Jew Eat Yet?

Farewell, Pine Valley

I outed myself a few years ago as a follower of the goings-on in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, the fictional enclave that is the setting for “All My Children.” Yeah, I know. The ABC soap began airing in January 1970, when I was ten years old, and ended its run yesterday after almost 42 years. I watched off and on over the years but got hooked again recently following news of the show’s cancellation. I have no idea how the economics of such shows work—it’s clear that soap operas are remnants from a distant television past when the three networks ruled the airwaves and advertisers could expect huge non-fast-forwarding audiences for their endless commercials. Times have changed in the world, in television, and in Pine Valley, but whatever the numbers are, I still think ABC is crazy to throw away a four-decade-plus franchise that has such an insanely devoted fanbase. The show is being replaced by a cheap-to-produce talk show called “The Chew” that no one’s going to watch.

The final months of “All My Children” were built around a preposterous storyline in which we discovered that evil but brilliant Dr. David Hayward (Vincent Irizarry) had the power to bring dead people (i.e., fan favorites who could be coaxed back onto the show) back to life. These resurrections were absurd but the fans didn’t give a damn as long as they got to see their favorite stars back to say good-bye and their favorite couples reunited at last. Oy.

As I wrote several years ago, I blame my sister for my Pine Valley addiction. Just after college, when I was looking for a job, we found ourselves back at my dad’s house in Chicago. We’d eat lunch together, my sister glued to “All My Children” and me shrieking about how unbelievably stupid I thought the show was. I told her she was crazy to waste her time with such trash. The next thing I knew, I was foregoing calls to potential employers so I could find out if Erica Kane would be cleared of murder charges and could stop posing as a nun; whether beautiful Nina Cortlandt, who had no idea that her housekeeper was really her grandmother and that her best friend Monique was her long-lost mother, would find out that she wasn’t going blind but was being lied to by her scheming father Palmer so that she would end her relationship with Dr. Cliff Warner; if bad girl Liza Colby would learn that her boyfriend Tad the Cad Martin was having a tempestuous affair with her nymphomaniac mother, Marian; or whether blue-blooded matriarch Phoebe Tyler Wallingford would discover that her respectable husband Langley, supposedly a college professor, was actually a con-man and purse-snatcher named Lenny Wlasuk from the carny circuit.

And there was more, so much more. Women falling in love with their rapists, people becoming full-fledged doctors weeks after graduating from high school, sweet middle-aged ladies turning out to be the ruthless leaders of international drug cartels, kidnappings, babyswaps, epidemics of amnesia and multiple personality disorder, miraculous recoveries of wheelchair-bound invalids, the entire community drinking tainted punch and falling victim to Libidizone, a drug that removes all sexual inhibitions, and the endless parade of characters coming back from the dead on the very day that their spouse is walking down the aisle to marry their rival. Ah, Pine Valley, how I will miss you.

The reigning queen of “All My Children” was Erica Kane, played by Susan Lucci, the only original cast member who stayed with the show from 1970 to its final episode on Friday. When Lucci began, Erica was in high school. By the time I tuned in, she was the most famous supermodel in the world, despite the fact that she was 38 at the time and about 5-foot 2-inches tall! One of my favorite Erica lines occurred when she was being seduced by newcomer Mark Dalton. After weeks of flirtation, Erica suddenly announced, “I can’t make love to you. You’re my father’s bastard son!” Indeed, Erica had just found out that Mark was the product of an affair that her father, director Eric Kane, had in Hollywood. Who knew?

When she wasn’t busy hunting down terrorists in Bosnia, protecting herself from violent prison mate Kathy Bates, or facing off with grizzly bears (I kid you not), Erica spent much of her time planning her lavish weddings. She married 10 times, making her official name Erica Kane Martin Brent Cudahy Chandler Montgomery Montgomery Chandler Marick Marick Montgomery. She had three children, but only remembered giving birth to one of them. Her daughter Kendall was the product of a rape when Erica was 14 years old that she forgot about until Kendall returned as a teenager. Her son Josh came back into her life as an adult. In 1973, a few months after Roe v. Wade, “All My Children” made television history when Erica became the very first television character to have a legal abortion. Imagine how surprised she was decades later when she found out that the doctor who had performed her abortion had actually taken the embryo and implanted it in his infertile wife and then raised the child as his own. In one of the creepiest and scientifically ridiculous plots in the history of the show, Erica’s son, Josh, became TV’s first living abortion. Eww. Perhaps sensing they had gone too far, the writers promptly had Josh murdered, with his heart donated to sister Kendall who was desperately in need of a transplant. Gulp.

Despite all the outrageous storylines, “All My Children” was also known for tackling serious social issues. In addition to Erica’s retroactively reversed abortion, the show was the first soap to deal with post-traumatic stress syndrome in Vietnam vets, the burgeoning women’s movement, interracial romances, eating disorders, spousal abuse, and homosexuality. Donna Pescow arrived in Pine Valley in 1983 playing openly gay doctor Lynn Carson. Years later, in 2000, Erica’s own daughter Bianca came out of the closet as a lesbian. Erica flipped out, fell off the wagon (despite the character’s previous stint at the Betty Ford Clinic), escaped to Las Vegas under an assumed name, and became Sin City’s most celebrated showgirl (in her late 50s!). Erica eventually came to her senses and accepted Bianca’s homosexuality.

A few years ago, in what was billed as a cost-cutting move, the production of “All My Children” was moved from New York to Los Angeles. I began seeing the residents of Pine Valley around town. I spotted Erica’s daughter Bianca (Eden Riegel) at the movies and Jackson Montgomery (Walt Willey) at my favorite coffee shop. I had a conversation with Greenlee Lavery (Rebecca Budig) at a bookstore, and just the other day saw both Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams) and Amanda Martin (Chrishell Stause) hiking in Runyon Canyon (they weren’t together). “All My Children” has been a training ground for countless actors, some of whom went on to great success elsewhere. Most famous on that list, besides actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, talk show host Kelly Ripa, and movie star/Fergie’s husband Josh Duhamel, is Oscar-winning actress Melissa Leo who began her career on “All My Children” as Cliff Warner’s disturbed sister.

My most memorable encounter with a resident of Pine Valley occurred many years ago. In 2005, “All My Children” lost one of its foremost citizens, Phoebe Tyler Wallingford, when actress Ruth Warrick died at the age of 90. Like Susan Lucci, Warrick had been on the show since the beginning. She was once a member of Orson Welles’ renowned rep company. Her first film was the 1941 classic “Citizen Kane” in which she played Orson Welles’ first wife, Emily Norton Kane, the niece of the President. The montage of their marital problems as shown through the ever-lengthening distance between Orson Welles and Ruth Warrick at the breakfast table, is one of the most iconic sequences in the history of the movies.

Back in the early 1980s, Ruth Warrick published a book, “The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler” and also recorded an LP as her feisty character. Somehow she got booked into a rock club in Chicago that was owned by my sister’s boyfriend at the time. I don’t remember much about the evening except the moment when Warrick, looking for a male volunteer, singled me out in the audience and brought me up on the stage. To the crowd’s delight, she sang a love song to me as Phoebe Tyler. I’m sure I turned as red as Fusion lipstick as Warrick caressed me while singing the lyrics: “I love you, yes I do, I love you. If you break my heart I'll die. So be sure that it's true, when you say ‘I love you,’ It’s a sin to tell a lie!” When it was over, she planted a lingering kiss firmly on my lips. Okay, I’ll say it. Ruth Warrick was in her late 60s and I was in my early 20s, but it was hot!

There is talk about an online version of “All My Children” starting up again in January, but so far Susan Lucci and many of the other actors have said they’re not interested. Pine Valley without Erica? I don’t think so. Good-bye to the Kanes, the Martins, the Chandlers, the Hubbards, and all the rest of the relics of this disappearing art form. We’ll miss you and your crazy lives.

Staring at the World Trade Center

I have absolutely nothing significant or profound to say on this tenth anniversary of September 11. And yet, of course, I woke up thinking about that terrifying day. I didn't listen to a lot of the coverage this weekend but one show that moved me to tears was a podcast from “The Story” on public radio. I listened to “They Did What They Could: Three Stories” as I hiked Runyon Canyon yesterday and found myself sobbing throughout. The stories are not about the day of the attacks, they are just simple looks at three individuals and what they did in the aftermath. The first profile is of Richie Cabo, a horticulturist with a New York nursery who was there when they brought in a near-dead tree from the World Trade Center plaza that had been buried in the rubble of the towers. Over many years, Cabo and his colleagues miraculously nursed the damaged tree back to health. Last December it was replanted at the site of the attack where it is now part of the 9/11 memorial. Especially moving is Richie's emotional reading of a poem someone sent him about the “Survivor Tree.” 

Ten years ago this second, I was sitting at my computer in my apartment on Crescent Heights Boulevard in Los Angeles, answering emails from my company on the east coast. It was a little before 6 am when I noticed a news scrawl that said “small plane accidentally hits World Trade Center.” Huh? By the time I got to the TV set in my bedroom it was clear that it wasn't a small plane but there still seemed to be massive confusion about what had taken place. When I watched the live transmission of a second plane slamming into the other tower, I thought it was a video replay of the first attack. Then, when the Pentagon was struck by yet another plane, I remember running to my bathroom window to see if the skyscrapers in downtown Los Angeles were being hit as well. I was on the phone with my friend Helena as the first building collapsed. It took us both almost a minute to understand what had happened, it just seemed incomprehensible that the building wasn’t there anymore.

After getting through to some of my friends in New York, I learned that a close friend of one of my colleagues was on the 105th floor of one of the towers and, knowing that he couldn’t get out, had called his family and friends to say good-bye. At the time I was working with an author in North Carolina on a geography book. Two close friends of this woman worked for National Geographic and were on Flight 77 with some Washington, DC teachers and three 11-year-old sixth graders who were traveling to California to participate in an outreach program at a marine sanctuary near Santa Barbara. The students were from an underprivileged neighborhood and were terribly excited to be on their first plane trip. All of them were killed when the plane slammed into the Pentagon. The author I was working with dedicated her book to her lost friends and colleagues.

The first time I saw the World Trade Center was in September 1972 during my very first trip to New York. My grandfather had just been elected President of the Menswear Retailers of America and, as a Bar Mitzvah present, had taken me to the swearing-in festivities. I was thrilled to see that great city at last, and I’ve written about some of the memorable moments from that trip, such as when my grandmother accosted Liza Minnelli in front of the Plaza Hotel screaming, “Leeesa! Leesa Minoolli! Come over here and meet my grandson!” as well as my unwilling participation in some grand theft at the fancy La Côte Basque restaurant. One of our touristy adventures during that trip was a boat ride around New York Harbor. I vividly remember staring in awe at the brand new towers that I believe were still being cloaked with their white sheathing. Sure, we had skyscrapers in Chicago, including the still-under-construction Sears Tower which would soon eclipse the World Trade Center as the tallest building in the world, but I was still impressed by the sight of these imposing double monoliths.

I first ventured inside the World Trade Center in September 1978. My mother and I were spending a week in New York prior to my departure for my Junior Year Abroad in Paris. The day before I left the country, we had a sumptuous brunch at Windows on the World, the elegant restaurant on the 106th floor of the North Tower. I remember exactly where we were sitting and the breathtaking views all around us that were even more dazzling than the food. I can still see the employees of the restaurant buzzing about. Could any of those people have been working there in September 2001? As we know, there were no survivors from that floor, well above the swath of the building that was decimated by the plane. The restaurant lost 73 members of its staff along with 87 people who were eating breakfast or having meetings there at the time. There is a haunting photograph dubbed “The Falling Man” that shows one of the restaurant employees in mid-air, having jumped from the building in order to escape the inferno.

In the mid-1980s I visited New York with my girlfriend Julie and we couldn’t get enough of Manhattan, walking from one end of the city to the other. I took my shiksa girlfriend to lunch at Sammy’s Roumanian, a Lower East Side Jewish hangout that is not for the faint of heart. A pitcher of golden chicken fat sits on every table and there is enough cholesterol in each meal to clog the Lincoln Tunnel. I remember Julie ordering some dish that featured “unborn eggs,” God help her. When she couldn’t finish her plate, the waitress reprimanded her, calling it a shanda to waste all that good food.

Trying to walk off our heavy meal, we continued southward until we found ourselves in front of the twin towers. It’s eerie to see Julie standing in front of “The Sphere,” Fritz Koenig’s massive bronze sculpture that stood in the plaza between the two buildings. “The Sphere” was the only work of art in the World Trade Center complex that survived the terrorist attack. It was heavily damaged by the falling buildings, of course, and the unrepaired sculpture is now on display in Battery Park. It’s a surprisingly powerful symbol that is now the focal point of a new controversy. A group of 9/11 families want the sphere moved back to its original location at Ground Zero, its damaged hull a fitting reminder of the violence of that day. But they're getting resistance from Port Authority and claim officials don't want the Sphere to mar the “sanitized” beauty of the new memorial.  

To get as much of the towers in the frame as possible, I got on my back on the ground of the plaza and snapped this photo of Julie standing in front of the massive buildings, the same picture that was taken by millions of tourists up through September 10, 2001. Looking at the photo now, all I can see are the obscene gashes left in the buildings by the two planes and the grisly footage of the people who jumped to their deaths, many landing in the very spot where Julie is standing.

I wandered around the World Trade Center complex many times since then, including just a few weeks before the attack. Kendall and I were on one of our pilgrimages to New York, the ones where we'd cram half a dozen plays into three or four days. Being an early riser, I’d hightail it onto the busy New York streets and wander down Broadway, past Greenwich Village and Soho, and into Lower Manhattan. I remember that last Sunday in August 2001, using the twin towers as my compass rose as I headed towards the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a beautiful structure which sat in the shadow of the World Trade Center. As part of its permanent collection, the museum contained priceless artifacts rescued from Staszow, my great-grandparents’ Polish shtetl. I gazed at the towers as I walked by, remembering earlier visits, including those with my mother who had died in 1999. It was sad that I’d never be here with her again, but at least these buildings would be permanent and everlasting reminders of our New York adventures.

Turning 52: The Greatest Show on Earth?

I’m continuing my insane tradition of looking at my birthday through the lens of the Best Picture winner from the year of my age. I started this practice way back in 2005 when I turned 46. I contemplated my year based on 1946’s Oscar-winning film, “The Best Years of Our Lives.” When I turned 47, I examined my connections (there were many) to “Gentleman’s Agreement.” 48 was “Hamlet” but I found I related more to the other Best Picture nominees, especially “The Snake Pit,” God help me. When I turned 49, the film was “All the King’s Men,” which seemed appropriate since my birthday fell on the last day of the Republican National Convention when John McCain made his big speech. My 50th birthday came during Charlie’s final week in the NICU and I discussed that and my relationship to 1950’s Best Picture, “All About Eve.” Last year, when I turned 51, I pondered my past as “An American in Paris.”

Glancing at these birthday posts, I am stunned at how long I’ve been writing in this blog and the sheer volume of material on these pages.  Most of my posts back then were endless—did anyone read that stuff? Thanks to all who are still paying attention to this nearly obsolete writing form. Is my refusal to give up this blog after all these years similar to my past reluctance to let go of typewriters, 8-track tapes, Betamax, and laserdiscs?

The Academy Awards for 1952 was the first Oscars ceremony that was televised, with live feeds from New York and the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. It was the 25th Academy Awards presentation, and in the view of many, the most perplexing. The five films nominated for best picture were Cecil B. De Mille’s circus extravaganza, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Fred Zinnemann’s classic western, “High Noon,” Richard Thorpe’s costume epic, “Ivanhoe,” John Huston’s look at Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris, “Moulin Rouge,” and John Ford’s uncharacteristic John Wayne vehicle, “The Quiet Man.”

The fact that the worst film of the bunch, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” won the top honors stinks of some kind of backroom deal. Everyone expected “High Noon” to take home the prize. But don’t forget that this was the height of the Cold War and McCarthy’s anti-commie crusade. Is it an accident that the right wing De Mille was a cooperative player in the witch hunt while Fred Zinnemann was not? Indeed, the producer of “High Noon,” Carl Foreman, would soon be blacklisted. Some critics have even called that film an allegory of the McCarthy era—it’s no wonder the jittery Motion Picture Academy left it alone (although they did award conservative Gary Cooper, a recent “friendly witness” before the House Un-American Activities Commission, the Best Actor Oscar).

“The Greatest Show on Earth” is a melodramatic look at a traveling circus troupe. Many actual members of the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus appeared in the film, mingling with trapeze artists Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde, creepy clown Jimmy Stewart, elephant trainer Gloria Grahame, hula girl Dorothy Lamour, and the stressed-out circus manager, Charlton Heston. Oy. How this abomination even got nominated boggles the mind. And guess which films were  NOT nominated that year? Would you believe “The Member of the Wedding,” “The Bad and the Beautiful,” “Come Back, Little Sheba,” "Monkey Business," and “Singin’ in the Rain,” to name a few? WHAT WAS THE ACADEMY THINKING?!

Still, in terms of my life as I hit the ripe old age of 52, I’d say “The Greatest Show on Earth” is an apt description. I won’t even start on the whole issue of being in my 50s—it doesn’t seem possible, I feel like I'm in my low 30s at the most. Is that a case of dysfunctional arrested development or am I just young at heart? Whatever. But the good news about getting older, I have to say, is that my overall priorities have changed dramatically over the years. True, thanks to the crumbling economy I’m making less money now than I was ten years ago and I’m obviously not thrilled about that, but I no longer torment myself that this is a mark of my failure in life. If I dropped dead tonight, God forbid (even though, like Ingrid Bergman, I would like to go on my birthday one day!), I’d die a happy man, knowing that I lived a life that included so much loving and being loved. Isn’t that all that really matters? (Please forgive my De Mille-like schmaltziness!)

Despite several issues I have with Cecil B. De Mille, there are many of his films that I enjoy immensely, from the lavish Gloria Swanson silents to his campy Biblical dramas such as “Samson and Delilah” and “The Ten Commandments.” Whether you like his work or not, you have to concede that he was a master showman. He used to always narrate the previews to his films with great solemnity. I think this trailer for “The Greatest Show on Earth” is a hoot—way better than the film itself. Take a look:

 

See you next year, when, God-willing, I will be traveling “From Here to Eternity.”

Charlie Learns a New Word

At the risk of media overkill (this video has already been posted by several people on Facebook), I want to share a clip of Charlie getting a vocabulary lesson from my nephew Sammy last week in Chicago.

Like a good cousin, Sam is making it his mission to teach Charlie the important things in life. Here you can see that his persistence pays off. Charlie is also developing great comic timing. As you hear my sister yelling at her son to stop, Charlie begins his rant at just the right moment and plays it for all it's worth!

 

I won’t even go into the other words Sammy taught Charlie, but let’s just say he raised a few eyebrows on the airplane later that day!