bit cynical about what motivates such admissions of guilt. “We need to study the decision more in depth, to really be able to assess its meaning,” said Estee Yaari, a spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the Holocaust. “However, initial press reports indicate this is an important and courageous decision that unambiguously confronts French actions during the Holocaust. This has moral significance that will hopefully serve to deepen awareness about the Holocaust in French society, something that is important both for grappling with the events of the past, and their repercussions today.”

We’ve Got Magic To Do

Seeing a bad production of “Pippin” can make people swear off musicals forever. The amateur productions of this Stephen Schwartz  musical (which first opened on Broadway in 1972) can be unbearably cheesy, with mediocre actors belting out the pseudo-pop score while looking like rejects from the Orange County Renaissance Faire. Several of the numbers have become musical theatre classics and have been covered by one too many artists. Songs like “Magic to Do,” “Corner of the Sky,” and “No Time at All” are staples in amateur musical revues and immediately familiar to musical aficionados the world over. The Supremes recorded a few of the iconic songs in the 70s and incorporated them into their glitzy shows. So did the Jackson 5.

I saw the Bob Fosse original, the show that made a huge star out of Ben Vereen. I can’t remember if I saw it on Broadway  (where it played for five years) or one of the touring companies. The Broadway cast featured many of Fosse’s stock company of players such as Ann Reinking and Leland Palmer. The leads were played by a very young John Rubinstein and Jill Clayburgh along with the wonderful Irene Ryan who was famous as Granny Clampett in “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Unlike the two-bit amateur productions that followed, the original was a groundbreaking look at war, power, ego, and personal fulfillment. Fosse put his unique stamp on the production with his sexy choreography and stellar direction. But this was the kind of show that could easily collapse in lesser hands. Perhaps that’s why it’s never been revived on Broadway and why so many of the subsequent regional productions are so cringe-worthy. Until now.

Last night Kendall, Leah, and I went to see the new version of “Pippin” at the Mark Taper Forum. This “Pippin” is a production of the amazing Deaf West Theatre, a group based here that performs plays in American Sign Language for both deaf and hearing audiences. We saw their production of “Big River” at the Mark Taper in 2003 and were blown away by the seamless intermingling of deaf and hearing actors that never seemed gimmicky or unnatural. The show went to Broadway and was nominated for a slew of Tony Awards.

The deaf actor who starred as Huck Finn in that play, Ty Giordano, is playing the title character of Pippin in the new show along with his hearing/singing counterpart Michael Arden (who played Tom Sawyer in “Big River”). Having two actors play the same role is not confusing at all in this production and helps the story since it is so much about dualities to begin with. The rest of the parts are played by hearing actors who sign or by deaf actors who are voiced by others. The sign language adds to the story, which takes place in the 9th century Europe and is about the oldest son of Charlemagne (or Charles the Great). 

Charles is played by deaf actor Troy Kotsur who was also in “Big River.” He plays Charlemagne as a bravado-filled sex addict. At one point in the play he came down to the audience and plopped into the empty seat next to Kendall. Forcibly pushing me away, he put his arms around Kendall and carried on with her for the duration of the song. She was thrilled! (Should I be concerned that my wife is having an affair with the King of France?) Ty Taylor does a great job as the Leading Player without parodying Ben Vereen (which would've been so easy to do). Harriet Harris plays the grandmother part that Irene Ryan made famous but shows that “Granny” is far from being put out to pasture.  Her show-stopping number, “No Time at All,” is performed with a bevy of half-naked hunks who seem quite pleased to be under her experienced tutelage. And Fastrada, Charlemagne’s evil second wife, is played to perfection by Sara Gettelfinger who was Little Edie in the original “Grey Gardens.”

I know, I know. I’m a freak. So is Leah. Is that my fault? Did I sing one too many showtunes to her when she was a baby? Is it weird that Leah is only 14 and has already performed in 28 musicals? And that she knew the complete score to most of them before the first rehearsal? We got home really late but when I woke up this morning I saw that Leah had already changed her Facebook status to:

Leah Miller is PIPPIN = AMAZING = inspiring = I wanna learn ASL!

I know I’m not the only straight guy who loves musicals. Our numbers may be low, but I’ve met several guys who make me look like a novice. Just to see what would come up, I googled “straight guys musicals” just now and got a bunch of hits including the following Q&A  from Yahoo! with some truly crazy answers. Who writes these things?

Q: Do straight guys like musicals?

A: I think they truly do. My stepdad, who is all man, and my dad, who is less than a man, both like them. And my guy likes them. And without giving anything away, let’s just say I know he is straight.

A: Speaking as a straight guy I myself do enjoy musicals, but I might be considered “old fashioned” or “antiquated.”

A: I’m gay and I detest musicals for the most part. My brother is straight and loves musicals. Go figure.

A: My ex-husband loved musicals and I did not like them. So that was the reason we got divorced.

A: I liked “Sweeney Todd.” But that was about a murderous barber. I would say that if you liked “Cats,” that would make you gay.

A: Why are you doubting that straight men can like musical theatre? I bet some kids at your school or something have been teasing you. Just ignore them...they’re jerks!

Too funny (but I have to agree with the “Cats” comment). Last night was the twins’ very first musical, albeit in utero. What if they grow up despising musicals? I promise to love them despite that betrayal, but they may find living in our house rather intolerable.

As much as I love musicals, I’m a fairly discerning viewer. I have loathed certain productions and walked out of others. The only Broadway musical that I ever ran screaming out of at Intermission was the misguided Thin Man musical “Nick and Nora.” I wasn’t alone. It closed after nine performances. But I’ve also been moved to tears by many musicals. I’ve been challenged, shaken up, and forever changed by some of the shows I’ve seen. I won’t soon be forgetting this version of “Pippin” which I encourage you to see before it closes on March 15. I found it way more powerful than the original although I admit the 35 years that have passed since I saw the first one may have changed my perspective a bit. I understand how some people can't stand musicals, especially ones that pull out all of the stops, like “Pippin.” But I can't help but be moved by the emotions of this play, especially in this innovative new take on the story. I so relate to the title character's quest for fulfillment and his realization that his “corner of the sky” isn't at all where he thought it would be.

Will You Be My Valentine?

And by that, I mean are you willing to get beaten and stoned to death, and if that doesn’t do the trick, get beheaded under orders from Emperor Claudius Gothicus of Rome? That’s exactly what happened to that romantic martyr of yesteryear, St. Valentine! Okay, I admit it—I’m not a big fan of this or any other organized holiday that tells us how we’re supposed to treat our loved ones, especially when they're founded in collusion with corporate America. The story of the original St. Valentine is a ghastly one indeed. No one’s sure exactly how the candy-coated holiday in his honor developed. 18th century scholars thought it was based on the Pagan holiday of Lupercalia, the ancient Roman festival observed on February 14th that was supposed to purify the city and encourage fertility. The Roman historian Plutarch described Lupercalia this way:

At this time many of the noble youths run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. Women of rank purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery and the barren to pregnancy.

What fun! Sounds like a typical night in West Hollywood! Kendall is now in her fourth month of pregnancy. Is it too soon to take her out tonight to have her hands struck by naked marauding youths? The festival of Lupercalia was in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus (clearly the names we should use for our twins!).

Lupercalia always began with the sacrifice of two male goats and a dog. That was followed by a feast, after which the aforementioned “noble youths” cut thongs from the skins of the victims and ran around the walls of the old city with the thongs in their hands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on the route to receive lashes from these whips. Oh, those madcap Romans! They truly believed these lashings would ease the pain of childbirth so I think it’s worth a try!

More recent scholars question the connection of Valentine’s Day to Lupercalia and believe that the red and pink holiday had its origins in the 14th century and was invented by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle. That’s when the feast day of St. Valentine first become associated in any way with romantic love.

Who knows? I don’t have a lot of memories of Valentine’s Day, and the ones I do have always seem cloaked in trauma. Will I get any Valentines? Should I give a Valentine to that girl I like? What if she doesn’t give me one back? For some reason I have a distinct memory of Valentine’s Day 1968. I was in 4th grade at Peterson School in Chicago and I had a mad crush on a girl named Nandia Black. What kind of Valentine should I give her? Should I make my own heart-shaped card out of construction paper or would that be too much? Should I attach one of those edible hearts that say “Be mine?” Was I crazy to be giving her a Valentine at all—we were in 4th grade, not 1st, and I didn’t want to appear too uncool. 

February 1968 was hardly an innocent time in this country. The Vietnam War was raging. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be assassinated in less than two months and Robert Kennedy two months after that. The Democratic National Convention would be held in Chicago that summer and would turn into a violent referendum that would cause a major split in my family. But my biggest concern that month was Nandia Black. I don’t remember which Valentine I finally gave her but I remember dancing on air when she handed me back a simple heart-shaped card. I’m sure she gave one to every kid in our class, but I didn’t care, I was thrilled beyond belief that I was included and I can still visualize the “To Daniel, from Nandia” written in pencil in her perfect Palmer handwriting. Ah, sweet memories.

Did I mention that despite my crush I have no memory of ever actually speaking to Nandia? I had skipped 3rd grade so went right from 2nd grade the year before to this class of new kids. I was already one of the younger kids in my 2nd grade class so now I was practically a toddler compared to the sophisticated 4th graders in Mrs. Shapiro’s class. Talking to girls I had a crush on was not something I learned how to do until some time after Nixon’s resignation. 

This photo is from our class picture that year. That’s nine-year-old me on the right, the shortest boy in the class, standing next to Marty Rosen. Next to Marty is Nandia, in all her exotic beauty, staring at the camera with confidence and poise. To the left of Nandia is Donna Anton, a classmate I didn’t know back then but who will be staying with us next month on a visit from England where she now lives with her husband. Like Nandia, Donna was part of the large Greek-American community at our school (our neighborhood was basically made up of Jews, Swedes, and Greeks from various waves of 20th century immigration) but now I’m wondering if Donna was a closet pagan, celebrating Lupercalia in secret. She was the first, after all, to recently nickname our twins Romulus and Remus. Hmmm.

I have no memory of Nandia Black after 4th grade. Did her family move away or did she just fall off my radar screen after refusing to recognize my undying love for her? To be honest, I haven’t thought of Nandia in over 40 years, but I just googled her and, to my great surprise, instantly found her website. Could it be her? Yep. The dates check out on her bio and her photo certainly evokes that sweet little girl from 1968, my 4th grade Valentine. If her family did move away, I guess it wasn’t too far—today Nandia is a respected lawyer in Chicago, a former assistant state’s attorney. Forgive me, Nandia—no restraining order necessary, I’m just reminiscing!

Tonight my current Valentine and I will be bypassing the heart-shaped candy boxes and rip-off dinners-for-two at local restaurants. Instead we will be attending the perfect Valentine’s Day celebration for us: a double feature at the UCLA Film Archive of appropriately themed Thelma Ritter films. First we'll see “The Model and the Marriage Broker” in which Ritter plays a middle-aged Manhattan matchmaker trying to fix up lingerie model Jeanne Crain, and then “The Mating Season,” which features Thelma as a down-and-out hamburger stand owner who is mistaken for the maid when she goes to visit her son and his high society girlfriend Gene Tierney. Forget the flowers, that’s the way to celebrate the holiday! Any of you die-hard romantics care to join us?

Help! My Daughter Is a Nazi!

 

Considering my lifelong obsession with World War II, Hitler, and the Holocaust, I guess it was only a matter of time before I’d see my daughter goose-stepping across a stage giving a Nazi salute. Relax—this wasn’t an episode of teenage rebellion, and she’s not dating a neo-Nazi. Leah is simply appearing this weekend in a local theatre production of “Cabaret.”

It’s a mostly high school cast (Leah is one of the few 8th graders), so unlike many of the two dozen musicals she’s performed in, this script has not been extensively doctored to make it more “suitable” for children. To be honest, I’m usually uncomfortable with this theatre group’s unnecessary censorship (no one ever dies in their plays no matter how weirdly that affects the story) but I must say my mouth was agape during some of the scenes of Weimer Republic debauchery. Nothing was left out of this production: abortions, ménages-a-trois, prostitution, and all manners of sexual preferences and appetites. Oy! Leah plays Frenchie, one of the Kit Kat girls working in the seedy Berlin club alongside Sally Bowles. The depraved MC (brilliantly played by a 17-year-old) bids a Wilkommen to everyone at the beginning of the show and introduces each Kit Kat girl in turn, Rosie, Lulu, Frenchie, and Helga:

Rosie is so called because of the color of her cheeks! [slaps Rosie’s bottom]

This is Lulu. Oh, you like Lulu, huh? Yeah? Well, too bad! So does Rosie!

You know, I like to order Frenchie on her side. On your side, Frenchie! [Frenchie lays down on her side]

Helga is the baby. I am like a father to her! So when she's bad...I spank her. And she's been very very very very bad!

Are you calling Child Protective Services yet? Don’t worry, I'm turning myself in. 

Outside it is windy, but inside it is so hot! Every night we have ze battle to keep ze girls from taking off all of their clothing. Don't go away—who knows? Tonight we may lose ze battle!

They did cut one introduction from this scene, thank God, when the MC introduces a Kit Kat girl named Texas (“Yes, Texas is from America! Mmm-hmm. But she’s a very cunning linguist!”).

The show was very well done and had a live orchestra on stage, complete with tuba and accordian. I’m a huge fan of the movie version of “Cabaret.” It’s a wonderful film that deserved the eight Academy Awards it won in 1972. I remember seeing it for the first time at the fantastic but now torn-down Granada Theatre in Chicago. But as great as the movie is, in many ways the play is more powerful. And far more authentic to the story of Christopher Isherwood and his muse Sally Bowles.  Most of the play’s plot and characters were tossed out for the movie. It quickly became a star vehicle for the up-and-coming Liza Minnelli (which is why the British Sally was Americanized).

But these characters are all back in Leah’s show. I was especially moved by Fraulein Schneider, the desperate owner of a boarding house who starts an improbable but sweet romance with Jewish fruit store owner Herr Schultz. They get engaged and are very happy until the specter of the encroaching Nazis destroys their relationship. I also liked Fraulein Kost, the hooker bringing sailors into the boarding house much to the horror of the once proper Fraulein Schneider. And the chilling Nazi Ernst Ludwig, who sports the first swastika seen in the play. Leah said that the theatre company had to sign a waiver at the costume rental place in order to get the Nazi armbands. Costume shops aren’t allowed to rent them out unless the customers can prove that they are doing a legitimate play featuring Nazis. I guess they’re afraid of Nazi paraphernalia landing in the hands of actual Hitler supporters.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that when I was exactly Leah’s age, I made my acting and singing debut in “Cabaret.” Where, you ask? A local Chicago theatre? As part of the Von Steuben High Drama Department? Nope. In my father’s basement. In the early 70s my dad, who was in the security business, had a “portable” videotaping system (it weighed about 100 lbs!), a black-and-white reel-to-reel machine that used expensive half-hour tapes. Instead of playing outside where we belonged, my odd group of friends decided to mount and record our own version of “Cabaret.” We built sets, made costumes with whatever we could find (I remember my mother’s go-go boots and ice skating outfits appearing on some of the Kit Kat girls), and we ad-libbed our way through the whole show. 

My friend Helena starred as Sally Bowles. Helena is now a special effects maven and was recently accepted into the Motion Picture Academy. She and her husband will be attending the Oscars in two weeks. I wish I could show up on the red carpet with a DVD of Helena’s bravura performance. I remember her tears when she told her lover she’d had an abortion because she just couldn’t give up her career (our “Cabaret” was recorded just a few weeks after the Roe v. Wade decision). I played the MC and mustered up as much degeneracy as a goody-two-shoes like me possibly could. Perhaps I should be grateful to the thief who stole those videotapes out of my garage several years ago. Or let’s say, you should be grateful, otherwise I’d probably be posting clips.

Our entire cast of “Cabaret” was Jewish, except for our Polish Catholic friend Dana who we forced to play all of the Nazis in the story (forgive us, Dana!). (Leah told me that in her show, the one Jewish character, Herr Schultz, is played by the only non-Jew in the cast.) Oy, if my orthodox relatives only knew what we were doing down there I would have had quite a talking to. I remember aping the Heil Hitler salute with Dana as we belted “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” the scene that shows how the Nazis are gaining more power in Germany.

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me!

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come 
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me!

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper—Arise! Arise!
Tomorrow belongs to me!

Terrifying. I got the goosebumps when Leah’s Jewish friends sang this song last night. The number was written for the play by John Kander and Fred Ebb but it was so well done in the style of a German march that it is often confused for an actual Nazi anthem, including by scary White Power groups who sing it at their meetings.

I was very impressed by Leah’s show but there were times I wanted to run out to the stage and provide some brief lessons in German history. I think many of the plot points flew over the heads of some of the younger audience members. I’m not sure they understood the political backdrop of the play or the terrible conditions in Weimar-era Germany that led to the power grab by Hitler’s thugs. Some seemed clueless about why the Jews were being singled out by the Nazis or why Herr Shultz didn’t just follow Sally’s boyfriend Cliff back to America. Will it hurt the flow of tonight’s performance if I walk up to the stage during each set change and give short lectures on the fundamentals of National Socialism?

We took Leah out to dinner after the first show. She had changed out of her costume but was still wearing her heavy makeup and false eyelashes. I worried that I’d get stopped by the authorities but, this being Los Angeles, she didn’t even stand out at the restaurant we went to. We were sitting next to a guy who had shaved his head except for two spikes of dyed red hair made to look like horns. Oy.

I think that overall, this is the best production that Leah has ever been in but I look forward to more age-appropriate fare. Fat chance, though. Last night I saw posters in the theatre advertising their next production: “Rent.” My favorite show that Leah did there was “Annie” a few years ago. She played the lead and it was refreshing to see her in a show with such wholesome topics as the Depression, orphan abuse, attempted murder, and the unbridled greed of fat-cat capitalists. Oh, for those innocent days. 

Now that I think of it, “Annie” and “Cabaret” take place at exactly the same time in history. Did anyone ever think of combining the two shows? I can imagine a killer medley of Nazis screeching “Tomorrow belongs to me” while Leah counters with a hopeful, “The sun’ll come out, tomorrow!” 

“One Third of a Nation”

I’m working on an interesting freelance project helping to write a California history textbook. I have an unexpected pause this afternoon as the chapter I’m writing is being re-outlined. So in my free time, what more relaxing subject could I be thinking about than the filth-infested New York tenements of the Great Depression? 

I saw this fantastic movie last night at the UCLA Film Archive called “One Third of a Nation.” The title comes from Franklin Roosevelt’s second inaugural address in January 1937. It was a killer speech and parts of it ring very true for today. Here’s an excerpt:

In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to comfort, opportunism, and timidity. We will carry on.

Wow. You go, Franklin. And he did “paint it out” although the manufacturing boom of World War II eventually came in and helped things quite a bit. As part of his broad New Deal programs, Roosevelt created the WPA, the Work Projects Administration, which ended up providing jobs for millions of people. The WPA also included legendary arts initiatives such as the Federal Theatre Project whose mission was to provide employment for out-of-work actors, writers, directors, and so on. Can you imagine anyone in the government caring about that particular group today? The other goal was providing low-cost entertainment. But the FTP soon became the bane of the conservative members of Congress since most of their productions had a decidedly leftist slant.

One of the FTP productions was “One Third of a Nation,” a play dealing head-on with the horrific conditions of millions of people living in tenements. It was part of the “Living Newspaper” unit. Journalists and playwrights would literally comb the newspapers for important issues and write theatre pieces around them—I’m talking everything from syphilis to farming worries to unpopular government policies. The play opened on Broadway on January 17, 1938 and was a huge success despite its hit-you-over-the-head-with-its-leftist-politics stance. It became the only WPA play to make it to the big screen. Shot in New York’s Astoria Studios (later a favorite of Woody Allen) and on location on the Lower East Side, the film version is cleaned up a bit from the stage production but it’s still pretty hard hitting. The film stars the beautiful Sylvia Sidney in the role of a shopgirl forced to live with her parents and little brother in a one-room hovel crawling with cockroaches and rats. You can almost smell the filth caused by the ooze coming out of the non-working drains and I feared for the life of every extra going up the broken-down stairs of rotted wood.

In my experience, tenements were always a bit glamorized in the movies and in my head. Sure, they looked cramped and crowded, but they always had a certain seedy charm, like old black-and-white photos of the good old days. Yes, we’re glad those days are gone but wasn’t it fun back when our families were living in extreme togetherness in the tenements? Weren’t we all a little happier during those simple times? Even visiting the wonderful Tenement Museum in New York, as I’ve done many times, housed in an actual tenement building, has a certain city charm in all of the recreated apartments. But the housing shown in “One Third of a Nation” does not look charming, it looks ghastly.

I always loved Sylvia Sidney. She was a nice Jewish girl, born Sophia Kosow, from the Bronx. She never got the big movie break she deserved but appeared in endless films as the tough-talking yet vulnerable girlfriend or sister of people like Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, George Raft, and Cary Grant. Sidney got her only Oscar nomination when she was in her 60s for the 1973 movie “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.” I probably was first introduced to her when she played Melanie Mayron’s grandmother on “thirtysomething” and a death clerk in Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice.”

Some time in the late 90s my brother-in-law Jeff Tweedy was in L.A. recording an album. Jeff was anything but starstruck but he had always admired actor Charles Nelson Reilly who was a good friend of Kendall’s. We once brought Charles to one of Jeff’s recording sessions and the two really hit it off. So somehow, on this night, Kendall and I found ourselves out to dinner with Charles and Jeff at Orso's in Los Angeles. And who was the first person we ran into at the restaurant? Sylvia Sidney. Charles knew her so we went to her table. She was majestic, bawdy, and funny as hell as she good-naturedly bellowed in that husky voice to everyone around her. What a treat. Now Charles and Sylvia are both gone.

Back in 1938, still in her 20s, Sidney was cast as the lead in the controversial “One Third of a Nation,” a film similar in style, tone, and content to “Dead End,” the movie made the previous year that introduced the Dead End Kids to the world. Sidney had starred in this film as well and her character, the dirt poor but hard-working and nicely dressed tenement girl looking for escape, was similar. But instead of Joel McCrea, Sidney’s potential love interest and savior in this film was Leif Ericson, on loan from the Group Theatre. Ericson was married to actress Frances Farmer at the time, she of forced lobotomy fame, and Sidney was married to actor Luther Adler, also a Group Theatre devotee. At the time Sylvia and Leif were filming this movie, their spouses were appearing together in Clifford Odets’ “Golden Boy.” Plenty of ultra-liberals all around, no wonder Joseph McCarthy would set his sights on this crowd a few years later.

There are lots of wonderful, gritty performances in “One Third of a Nation,” from Myron McCormick as Sidney’s leftist would-be boyfriend Sam who despises the rich to character actress Iris Adrian as Myrtle, a hooker working in the tenement. But the real stand out is the little boy who plays Sylvia Sidney’s little brother Joey. I was shocked to discover that Joey was played by 14-year-old Sidney Lumet. Yes, THE Sidney Lumet, the amazing Oscar-winning director of such films as “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Network,” “Running on Empty,” and so many more including last year’s “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead.” Who knew that young Sidney was a talented child star? He mostly appeared on Broadway and was a bit hit in many juvenile roles, including the original play version of “Dead End.”

Lumet is what holds the film together. After he becomes crippled in a tenement fire because of a faulty fire escape, the boy nurses a burning hatred of the building. The tenement talks to him, taunting him that his kind of people will always live in such miserable conditions. Meanwhile, rich-boy Leif Ericson, who owns the tenement, promises Sylvia that he will tear them down, giving them all hope (then where will they live, I kept wondering). But Leif caves from the pressure of his vile let-them-eat-cake sister, played by the deliciously evil Muriel Hutchison, who turned in a very different but equally brilliant performance later that year as Norma Shearer’s worried maid in “The Women.” Her scene with the cook in which she nervously relays everything about the fight between Norma Shearer and her husband that's going on upstairs is my favorite sequence in the film. But here Hutchison represents everything that's wrong with greedy capitalism.

When Joey hears that the building won’t be torn down after all, he loses it completely and proceeds to burn the tenement to the ground, killing several people in the process including himself. Ignoring the pleas of his sister and other horrified onlookers, Joey stands triumphantly on the roof of the burning tenement, waving his crutch in the air as he dies. Fun night at the movies, huh? And yet, despite the somewhat hackneyed plot, this is a far more realistic, unglamorized look at poverty than many of the films made today including “Slumdog Millionaire.”

It’s the hopeful finale of the film that got me going. To prove that little Joey didn’t die in vain, Leif Ericson tells his sister to go fuck herself and starts pulling down all of the tenement buildings in New York that have made his family so rich. Sylvia is there to cheer him on and we can only assume that she has dumped her radical suitor for the privileged golden boy. We see massive old buildings being turned into rubble—scenes that I’m sure were taken from newsreel footage of actual tenements coming down in the 1930s. I could barely restrain myself from screaming, “STOP IT! Those buildings are magnificent! Sure, they’re infested with vermin and need to be repaired, but ARE YOU NUTS?!” The demolition shots then dissolve into hideous, clap-trap housing projects going up all over New York with tiny little squares of green grass for the poor children to play on. 

While these projects must have seemed like a great idea at the time, they were an eyesore and not nearly as well constructed as the older buildings. Indeed, it was these complexes that would later become the nightmare of urban housing authorities as they morphed into the dysfunctional ground zero for all sorts of criminal activities. By the 1970s, low-income housing experts started to publicly admit that they were a bit too rash in tearing down some off those great old structures instead of repairing and renovating them. Sigh. Many of the tenement buildings that survived the wreckers’ ball during that era are now luxury condos, dripping with kind of old-world features that modern Yuppies crave. Moral of the story? Well meaning do-gooders need to think twice before pulling down one broken-down system in favor of another. It’s important to look at the long-range picture and not just throw good money after bad. 

Take heed, President Obama!