SUPPORTING PLAYER: My Life Upon The Wicked Stage

By Richard Seff

Richard Seff has spent 60 years in the theatrical jungle as actor, playwright, librettist, agent, investor and now memoirist. He first acted professionally in 1946 and his last engagement onstage was in 2006. He took a 22 year leave of absence from the stage after a long run on Broadway in support of Claude Rains and on tour with Edward G. Robinson in the prize winning Darkness At Noon. During those 22 years he represented artists in the musical theatre.

He left the talent agency in 1974 at the height of his career to return to the stage. In the 30 years that have followed, he’s appeared in some 25 plays, for one of which (Angels Fall) he won the Carbonell Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor In A Play’. He’s been in 7 feature films and over 50 television series, soap operas, TV films and mini-series. He is the author of Paris Is Out! which brightened Broadway in 1970 for 104 performances. The musical Shine! for which he wrote the book, won a National Music Theatre Network Award in 2001 and has been published by Samuel French, Inc. and recorded by Original Cast Records.

Hit the dressing rooms with him and discover what goes on backstage, in the wings, and behind closed doors. Learn about theatre investing in the Golden Age, when one could buy a piece of a show in the intermission on opening night. He’s got tales to tell!

Join him on this fun filled odyssey through the decades in shows starring Alan Alda, Ethel Merman, Chita Rivera, Dick Van Dyke, William Hurt, Christopher Reeve, Richard Thomas, Judd Hirsch, Jason Robards, in others directed by Hal Prince and written by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Come on along and listen to — well, you know what.



He’s Got Tales to Tell!

“Richard Seff’s career in the theatre represents active participation as agent, producing associate, librettist, and, ultimately, as a skilled actor … In fact, he was responsible for recommending me to, among others, John Kander and James and William Goldman, to take over the direction of A Family Affair in Philadelphia on its way to Broadway … It turns out he’s a fine writer as well, and this chronicle of an unusual and varied life in the theatre makes excellent and valuable reading.” — Hal Prince

“Oh, what a journey we’ve had. I thank Richard Seff for helping mold the life that I am still enjoying today. To live it again, through his own words, fills my heart.” — Chita Rivera

“He is a clever old sausage. Far more interesting to see written from his perspective than from a grander vantage point. Far more revealing and very redolent of the profession and its various joys, tribulations, and humiliations. Well done!” — Emma Thompson

“A very interesting look at our business from an angle most people never are aware of, including those who are most visibly involved.” — Alan Alda

“For years Richard Seff has been one of the wittiest raconteurs on the Rialto, but a pleasure known only to the cognoscenti. Now he has gone public with a biographical reminiscence brimming with anecdota, insight and intelligence. Bravo!” — Stefan Kanfer author of Ball of Fire

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 28, 2006
• ISBN: 9781450046459

Richard Seff

RICHARD SEFF has spent his entire working life in show business as actor, playwright, librettist, agent, investor, memoirist and now novelist. He joined Actor's Equity in 1946 and his last engagement onstage was in 2008. He took a 22 year leave of absence from the stage after a long run on Broadway in the prize winning "Darkness At Noon." During those 22 years he represented artists in the musical theatre, including Chita Rivera, Robert Goulet, Julie Andrews, Ron Field, Linda Lavin, John Kander and Fred Ebb. At the height of his agency career, he left that field to return to the stage. In the decades since, he has appeared in some 25 plays, for one of which ("Angels Fall") he won the Carbonell Award in 1982 for Best Supporting Actor in a play. He's been in 7 feature films and over 50 television series, soap operas, TV films and mini-series. He is the author of "Paris Is Out!" a comedy which brightened Broadway in 1970 for 104 performances. The musical "Shine!" for which he wrote the book, was a triple prize winner in the 2010 NYMF Festival of New Musicals, and has been published by Samuel French and recorded by Original Cast Records. His memoir, "Supporting Player," published in 2004 is still selling as a vivid visit to the Golden Age of Broadway. But in the beginning, in the halcyon days of 1949, he was sustained by the then-flourishing field of radio, so come join him as he conjures up Alice and Harold, a young couple, newly arrived in the Big Apple with high hopes, as they discover each other, and together enter the revolving doors of the mighty United Radio Society (URSo) in search of fulfillment and an honest dollar. Whether or not you recall the pull of those voices emanating from Philcos across the land, you'll have a wild ride, for distance has lent enchantment to this very Disneyish dinosaur called Radio.

Book preview

Copyright © 2006 by Richard Seff.

ONLY LOVE from Zorba (written by John Kander and Fred Ebb)

©1968 – Alley Music Corp. and Trio Music Co.

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

SEEING THINGS from The Happy Time (written by John Kander, Fred Ebb)

© 1967 – Alley Music Corp. and Trio Music Co.

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

A QUIET THING from Flora The Red Menace (written by John Kander, Fred Ebb)

© 1965 – Alley Music Corp. and Trio Music Co.

Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/04/2023

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

1 Overture

2 Act I—Eight Years In Six

3 Three Years In Four

4 Getting Ready

5 Young And Foolish

6 Darkness At Noon, Bright Lights At Night

7 First Interval

8 Road Warrior

9 East Meets West

10 Second Interval

11 Act II—Scene I: New Boy In Town

12 The Lady In Question

13 Act II—Scene II: In Which David Meets Goliath

14 Corporate Life With Song And Dance

15 Two Birthdays

16 A Truly Family Affair

17 I Build A Little List

18 Finishing The Fifties

19 The Chapter On Chita

20 Kandor And Erb No More

21 Surprise!

22 Act II—Scene III: On Our Own

23 The Peter Principle In Action

24 Second Act Curtain

25 Act III—Return Of The Native

26 Standby

27 Bicoastal Actor

28 Librettist

29 Hurry Up And Wait

30 DeMunn And Me, Guillaume Et Lui

31 Gold Into Dross

32 Park Avenue Lady And Gent From Virginia

33 A Long Trip From The Balcony

34 Dying Is Easy

35 Dennis Again, Tim, Tennessee

36 Taking My Act On The Road

37 A Phoenix Rising, With Interruptions

38 Third Act Curtain

This Is How The Time Goes By

Advance Praise For ‘Supporting Player’

"I know from experience as a dramatist I can often set things in motion offstage as well as on. Over the years, during productions, people have fallen in love, got engaged, fallen out of love, resolved to divorce, miscarried, gone into labour, and even on one occasion dropped dead in mid-scene. After reading Richard’s fascinating, graphic account of the backstage machinations which went on during the Broadway production of The Norman Conquests, I can now add ‘and started a civil war’."

—Sir Alan Ayckbourn

An entertaining and informative love letter to the theatre during one of its golden periods from someone who was there, and ‘saw it all’.

—John Kander

"I loved the sly, wickedly funny and sardonic observations that were as pertinent to the human race at large as to that idiosyncratic subset, Show People. They made me fall in love with the business all over again. Supporting Player is a terrific read. And a classic one.

—Patrick Pacheco,

On Stage

How wonderful to have Richard Seff’s memories along with his unquestionable passion for the American musical and the people who made them great. It was the best of times, and he was there!

—Linda Lavin

"Without Kander and Ebb there would be no Martin Richards, Producer, because their Chicago opened the world of musical theatre to me, and without Richard Seff there would have been no Chicago for he introduced Kander and Ebb to me. He has captured this period in Broadway’s history and made it page-turningly readable."

—Martin Richards,

Producers’ Circle

This funny and fascinating book should be of interest to everyone who enjoys the theatre, and wants to know more of its inner workings and backstage shenanigans.

—Stephen Sultan,

President, Dramatists Play Service

"Richard Seff was there from the 1940s on, putting collaborators together, making the deals, consoling those who had written failures, and toasting the ones who triumphed. Until a time-machine comes along, Supporting Player admirably fills the niche. This is a delightful, and useful, memoir."

—Peter Filichia,

The Star-Ledger

"Dick Seff, actor, agent, playwright, librettist! Now his memoir comes along, filled with wonderful anecdotes about theatre folk and his experiences in dealing with them. It’s a must-read for all theatre buffs.

—Price Berkley,

Theatrical Index

"He captures the true spirit of what it takes to make Theatre for the serious historian as well as the devotee. It’s a must read.

—Charles Van Nostrand,

President, Samuel French

To all my fellow players who learned their lines, showed up eight times a week through fair weather and foul in sickness and in health, who stuck with it through the long runs and the unemployment lines. To all of you, I dedicate this book.

Book Design and Production Services

Lawrence R. Peterson, Waterbury, Vermont

Front Cover: At Center, a portrait of young Seff, the agent, 1963. I do believe I am smiling at the prospect of one day playing all sorts of interesting gents. Clockwise, from the top, they are: Congressman Devine in Quiz Show, Saunders in Lend Me A Tenor, Older Man in Childe Byron, Shamraev in The Sea Gull, Baron de Hirsch in Herzl, Nelly Rockefeller in The Truth Teller, Tom Bailey in Established Price, and Father Bill Doherty in Angels Fall.

Book Spine: Harry, a guest in A Delicate Balance, who became the man who came to dinner, and stayed for breakfast and lunch.

(Photo: Gerry Goodstein)

Equity_r2.tif

1946. I joined Actors’ Equity. I was a professional! Five minutes later I was almost sent packing. Ten minutes later, my union was protecting me.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For their help to me in my research, in no particular order I thank Armando del Rivero, Laurinda Barrett, Bob Taylor and Barbara Knowles at the NY Library for the Performing Arts, Bertram Cohen, John Kander, Chita Rivera, the late Fred Ebb, Kenneth Jones, Roger Anderson, Rhoda Herrick, Leo Bookman, Eleanor Kilgallen, Rosie Bentnick, Michael Fiedler, Martin Richards and Phyllida Law. For their support and encouragement I add Hal Prince for more than he realizes, Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Emma Thompson, Edwin Schloss who has become my boon companion and chief champion, Sophie Thompson, Steve Sultan at Dramatists’ Play Service, Stefan Kanfer, Alan Alda, Simon Beresford, Larry Dalzell, Jason Darrow, Michael Riedel, Peter Filichia, Patrick Pacheco, Charles Van Nostrand at Samuel French, Inc., Mark Fleischman, Philip Boroff at Bloomberg News, Jack Woodbridge, Bill Fowkes, Richard Hunt at Emmis Press, Tony Dessolis, Brian d’Arcy-James, Linda Lavin, Robert Freedman, Frank Corsaro, Patrick LoBrutto, Dolores Sutton, Joy and Zeke Seligsohn and my housekeeper Rita Mantilla, who for three years has put up with my ups, downs and an occasional rant, as she brought order to my chaos.

Perhaps an odd ‘thank you’ to the seven editors who rejected my manuscript. Never have I had such encouraging ‘no’s’. At one point I was tempted to publish the rejections and forget about the book. Each editor was courteous, often calling the next to recommend the book, for their Boards did not feel it had a ‘handle’, and this is a ‘bottom line’ market. But I was solidly encouraged to go on. So I do thank Peter Gethers at Knopf, Kay Radtke at Applause, Mark Glubke at Backstage, Jack Heffron at Emmis, Zainab Zakari at Little,Brown, Linda Rosenberg at Farrar Straus and Giroux and Karen Gerhard at Bulfinch Press.

I also thank my neice Tori Witte Santos for demanding of me, after reading only three chapters, Finish it! At Xlibris Publishing I am grateful to Aimee Aborque and for the advice and counsel of Marc Cabreros, who answered our questions almost before they were asked. For his great help in shooting and preparing some of the photographs, and for his other creative contributions, I thank John Quilty. And for his enormous assistance in designing the book, (assistance be damned; he did it all, with me assisting him by executing his orders to the letter!) I thank Lawrence Reed Peterson. Without them this book would have remained a thick pile of papers, a bunch of faded photographs on a closet shelf.

Mother.tif

Mom and Pop on their honeymoon in Florida, 1921. Two years later

they produced my sister Carol. In 1927 talking pictures showed up, and so did I. (Photo: Author’s collection).

PROGRAM NOTE

My paternal grandfather Max Siff emigrated to the United States from Lithuania. Other members of his family settled in England and spelled the name Sieff. When I was seventeen, and about to enter professional theatre, I opted for Seff because I preferred the sound of it. It also occurred to me that, as the first of my clan to join the vagabonds and roustabouts, if I totally failed, the family could always claim they’d never heard of me.

Seff_Head_All.tif

Nine ages of man. Top row, left to right.; The young actor, 20, vacuous. Next, A year later, in the style of the day, with Hollywood glamour added. Next, All glamour is gone in 1951 to accommodate Darkness At Noon and my new reach for Stella Adler’s truth and reality. As a result I don’t look so hot.

Middle Row, left to right: Early middle age arrives, as I return to the stage at 47, after twenty agency years. Next, the mustached face in 1978. It didn’t help. It only appeared in one film (Being There), so I removed it at the suggestion of a casting director. Next, two years later, I’d lost the mustache but kept the jacket.

Bottom row, left to right: In 1990, at rehearsal for My Fair Lady, I am relaxed. Next, in 1996, fully mature (the face, that is; not the fellow). Next, still at it in 2006, genial and content at 79.

(Photos: Author’s Collection, David Rodgers, Tom Bloom, John Quilty.)

1

OVERTURE

W HAT ELSE COULD I DO? I was six years old, going-on-seven, and I’d never given any thought at all to my future. At six, the future meant lunch, and the distant future meant Sunday when Aunt Regina was coming over. My birthday is September 23rd, after the start of the school term, but Mom had gone to see Mr. Dickler, the principal of PS 139 in our district of Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, and got him to let me sneak in past the deadline. You were supposed to start Kindergarten after your fifth birthday, but I got to go just before mine. So by the time the summer of 1934 rolled around, I’d already finished first grade at six, going-on-seven.

I knew something was up around the first of June when the school term was nearly over. The depression was on, but I didn’t know much about that. We had food, clothes, and a roof over our heads and everyone we knew was in the same boat we were, and I got a lot of lectures about the value of a dollar, and the first proverb I remember is waste not, want not. Now and then I’d hear: You must eat your spinach. Children are starving in China. I said I wouldn’t mind sending the spinach over to China, or the asparagus or the Brussels sprouts, if that would help. That sort of thing might bring a laugh to the table, from my sister Carol and Mom. Pop was not a laugher. The four of us gathered nightly at six o’clock, the only time of the day when we were together. Pop returned each evening to Brooklyn on the BMT Subway from Manhattan, where he earned us our money by selling buckles and buttons to the men’s clothing industry. Carol and I went to the same school, but on slightly different schedules so I didn’t see her till evening. Mom? I have no idea where she spent her days. I do know she was rarely home when I returned from school for lunch; I had lunch with Marie from Barbados, who was a combination cleaning lady, baby sitter, primitive but profound philosopher, listening to The O’Neills, a radio soap to which we were both addicted. I really don’t know where Mom was, probably at some class or other. Mom always wanted to keep up with the times.

Kids have a way of noticing things, and as our windows opened wide to let in June and its splendid sounds and smells, there was activity of a sort new to me in Apartment 5F on Ocean Avenue. A different kind of underpants were being bought for me at Woolworth’s, and tags with my name on them were being sewn inside. White socks and a pair of sneakers showed up. Older cousins Jules and Lad and Chester contributed used, but usable sweaters and a raincoat one of them had outgrown. One day a trunk, bought on sale at Kresge’s 5 and l0 Department Store, appeared. I wasn’t told a thing. In previous summers we had gone to a cabin in the Catskills near the grand house my Uncle Aaron owned in Haines Falls, New York. Aaron was the family star, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, Mom‘s oldest brother, and the rest of the family trouped along as satellites to be near him in the mountains. Everyone showed up in the Catskills in 1932 and 1933, which is the beginning of my memory chart. The women and children were there for the summer, the men would come up on the train on Fridays. Mom rented the cottage for the four of us plus Marie from Barbados and Miss Josephine, a college girl she convinced to take room and board in exchange for keeping an eye on Carol and me, but somehow there were often ten or twelve of us living there. The sound of that train’s whistle happily haunts me still. To me it meant Pop‘s coming! I can hear him coming! I wasn’t of much use in the country. I liked the look of the mountain villages, I loved the earthy smells, but frogs and minnows and garter snakes didn’t do it for me. I’d sit in the babbling brook daydreaming while the other kids went fishing, played baseball, climbed trees, did the things most kids do when they’re taken out of the brick, glass and steel world in which they live.

But the Catskills were to be no more. One day in late June of 1934, Mom told me I was going away, alone, for the whole summer to a place where all my clothes had to have name tags in them. I was to be put on a train with a lot of other kids, most of whom went to PS 139 with me, for Mr. Dickler ran a summer camp for boys in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and I was signed up as a Midget even though the camp accepted no one under seven. Once again she’d conned him into letting me in early. She explained to me it would be good for me to learn all about country ways—how to ride a horse and build a fire and swim and play sports and make belts and wallets in Arts and Crafts. She said it was time I learned to spot poison ivy so I could avoid it the rest of my life. She went on to say my new school friend Mervyn Mendel would be going too, and that she would come up to visit me some time during the 8 weeks I’d be away. I made it clear I wanted no part of this.

Mervyn is not my friend, I said. He’s never been to the movies. Not once. I had been taken to my first movie that winter—Shirley Temple in Little Miss Marker, and I was hooked. My final thrust: We don’t have poison ivy in Brooklyn so who cares what it looks like?" I was happy in Brooklyn. It never occurred to me that I would ever leave it, willingly.

But at almost-seven, I didn’t pull much weight, and on July 1, both Mom and Pop escorted me via the BMT subway, to Grand Central Station, where I was introduced to 18 or 19 other miserable looking little kids, and maybe 30 older ones, who seemed thrilled to be leaving home. Mervyn was there too, wearing a baseball cap, carrying cleats.

My parents looked nervous, but put a brave face on it. I was busy giving them the silent treatment for I was not a happy camper. Eventually a whistle blew, and Uncle Dick (Mr. Dickler’s summer name) marched us off to the train to Springfield, Mass, where we’d be met by a bus to take us to Camp Iroquois for Boys just across the New Hampshire border. My trunk had been sent on ahead, so all I had to carry was my copy of Modern Screen and the latest issue of Variety. I could barely read, but one of mom’s best friends, who worked for the editor, had me on a list of free subscribers, and she’d already taught me how to check the grosses of the current movies. I never looked back but I could feel Mom and Pop waving me off, wondering if they’d done the right thing. I felt betrayed and abandoned, but I was determined not to show them. I didn’t cry till we’d passed 125th Street. Then I had a good wail, which wasn’t embarrassing because at least two other kids were bawling too, and it took Uncle Dick, and two other Uncles, Counsellors Cy and Normie, to calm us down by telling us all about the good stuff that was awaiting us at good old Green and Gray (the colors of Camp Iroquois) up there in the valley below Mount Monadnock. By the time we’d hit the Massachusetts border north of Connecticut, and been fed some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I was feeling better. All I had to do was adjust to being an orphan, and I’d be OK.

In the weeks that followed, I learned a lot. Uncle Hank, who was the counselor in Bunk 2, where I was placed with 4 other Midgets, showed me how to fold a sweater so it looked great in the cubby hole above my bed where our clothes were stored. He taught me how to make a bed with hospital corners at the bottom for that smart military look. I learned how to stick a potato and a marshmallow on a stick and roast them over an open fire at the Tuesday outdoor roasts. I moved from the shallow end of the wooden pool to the deeper end as I learned to swim. I learned that I was hopeless in the sports department in everything that involved a team—swimming was OK, and I began to learn tennis, and I could stay on a horse. Mom loved horses and had signed me up for the riding program. I was the youngest by far, so when Uncle Stan decided the boys needed a run, he’d shout trot, amd then canter, and off they’d go, leaving me behind on old Dobbin. It felt very creepy there on that leafy road with only the sound of the crickets in my ears. But as the weeks went on, and I got to know the old horse, I’d be glad to get rid of the others, leaving me to fantasize about being in a movie. I could hear the music playing in the background and I could feel the camera panning as it passed me on the horse. I’d seen how they did that in my Modern Screen, and it all seemed very mysterious and magical. Uncle Stan was OK—he always did come back for me once he and the older boys had had their run. I would just have to learn how to ride, and one day I’d be invited to join them. But mostly I was a flop at anything sportsy.

Oh, they tried. They put me on the Midget softball team, in left field because no one ever hit the ball that far. I didn’t mind because it gave me a chance to sing and pick daisies when the other team was up at bat. But one day, one of them connected, and the ball actually went up in the air—and I heard everyone yell Dickie, Dickie, it’s yours! so I looked up and there it was—a baseball zooming down on me. So I stuck my glove, which was a loanout and miles too big on me, up in the air, hoping for a miracle. But the ball sailed right past the glove and smack into the middle of my nose. You never heard such screaming and yelling. Everyone rushed out to left field, and I was carted off to the infirmary with blood pouring out of me, thus ending my career in baseball.

Basketball was even worse. At 4 feet flat, I not only could never get a basket, I couldn’t even reach the rim. And my dribbling was a disaster. I’d dribble twice, then the ball would go rolling down the court, usually right into the waiting hands of the other team. Mervyn Mendel tried to help. He took me under his wing—but all I ended up as was sort of his water boy—getting him drinks when I wasn’t sitting on the sidelines watching.

Soccer was no good either. I kept getting kicked in the shins; it was really quite pitiful. I once kicked the ball with great power, but as I hadn’t a clue what the rules were, I kicked it straight into the wrong goal, and there was a giant brou-ha-ha as to whether or not the points should be counted for the other team. I don’t remember the outcome, because to tell the truth, though I wanted people to like me, I didn’t give a damn who won.

Archery was a little better. But when I almost took out Alan Silver‘s eye by losing control of the bow just as I let fly the arrow, they benched me yet again. I was a washout, no sense in beating around the bush about that. And so it went, week after week, until we hit the middle of August. By then, I wasn’t hating camp all that much, now that they’d given up on me as a team player, and were leaving me alone with my books, magazines, tennis racket, riding clothes, bathing suit. And every Monday night, they took us to town to the Gem Theatre in Peterborough to see a movie! Errol Flynn in Captain Blood, Irene Dunne and Cary Grant in The Awful Truth, William Powell and Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey, Rogers and Astaire in Swing Time, and I was in heaven. New Hampshire in the 30s was just about 100% Protestant, and I remember Uncle Cy giving us a pep talk in the bus on the way to the movie.

Think of it like you’re going to a party in a stranger’s house, so you have to be very polite. They think we’re strange, and we want them to know we’re no stranger than they are, and nothing to be afraid of.

That was because Flatbush in Brooklyn was about 90% Jewish at the time, so most of the kids in PS 139 were too, and most of the Our Town crowd (that play was written in Peterborough, and clearly resembles it) had never seen a Jew before. So, though today that whole episode would be called totally politically incorrect, I don’t remember being specially traumatized by it. I just thought: this is going to be fun. An adventure! With real live Protestants! We didn’t have many of those in Flatbush, which up till then had been my whole world.

So you can tell that by mid-August I was fitting in, having a reasonably good time, knowing that soon I could go home, having done my time. But I’d forgotten about Green and Gray, the Color War that always ended the season at Camp Iroquois. For a week, the two teams, chosen boy by boy by the counselors, went into battle for the points that added up to victory or defeat. Baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis, swimming events, bunk inspection, archery, each game or event was assigned points for first place, second, third. Each camper was only allowed to compete in three events, otherwise the Mervyn Mendels, who excelled at everything, would keep little losers like me out of the whole week of war. Frankly, I’d have preferred that, but the rules wanted to be fair, so they further stated that every camper had to be involved in at least two events. One day, before the war started, I was wandering down to the lake, and I overheard three counselors in an empty bunk, talking with great urgency. They had listed the campers they wanted on their team, and were down to the bottom of the barrel, which was me.

But what can he do? one of them asked. He’s got to be in two events, and he can’t DO anything.

We could put him in the diving contest., one of them answered. We’ve run out of athletes. We have to submit three divers to match their three. I saw him dive once. He’s no good, but at least he won’t hurt himself: And he’ll supply us with the third contestant we need.

I wished I could tell him: It’s all right! I don’t mind watching from the sidelines. But then the third one piped up:

Wait a minute, he said. What about the play?

What about it? they answered.

It ends the war, it’s the last event, and it gets l00 points. I’ll bet he could do something in that.

They still didn’t get it.

I know, said the third counselor. He’s probably never acted before. But I have a hunch. I mean he’s always telling stories, and that’s acting of a sort. Let’s pick him.

For the play??? one of them asked, incredulously.

For the play, said the other.

And then I could hear them moving about, so I zipped on down to the lake.

I didn’t know what a play was. All I knew was that one of them wanted me for the team and that made me feel good. When Green and Gray came, and the events played themselves out, the teams were so evenly matched that, as we entered the final day, my Greens were only 47 points behind the Grays. And I’d won three of those points for my team! In the diving contest, with six contestants, I’d jumped off the low board thinking of everything Uncle Geoffrey had taught me, and after the six of us completed three dives each, they read out the scores. They work backwards, from third place to first, so the first words I heard were:

In third place, with three points, is Dickie Siff.

A great cheer went up, more of a roar. For I’d only been put in the event to satisfy the quota of two necessary events. No one expected me to WIN anything. It was a seminal event in my life. I felt now I could retire from competitive sports, at the peak of my career. Little six year old, going-on-seven, Dickie Siff had won three precious points for the Greens, against formidable odds.

Dbl_Sports.tifDbl_Sports.tif

Top: Several years after my diving triumph at six in color war at Camp Iroquois, I am still practicing. The top half of me is OK, the bottom clearly still needs work.

Bottom: At tennis I was nothing, if not determined. You can’t say I’m not trying. (Photos: Author’s Collection)

So I sailed into this thing called the play with great confidence. I was a member of the team now, a contributing member. Even Herbie Mandelbaum, a fellow Green, looked at me with a new respect. So I did exactly as Uncle Ivan told me to do. I took my sides, and worked with him privately (he was the play’s director) to learn them, and to get them just right. The final night of the War came, and after dinner, both teams, and all the guests and counselors piled into the Social Hall for this final event, this World Series of the Green and Gray Wars. I of course, was backstage, a new word to me. We were all together in one room, down two steps from the stage, and the play was sort of a combination of The Drunkard and The Tavern, turned into an original 45 minute one-acter, written by, directed by and starring Uncle Ivan (who happened to be a Green, like me). If it failed to beat out the Gray play, which was a musical review (one of their seniors played the piano by ear) called Monadnock Madness, all would be lost, and we would go home in defeat. My diving triumph had given me a burst of team spirit; as a result I was excited and nervous and drymouthed as curtain time neared. We were allowed to sit out front to see the musical; they had to go first, as they were ahead in points at the start of the evening. That was the rule. We, as the underdogs, got to go last. Their show wasn’t too bad actually. I tried not to, but I had to laugh when Mervyn Mendel, in a blonde wig and wearing high heels, sang an original number called I Wish I Could Throw A Ball, at which the kids laughed at some lines, and the adults at others. There was a funny sketch about what it was like to be a snake in New Hampshire when all the kids were making snakeskin wallets. And the head counselor of the Grays, their equivalent of our Uncle Ivan, played a comic version of Uncle Dick, complete with bald wig with white fringe. I never forgot his last words, in the finale.

So boys, he said, in that speechy way of Uncle Dick‘s, if you had a good time this summer at camp, it was your fault. And if you didn’t have a good time, it was your fault too. Now in the future, if you keep your mouths shut, and your bowels open, I promise everything will come out all right in the end.

That one got a huge laugh, and the show ended to lots of applause and hoots and hollers. I was shocked. Someone said bowels on stage. I was still reeling from this when I was pulled backstage to prepare for our show. The rest is hazy, but I do know I had nothing to do in the first part of the play. I could hear Ivan and the others out there through the beaverboard set. Everything seemed to be going well. There was a fight with a knife in the play, and I could hear the audience shriek with delight. Near the end, I headed out to my place backstage, and waited in the dark for my cue. Just in case I forgot it, Uncle Ivan had given me a personal prompter, but I didn’t need him. When I heard the line I was waiting for, I opened the door, and stepped out into the light. Right away, something happened. We’d had a rehearsal earlier in the day, but not with lights or sound, and certainly not with an audience. This was different. This was new and different. This was warm, it was friendly, it was comfortable. I started to speak when my cue came.

Father, dear father, come home with me now, the clock in the steeple’s struck one.

I was about to go on, but there was a ripple from out front. It got louder, turned into a murmur, then a laugh. I was thunderstruck. I looked at Uncle Ivan. His eyes said Wait, and I waited. When he felt it was time to go one, he nodded, so imperceptibly no one could see but me. We were in our own world, he and I, no one could enter. I went on.

And Mother has sent me to fetch you back home, for she’s ill and is almost undone.

The laugh from the other side of the footlights turned to a roar. I had no idea why. I looked at Uncle Ivan, with terror, but he smiled back warmly as if to say, No, that’s good. If there was more to my role, I don’t remember it. I think I helped Uncle Ivan (my father) to his unsteady feet, and we walked off together as the curtains came together, signifying the end. Ivan carried me to the center, to stand next to him, though in the rehearsal I’d been way over on the end, where a bit player belonged. As we took our curtain calls, he leaned down and whispered, You stole the whole show, kid. You’re a trouper.

The Greens got 100 points, and we won the war. So, what else could I do? I had to spend the rest of my life in the theatre, as any fool could see. You didn’t have to have all the lines, you could come in late, do your thing, help out, have some fun, shake things up, contribute. I was so relieved. After a lifetime, six long years, of being outside looking in, I’d finally found a home.

2

ACT I

EIGHT YEARS IN SIX

I WAS A DIFFERENT BOY when I got back to Brooklyn. I must explain I was no genius, but Mom‘s oldest sister Regina was a grade school teacher, and she’d latched on to me as the brainy nephew. She had no children of her own, had been married twice, briefly, but some women are better suited to being aunts than mothers, and she predated Auntie Mame by about twenty years as the Aunt you’d love to have. She traveled constantly in the summers, and took a sabbatical every seven years to do more of the same. Each time she returned, she’d bring token gifts from the far regions of the world, and she’d trot me over to the globe, and point to the gift’s country of origin. Then she’d go into her routine about Peru or Ethiopia or Siam and by the time she was through, I could a) spell the country’s name, b) I knew exactly where it was on the map, c) I had a fistful of significant facts about its rulers, its flora and fauna, and its attitude toward the Jews (they were either for us or agin us). She made reading and writing and even ‘rithmatic fun—so by the time I got into the first grade I was ahead of everyone else. She’d throw a new word at me with every visit—and together we’d find a sentence to put it in because words mean nothing until you know how to use them. So one week I’d be salivating over tomatoes, another I’d be masticating during dinner, and once when my Mom bought some Girl Scout cookies, I said Mom, that was so eleemosynary of you. While other kids were trading baseball cards and comic books, I was looking for sentences into which to stick my word-of-the-week. So everyone thought I was a genius, when in fact I was just good at learning my lines. I did have one area of smarts. I was a whiz at the mathematical parlor tricks they had me do, but I take no credit for it. It was just part of the package I got when they handed out equipment.

My sister Carol, almost four years older than I, had a rough beginning, and managed to live through all the childhood diseases that brushed me lightly or skipped right over me. Before I was born, she’d had a bout with scarlet fever, she had a heart murmur, her battles with measles and chicken pox and mumps were more severe than most, so she was a frail child, apprehensive. Doctors had been poking and probing her for most of her young life. By the time I became conscious of her, she was almost eight and I was four. It was during one of those summers in the Catskills—where we shared a room. She’d wake in the night, scared, and wake me up.

Richard,she’d say, someone’s on the porch. I can hear him! You have to go see.

I was four years old, and though I didn’t know her very well yet, I felt enormously protective of her because I got most of the attention, and people always looked sad and started to whisper when they talked about her. Something deep within me thought that was terribly unfair. Because she asked nothing of anyone, I always wanted to give her more.

So I’d get out of bed, scared myself, tiptoe out onto the porch, listen, come back and say, It’s just frogs! It’s just frogs and crickets! That’s all. There’s no one there. and that would calm her.

That sort of thing bonded us for the rest of our lives. Until she married and had children, I always felt I was the older. I looked out for her. I made her laugh. In later life she grounded me, gave me a family by sharing her four children and her home. It was a good relationship until she died at 58 in a fearsome car crash. Residuals from it still accrue and always will. She needed me for one thing; I needed her for another. Need turned to love, and that love endured. Yin and Yang; I’m very grateful for it.

When September of l934 greeted my return from camp, I entered the second grade. I’ll never forget Miss Thompson, spinster and school-marm to her finger tips. I made lots of enemies as Miss Thompson’s favorite—and I’d have been flattened weekly in the school yard during recess if I hadn’t learned—quickly—that they’d leave you alone if you laughed at yourself before they could. So I’d go out there with my marbles to shoot a few, and as some tough approached me, I’d stop him.

Teacher’s Pet. Teacher’s Pet, I’d yell. That’s me! I know! What can I do to stop her from fussing over me? I mean, sure I can spell, but you Monroe, you can steal third base! Will you teach me that? If you will, I’ll make you LEGIBLE!

That did it. That sounded like something he’d like to be. Before he could land one punch, Monroe and I were exchanging marbles and shooting the breeze.

I sailed through the second grade. In June, at semester’s end, Mr. Dickler (you didn’t call him Uncle Dick except in summer), called me in to his office to tell me that he’d decided to have me skip the first half of the third grade. He said I should tell my mother, so I went home and said, Mom, I don’t have to go to school till January, which is what I thought skip meant. The next AM, she called the school, and straightened me out. In those days, if you got good grades, you moved ahead faster than the others. At least you did in PS 139. She thought about it, and decided it was probably better. I’d be bored if the schooling didn’t move fast enough. I had no opinion. You want to skip me? Sure.

So it went through the eight grades. I’d finish one, then skip another. They did it to me four times so I was ready to graduate at eleven, going-on-twelve. I kept getting A in everything so of course they made me valedictorian. We marched into graduation in size places, tallest in front, with me at the tail end opposite Roberta Peterson (née Petrovsky), the littlest guy in the class. I had to make a speech, which began of course, Dear Mr. Dickler, Teachers, Parents, Guests and Fellow Students, and went on with: On the ocean of life we are but a small cork bobbing about. Who knows what the future may bring? Will we sink, or will we arrive safely on the shore?—I could feel the hostility in the room. Mervyn Mendel‘s mother Augusta had counted on him being up there making this speech, so she shot me a look that could kill. My own mother was busy talking to her neighbor and anyone else who’d listen:

He wrote every word of it, she whispered so loudly, I could hear her onstage. He wouldn’t let us help at all.

I don’t remember much about the years between Grades One and Eight. The Depression dragged on throughout the thirties, but the only time it got to me was when I only had ten cents with which to buy a snow shovel at the five and dime, and on my way to get it, I tripped, and the dime disappeared into a snowbank along Beverly Road. I just couldn’t get it back. So I had no shovel, and I started to cry. It was years before I realized how lucky I’d been—that the withholding of a ten cent shovel was the saddest thing I could recall about the Depression. No, I remember very little about school during all those years. I remember learning to ice skate in Prospect Park, to roller skate on the streets around our apartment.

I remember the movies, all of them. We had the Kenmore showing RKO and Warners Pictures, the Albemarle showing 20th Century Fox, the Kings showing MGM, Paramount and Columbia. Universal (Deanna Durbin and not much else except Frankenstein during the 30s) moved around, the Trans Lux got the foreign films. When Nelson Eddy sang to his Jeanette, I tried singing, but my voice hadn’t yet changed, and Stout Hearted Men didn’t work for me. Sonja Henie dazzled me, and I became a damned good skater, doing backward leaps and splits on roller skates while my buddies were all playing hockey, which I’d abandoned when a puck hit me in the eye. After seeing David Copperfield I became frightfully British, but that didn’t work in the school yard so I abandoned it. Katherine Hepburn’s calla lilies speech from Stage Door became a standard part of my repertoire, as did Ronald Coleman’s Tis a far far better thing I do . . . wrapup from A Tale Of Two Cities. I was allowed one movie a week, Saturday afternoon, ten cents before one o’clock, rising to a quarter as the decade wore on. There’d be extras too—once in a while the school would arrange to take us to a foreign film at the Trans Lux (Ballerina comes to mind, and Children Of Paradise and Carnival In Flanders), and that would be on a school day. Or I’d con my way into a midweek movie by saying Ma, I have to go to Loew’s because they’re showing a movie all about American history.

And she’d ask, Oh? And what’s that?

And I’d say, "The Gorgeous Hussy with Joan Crawford, and she plays President Andrew Jackson’s confidential confidante in it and we’re studying Jackson now so I HAVE to see it."

And she’d say, Fine, see it Saturday.

Oh no, I’d say, Saturday is for me. This isn’t fun, this is homework!

And I usually got away with it. Then there’d be the family outings now and then to the Music Hall or the Capitol or the Astor in Manhattan. An event like Judy in The Wizard Of Oz or Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette—they could warrant a hop on the BMT to Times Square.

We’re going to New York, I’d say—for to me Brooklyn was Brooklyn and had nothing to do with that strange place across the bridge. My paternal grandparents and all my aunts and uncles from Pop‘s side of the family lived in New York. But New York remained a different and exotic foreign land to me all through my childhood—as much as though I’d been raised in Kansas or Missouri. It was a place to go for the afternoon to see the sights, or to visit Pop’s parents Max and Anna, and it was comforting to know that when we were done with that, we could come home to Flatbush, safe and cozy and familiar, where no building was over six stories tall, and you could hear the sound of a whispered conversation and footsteps on the sidewalk as you drifted off to sleep with the windows open on a balmy night in May.

When I was eleven, my mother’s friend Belle Benson invited me to something called a Broadway matinée. Belle had a top secretarial job at Warner Bros. in New York, and Warners owned the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway. What A Life was on, and Belle said I’d like it. I didn’t want to go.

What_A_Life.tif

The facts and figures on What A Life, my entrance into Wonderland.

It’s a Saturday, I said, and that’s my movie day. I don’t want to go to New York on a Saturday!

But with a vague promise of another movie day if I didn’t like the play, on a Saturday in March 1939, Mom and I trudged over to Church Avenue, caught the BMT to Times Square, and walked up to 47th Street and Broadway. Poor Carol was left home with Pop and Marie from Barbados; I guess Belle felt she wouldn’t be as interested as I in this play, and only two seats could be rustled up. Mom and I got settled in the first row of the mezzanine.

You mean the play starts at the same time for everyone? I asked. At the movies it was always on; you could come in at the middle if you liked.

This isn’t a movie, dear, Mom said. These actors are ALIVE. Then I turned to the audience behind us. The theatre was packed right up to the rear wall.

How come we’re down here, and they have to sit so far back? I asked.

Well, Mom said, the seats cost more down here, but we didn’t have to pay because Belle has influence. Back there the seats are cheaper. Now read your program.

And sure enough, I had this little booklet the usher had given me, called Playbill.

They don’t give you a program at the movies, I said. Why do I need a program? Isn’t the play in English?

Richard! Just read.

So I did. It said I was about to see a new play called What A Life by Clifford Goldsmith, produced and directed by George Abbott. It said it had opened in April of l938.

Mom, this play’s been here a year!! How often do they play it? I asked.

Every night, she answered. Well, not on Sundays. And they do it twice on Wednesdays and Saturdays. They’ll play it again tonight.

The actors say the same lines EVERY NIGHT, for a year???! I asked.

That’s right, she said. "Sometimes longer. Tobacco Road is five years old. Of course sometimes actors leave. But not always."

I was thinking of my plays at Camp Iroquois. Ever since my debut at 6, I’d been in a play every summer—Tom Sawyer, Penrod And Sam, Treasure Island, but of course we only played them once. Hmmmm, I thought. You get a chance to make it better if you can do it again.

There was a cast list, and in the back there was a biography of each actor. I’d never heard of any of them, so I was thinking "They don’t sound like actors. Where’s Erroll Flynn? Where are MacDonald and Eddy? What kind of names are Ezra Stone and Eddie Bracken and Betty Field? I’m missing Lloyds Of London at the Albemarle for this? Lloyds, with a new star that Modern Screen says has a great future—someone with a movie star’s name—Tyrone Power. Ezra and Eddie and Betty sounded like kids I went to school with."

So I scrunched down in my mezzanine seat and waited for the thing to start—so it could end—so I could get back to Brooklyn—and, Ma, remember your promise—Sunday at the Albemarle. The audience had been making quite a lot of noise, but as the lights began to fade, so did their pre-show babble. And then a funny thing happened. The house lights were down, there was light on the stage curtain, and then for just a few seconds, there was complete silence. You could almost feel the whole audience lean forward in anticipation. What would they find when the curtain went up? Where would they be? Who would be there? What would they feel when they saw what they saw? No one told me to think those thoughts—I just did. And then I realized that when a movie was about to unreel, there was always a fuss. MGM‘s lion roared, 20th Century Fox used a trumpet fanfare, RKO beeped and flashed a signal, Warner Brothers used major drum rolls. A movie was announced, proclaimed. In the palaces they’d built to house them, they wanted to make you believe that great events were about to take place. But that afternoon at the Biltmore, there was something palpable in the air—at least there was for me. I didn’t pay much attention to it; but I noticed it. No fanfare, no drum roll, no roar—just silence. Anticipatory silence, silence with an edge to it. And then—with a whoosh—the curtain rose. And on stage was a room in a high school, a principal’s office, all sorts of other little cubbyholes and doors and windows and desks. People were rushing about, they started talking to each other, the audience started to laugh. And so did I. It didn’t feel like a movie. These were live people down there on that stage, the sounds I heard were coming from their very own throats, not from a speaker. There were no close-ups. No one seemed to be wearing any makeup. These were people, not shadows. After a while, a funny looking youth entered, and the audience applauded. I didn’t know why, but I finally figured out that they recognized him and wanted to make him feel welcome, so they applauded when he came through the door. No one ever applauded when Bette Davis or Clark Gable or anyone big entered a movie. What’s this? This is different. The play went on and on and Belle was right—I understood everything and by the time it was over, I was stunned. When the actors took their bows, I could see myself up there with them. I thought I’d start at the side with the small players, and maybe some day someone would move me to the center with that funny actor who’d gotten applause on his entrance. No, that didn’t matter. I’d have been happy at the side—well, maybe one or two in from the end. But the point is—I could see myself there—onstage at the Biltmore. Until that afternoon in l939, I had no idea that grown men and women actually got paid for acting on a stage, and that they got to do it more than once. When the last call had been taken, I just sat there, in a trance. Mom was talking to the lady on her left; Mom talked with people all the time—on the subway, in an elevator, on line at the movies, at the grocers. Right then she was deeply into an argument about President Roosevelt, something to do with Social Security, and I couldn’t believe my ears. I was somewhere else entirely—in the high school with Mr. Bradley the Principal and Henry Aldrich the student, and George Bigelow another student, and all the others. I wanted to see it all over again. Even more than that, I wanted to be in it. I could do that. I knew I could do that.

When Mom asked me how I’d liked it, I lied a little, and said it was ok. I wasn’t going to abandon the movies just yet—I still wanted to collect on her promise to send me tomorrow. I loved the movies; I’d always love the movies. But this was different, this was new. I didn’t BELONG in the movies. I BELONGED in the theatre. The Albemarle, the Kings, the Kenmore, they were palaces, and fun to visit. But I wouldn’t want to live in them. The Biltmore was shabby by comparison, and less than half their size. But it was cozy and the walls seemed to have memories of live things that had happened within them, and the audience seemed connected to the play and to each other, and I never felt that, not once, at the movies. It was l939, and the world was changing. I’d go back to Iroquois; yes, that would be the same. But I was graduating from PS 139, and we were moving—across the river—to New York! In September, Germany would be at war with England and France, I’d be living in New York, I’d be starting at a high school about which I knew nothing while all my friends would be at Erasmus Hall in Brooklyn, and nothing would be the same. At eleven I’d felt safe, at eleven and a half I did not. The summer of ‘39 was scary—the war news first of course, but the love/hate I had for New York was palpable, exacerbated by the threat that the building Mom had found for us in New York would not allow dogs, and I’d just bought Lucky, a Boston Terrier, for $l5 in a pet store on Flatbush Avenue. He’d become the love of my ll year old life, and each letter I wrote home that summer ended with Keep well. Keep Lucky. We did keep Lucky, but war in Europe did come, and I started life at 86th Street and Broadway angry and lonely for my friends in Brooklyn. My room looked out on dreary rooming houses just off Amsterdam Avenue, it was gray and cold outside (I never seemed to mind that in Brooklyn), I was determined to hate my new school, I had no friends at all, and if it weren’t for Lucky, who was always there for me, I don’t know what would have become of me. Home just a week from New Hampshire, I took Lucky for a walk one evening, got stopped by some punks about my own age, who asked Is he tough, your dog?

And idiot me, fresh from the country, said Oh no, Lucky wouldn’t bite if his life depended on it.

In a second, one of them took out a pocket knife, and thrust it at me.

Gimme your bag, he hissed, and don’t pull no tricks if you know what’s good for you.

It all happened so fast; when it was over, I’d lost my grocery bag full of My-T-Fine Chocolate pudding, my equilibrium, and fifty-nine cents. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I went upstairs, shaking, told Pop, who made me go right back down with him to look for the punks. We never found them, but I’d had my first lesson that life was not always going to be an MGM comedy with Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Fay Holden and a happy ending. Days later, older and much wiser, I got myself on the IRT to Times Square, a shuttle to Grand Central, and the Lexington Avenue subway to 23rd Street, to see what high school was all about. The cord was cut. I was on my own. For the littlest kid at PS 139, who’d walked to school through tree-lined streets with friends till he was eleven, was now the (almost) 12 year old freshman at Townsend Harris, a High School for Bright Young Men.

3

THREE YEARS IN FOUR

T O BACKTRACK FOR A MOMENT, as graduation from PS 139 had grown near, Mom had arranged a series of tests for me, with the help of Mr. Dickler. All I knew was we were moving to New York in the fall, and I had to find a Manhattan high school. I tried every trick in the book to get them to stay in Brooklyn, but none worked.

We were always New Yorkers, is what I got in response. We only came to Brooklyn to be nearer Grandma and Aunt Regina when they moved to Manhattan Beach. Now they’re going back. And so are we. Now eat your carrots, dear.

I was so angry I bought Lucky so I’d have someone to love me. I’d saved up $25 from my magazine route (I sold subscriptions to hapless widows and wives and made a few bucks here and there), and Lucky, because his tongue hung out of his lower lip, and his ears weren’t properly pointed, was only $l5 at Maury’s Pet Supplies on Flatbush Avenue. So I was able to buy him, his bed, a brush, a toy or two, all for my $25. Pop announced he would never take Lucky out for a walk.

You want a dog? he asked. Then you take care of him!

I’ll stay home from camp, I said. I’ll stay home all summer if no one will take him out. But I didn’t have to do that. In late spring, Marie from Barbados, who had been our part time companion and friend, decided she’d had enough of the USA and returned to her own family in the West Indies. Into our lives came Miss Elizabeth Wagner, recently arrived from Alsace, who had worked for a distant cousin of my father’s. She fell for Lucky just as I had, and she said she’d be glad to look after him while I was away. Elizabeth (or Alice, as she was known to us forever after) became my special friend, my trusted ally, on the spot. She remained in our family for the next 30 years, moving on to Carol‘s home, where she helped raise Carol’s four children. I knew she’d keep an eye on Mom over the coming summer, and not allow any funny business with Lucky, no matter what the new landlord said about pets in the apartment. The depression was still with us, and apartments were empty all over Manhattan; it was a buyer’s market. I learned later that Mom had arranged for us to sign a lease at the Belnord Apartments, to pay no rent until September. In addition, the landlord was to paint the entire nine room-three bath apartment. And he’d agreed to move a wall in the living room to make it larger, taking the two feet away from what would become my bedroom. All this, and the rent for the first three years was to be $150 a month. That was twice what we were paying in Brooklyn, but by 1939 Pop could manage it, or Mom convinced him he thought he could.

The tests I was taking that spring were from Townsend Harris High School, which lived on one floor of the City College Building at 23rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Harris covered the four year high school curriculum in three years, and it was only for the brightest students; it was intended to get us out into the working world a little earlier than most, get a headstart. As valedictorian at 139, with a letter of recommendation from Uncle Dick (Oops, sorry, Mr. Dickler), and me getting A in everything again, they were happy to have me. But