ARTHUR ALLAN SEIDELMAN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is November 30th, 2017. I am here in Los Angeles with Arthur Allan Seidelman. We're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

ARTHUR ALLAN SEIDELMAN: You certainly do.

CW:Great. So, I want to start with your family background. What do you know about your grandparents' generation or earlier?

AAS:I know that my family came from two places in Eastern Europe. One was Latvia and the other was southern Russian or what was then the USSR. And they met 1:00somewhere in the middle. My grandfather on my mother's side left the Ukraine. And he was a rabbi; both grandfathers were rabbis. My mother's father left the Ukraine and literally walked across Europe to France, where he was able to get a boat to the United States. He spent a couple of years laying a foundation in Philadelphia, actually, for my family and then sent for my grandmother. And she was one of, I believe, nine children. I don't know much about his family, but my grandmother was one of nine children, three of whom were able to come to the United States during that period of immigration in the early twentieth century. The rest did not and were lost in the Holocaust. My father's family was from 2:00Riga, Latvia. His father, also, was a rabbi. My father actually was born in Riga and came over when he was a child. I don't know much about that. I don't know as much about that side of the family as I know about my mother's side of the family, because my grandparents on my mother's side lived with us. My grandfather on my mother's side, the Greenberg family, he had a synagogue in the Bronx, eventually, which he lost during the Depression. And from that point on, they lived with my mother and father and their two children, one of whom is me. My grandfather's family on my father's side, those grandparents both died when I was quite young. They had four children. My father was one of four children. He 3:00had two brothers, one of whom was a cantor, the other was a professor. The sister of the family, Jennie Cashier, Jennie Greenberg -- Jennie Seidelman Cashier married Isidore Cashier. She was an actress; he was an actor. He became a leading member of the Yiddish Art Theater, the company that Maurice Schwartz founded in the early 1900s. That was my introduction to theater -- was my uncle Izzy, and --

CW:So, before we get to that --

AAS:Sure.

CW:-- do you have a sense from any of these people who grew up in Europe of what life was like for them?

AAS:Yes. Shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] life was 4:00very tightly-knit communities. Very -- not just family, but extended family. But defined by community. Defined by a unit that they actually carried with them when they came to the United States. The village units, the shtetl units that developed in Europe were brought with the émigrés to America, so that there were organizations in each part of New York, where I grew up, that were based on what community you came from in Romania or Ukraine or Latvia. And the same community came with you. Your social activities were defined by the same community. Your cemetery plot was defined by the same community. So, it was a 5:00very tightly-knit community that, in the Diaspora, you carried with you on your back.

CW:The landsmanshaft [association of immigrants originally from the same region] --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- groups? Yeah.

AAS:Yes.

CW:And then, did anyone talk about why they wanted to come to America?

AAS:It was a combination of wanting to come to America and having to come to America. (laughs) I think that were any of the émigrés given a choice, they would have stayed in their home country, 'cause it was home. And I think that is a situation with refugees then, now, and always. Refugees don't want to be refugees. Refugees want to create a happy home and have a happy home in the land of their birth, the land of their heritage. So, it wasn't a question of wanting 6:00to come to America. They had to come to America because of poverty. They had to come to America because of pogroms. They were forced to leave -- it's the "Fiddler on the Roof" story. It's Anatevka. The departure from the home shtetl was not a desired departure. It was a necessary departure. So, if you're going to leave and become a wanderer, where do you want to wander to other than a land that promises -- well, one of two places: either a land that promises prosperity and health, or a land that speaks to your heritage, eretz yisroel [Hebrew: Israel]. So, either you want to come to America or you want to go to Palestine. Where else are you gonna go? Ireland? (laughs) So, I think that was the decision that they made in having to leave their homes because of poverty or because of 7:00the prejudice, the harshness of that life -- was made for them. And the choice was between America and Palestine.

CW:So, can you describe the home that you grew up in? First of all, just physically, where was it?

AAS:Was a tenement apartment at 976 Tiffany Street in the Bronx. Third floor front. Was a railroad apartment. You walked in the front door -- I love this question. You walk in the front door and there's a long hallway. To your left is the front room, which was my parents' bedroom. It also became our sitting room. You walk down the hall and right in the corner, there's a second bedroom that was my sister's until she got married and then I inherited it. You walk down further, there's a bathroom. Then you walk down further and there's another 8:00small bedroom that was my grandparents' room when they lived with us. When my grandfather died, it was my grandmother's room. You continue down the railroad corridor and there's the living room, which is really just the introduction to the kitchen. (laughs) And the end of the hallway is the kitchen with a window looking out over the backyard and the street, the back of the houses and the street next door, Fox Street. And it's like a set from "Rear Window," the Hitchcock film. (laughs)

CW:So, before your sister got married, where did you sleep?

AAS:I had a bed in my parents' room. But my sister was nine years older than I and she got married very young, (laughs) so I got use of her bedroom quite early.

CW:And what was Jewish about your home?

AAS:Everything. (laughs) What wasn't Jewish about my home? It was a home totally 9:00created out of Jewish tradition. It was very different -- not very different or not different at all from the way the home would have been if it had been in Budapest or Vienna or Prague. It was a Jewish home. We were kosher. Friday night and Saturday were Friday night and Saturday. (laughs) Everything, every Jewish holiday was celebrated. My grandfather was a rabbi. He conducted weddings in the apartment, in the living room. My job was to wrap the glass and then to pick up the pieces after it was stomped on. Everything about the home was just filled 10:00with Jewish tradition.

CW:So, what was Friday night like?

AAS:Shabbos. Chicken soup. (laughs) Candles. A brokhe [blessing], too. Everything you would expect.

CW:Nigunim [melodies]?

AAS:Yes. And my parents were not as religious as my grandparents. And their children were not as religious as they were, so there is the all-too-common falling off of religiosity, but not a falling off of tradition. Again, I sound like the opening number of "Fiddler." (laughs) But there was a falling off of ritual. I mean, my sister did not light candles on Friday night. My 11:00mother-in-law certainly did through her entire life. But we knew what Friday night was and we knew what Shabbos was and we knew what every holiday was. So, there was a falling off of the acts of religiousness but not the tradition or the understanding or the meaning of it. I mean, I went to kheyder [traditional religious school]. I studied diligently for my bar mitzvah with an elderly rabbi. He used to fall asleep while I was (laughs) reciting. He was a sweet man, but he would doze off. (laughs) But, I mean, the thought that I would not be bar 12:00mitzvahed was, I mean, not even to be discussed. Of course I was gonna be bar mitzvahed and of course I had to study. Of course I went to kheyder and had arguments with the rabbi. It was all ordained.

CW:Did you have a favorite yontev [holiday] growing up?

AAS:Simchas Torah.

CW:Why?

AAS:So happy! (laughs) It's a joyous holiday and there's joyous music and there's a celebratory sense of the excitement of life, the excitement of celebration, the joyousness in living your tradition. And I was always 13:00fascinated by the Torah and taking the Torah down from the ark and walking the Torah around the congregation and greeting the Torah and blessing -- being blessed by the Torah just seemed mystical and marvelous.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:And Simchas Torah is fun for kids, too.

AAS:Absolutely. I mean, any holiday, any of the holidays where there were gifts and game-- Purim. Purim is probably a close second. But Simchas Torah, just the thought of it makes me smile.

CW:And can you describe a little more about what you would do as a kid? What images come to mind when you think about that?

AAS:About Simchas Torah? Just going to the synagogue and dancing (laughs) and 14:00kissing the Torah as it was walked by just was pure celebration. And there was no great -- I mean, so many of the holidays have a design, story, and ritual, and meaning, and a weight that they bring with them. Simchas Torah had no weight. It just had joy. Just -- well, the simkhes [joy]. (laughs)

CW:And what were the languages you heard growing up?

AAS:Yiddish! Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish, and more Yiddish. My grandmother spoke five languages, none of which was English. There was a dear friend of hers -- of ours, actually -- my uncle's wife's mother, who we referred to as bobe 15:00[grandmother] Rubin. Bobe Rubin would come by. Bobe Rubin lived -- was a wonderful, grand woman who lived by herself in an apartment in Harlem and she would come once a week and bring the most delicious potato latkes known to man. But she and my grandmother would sit -- they came from the same village. They would sit and talk, and I never knew whether it was Hungarian or Polish or German or Czech or Yiddish, but it wasn't English. (laughs) That I knew. Yeah, my grandmother conversed with the rest of the members of the family in Yiddish. And that was, other than English, that was the language that I heard. When I was young, I spoke it. And that's been lost. And before I leave this planet, I plan on regaining it. But Yiddish was spoken not just because of my grandmother, but 16:00relatives would come over and the conversation would be in Yiddish. I was never surprised to hear -- my mother spoke Yiddish fluently. My father, less so. But it was very common to hear Yiddish in the house.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:Can you talk a little bit about the neighborhood? Where it was --

AAS:The South Bronx was a neighborhood in transition. It had been a middle-class, even perhaps slightly upper-middle-class neighborhood. It was going through a racial, ethnic transition from primarily Jewish to primarily Puerto Rican to significantly African American. The apartment building we lived 17:00in, the tenement we lived in -- there was a family from Poland, a family from Cuba, a family from Greece, and a Puerto Rican family, and two Jewish families. That's typical of what the neighborhood was. Right across the border -- I mean, these are not real borders but there were -- where the stickball team from the next block came was largely Puerto Rican. When I would walk from my home to my high school, Morris High School, Boston Road and 166th Street, 65th Street, I crossed through a very rough black neighborhood. And the situation in the South Bronx was getting worse and worse in terms of crime, in terms of juvenile gangs. 18:00By the time we left, when I came to California at sixteen to go to college -- when I left the Bronx, it was a pretty damn rough neighborhood. In fact, I kid about it: I say our high school sport was "run for your life." But it was a very rough neighborhood and the South Bronx went to be one of the toughest neighborhoods in the country.

CW:So, what was it like to be a -- observant Jewish kid growing up there then?

AAS:I got beat up at least once a week. I would literally, at least once a week, once every two weeks, every two weeks feel a knife in my back or a blackjack in front of my eyes reached from behind me. And I'd take off whatever my cheap watch was or my fountain pen, I'd just hand it over, (laughs) which didn't prevent me from getting my head smacked periodically. But it was rough. And for 19:00a period of years in my youth, I was -- what's a softer term to use than crippled? I had polio when I was a child. And so, I had braces for a while. I was not speedy of foot, put it that way. (laughs) So, I would have some rough times. But if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. (laughs)

CW:So, your uncle Izzy --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- what do you know -- Isidore Cashier, what do you know about his early life?

AAS:Not much. That's a challenging -- I know he was born, I believe, in Romania. I knew he started acting in Europe when he was very young, that he came over and joined with Maurice Schwartz, was one of the founding members of the Yiddish Art Theater and became one of their leading actors. I don't know very much about his 20:00childhood or his -- or at all. I knew him through my aunt Jennie, who lived -- they lived at 8 Fifty-Seventh Avenue. And Jennie, she played small parts. She was a chorus girl, she -- so, my earliest memories of -- is going to the theater and seeing them onstage and just being bewitched by the fact that there was my aunt and uncle onstage. And I have one very vivid memory of my aunt, when -- she and Molly Picon had had a night-- not a nightclub, a club act together called "The Four Seasons" that they toured in. So, she and Miss Picon remained close friends throughout her life. And she would always, whenever Miss Picon had a show, there was always a part for Jennie. And one of my earliest memories is Jennie, as I was in the third or fourth row on the end, on the aisle -- and as 21:00she was exiting offstage after a number, she waved at me. And that was emblazoned in my mind. I can see that to this day, my aunt just giving me this little wave as she exited. But I remember seeing my uncle in "Yoshe Kalb." I remember seeing him in the Yiddish "King Lear." I mean, he was important. He had a great voice. He had a very strong, powerful voice and just was a great presence. And I remember being enchanted by him onstage. I also remember parties that I would be allowed to attend at their home where Aaron Lebedeff would sing "Rumanye, Rumanye" just for a group of six or seven or eight people there. Being 22:00behind the scenes, being able to visit with Menasha Skulnik, with Molly Picon, with Aaron Lebedeff, with Jacob Ben-Ami was just a great wonderland for me as a child.

CW:Any of those people that you had a special relationship with or who you have strong, specific memories of?

AAS:Well, I have -- they each made a very strong impression on me. And I was a kid, so they would not stop and have philosophical discussions with me. But I was a kid and, as a kid, being able to see Menasha Skulnik in a show and hear him sing songs and be funny and then meet him at a restaurant for a meal after 23:00the show was just a great treat. Going to Rapoport's afterward and the members of the cast of the show I just saw would come and sit with us, that was heaven on Earth.

CW:Where would you see the plays?

AAS:At Second Avenue. The Yiddish Art Theater had its own theater. Skulnik and Picon and people like that rented theaters on Second Avenue. But just Second Avenue was -- I didn't know -- it was much later I discovered Broadway. (laughs) The theater for me was Second Avenue.

CW:And what did it look like then?

AAS:The theaters were not as big as theaters I learned to inhabit on Broadway. 24:00But they were big theaters. Actually, I was thinking the other day, I wonder how many seats there were. It's hard for a kid to -- five hundred seats would have seemed like an enormous theater to me. So, they were beautiful theaters. They were not what we would typically think of as an Off-Broadway theater today. They were like small Broadway theaters and just as opulent and just as well furnished and just as well cared for. And I never remember seeing a show with less than a very large audience. I mean, I've done shows on Broadway with smaller audiences (laughs) than the shows I saw as a kid on Second Avenue. But they were major theaters. They weren't village theaters. They were competing in the New York 25:00theatrical environment and were well aware of that.

CW:So, do you know anything about Jennie's background?

AAS:Only that she was my father's sister. And she had married Izzy, Isidore, when she was quite young. She was interested in the theater, but mostly as musicals. She was interested in singing before she met Izzy. She was already in the theater when she met Izzy. I can't really fill in more than that.

CW:And what was the relationship between your family and the actors in the family?

AAS:Oh my gosh. (laughs) My mother had very distinct feelings about my aunt. (laughs) My aunt and uncle had more money than we did and lived in a manner that made that evident. (laughs) And my mother would have distinct views of that. They were not religious and my mother and grandparents would have distinct views of that. But it was the usual family politics. But we visited regularly. We always went to their home; they rarely came to our home. We would go to Manhattan. Manhattan would not come to the Bronx. (laughs) But we would always accept their invitations to go to the theater and to meet them on Second Avenue. 27:00It was a warm, very warm Yiddish family relationship. But the usual competitions and jealousies and gossip and -- the stuff that makes drama. (laughs)

CW:So, for you growing up, what was it like coming from the Bronx, going into Manhattan to go to the Second Avenue Theatre personally? What was your sense of that world in relation to your home and the religious environment you grew up in?

AAS:It was very positive. The Yiddish theater -- and this carries on to what the Yiddish theater brought to the American theater -- the Yiddish theater was more 28:00than just a place to see plays. It was a place of community. It was a place to reaffirm the fact that you were a member of a family. And that was the spirit that you visited when you went to the theater and that's the spirit that was transferred into the American theater through the Group Theatre, the founding members of which were all created by the Yiddish theater. So, the theater wasn't just a place to have fun. Yes, having fun was a major part of your experience. But it was also a place to remind oneself of one's social responsibilities, one's political responsibilities. It was a place to remind yourself where you came from, what your aspirations were. And it was a breeding ground for 29:00activity. It was a breeding ground for social awareness. As I recall, most of the plays that I saw in Yiddish had one of two themes: either remembering the homeland, remembering where we came from, or the difficulty, the challenge of creating a home in a new land. Those were the oft-visited themes. And it was those themes that carried over into plays like "Awake and Sing!" and into -- I mean, it's not a coincidence that the creators of the modern Jewish theater, modern American theater -- perhaps I'm getting ahead of you here -- it's not a 30:00coincidence that the creators of the modern American theater are by and large Jewish. And I don't say that out of any pride, but out of factual awareness that the founders of the Group Theatre, which changed the nature of American theater, were Lee Strasberg, Harold Clurman, and Cheryl Crawford. And how Cheryl got in there, I don't know. But Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman were both brought up in the Yiddish theater. American acting was changed by John Garfield, Edward G. Robinson, and Paul Muni. Paul Muni first, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson later. No American actor could become a movie star if he did not follow in some 31:00way in the footprints of John Garfield. John Garfield changed the style of American acting. Edward G. Robinson changed the style of American acting. Paul Muni before them, even, changed the style of American acting. Each three of those actors did their first acting in Yiddish on Second Avenue or, in some cases, Chicago, 'cause there was very vibrant Yiddish theater in Chicago, as well. Paul Muni was Muni Weisenfreund. John Garfield was Jules Garfinkle. Edward G. Robinson was -- I forget what his original name was. Think Goldman or something like that. But they each started in the Yiddish theater and they each brought that awareness of the social relevance of theater and the fact that in order to be socially relevant, you had to be real. That great tradition was brought to American theater by the inheritors of Stanislavski and by the Yiddish 32:00theater. So, going to the theater, going back -- long answer to a short question, going back to your question, going to the theater was having fun and enjoying yourself but also becoming involved in social issues, caring, creating out of a sense of responsibility. The plight of the refugee was a common theme. In a strange way, even a musical like "Yidl mitn fidl [Yidl and her fiddle]" was about women's rights. (laughs) So, there was a tremendous sense of the theater's place in society. So, when you went to the theater, you were with your community, you were with your family. And that made a tremendous impression on me.

CW:People sometimes talk about how Yiddish theater is different than American theater in the way that actors related to the audience, in the set-up of the theater. And do you have memories of any of that?

AAS:I don't think it was that different. There was a very personal relationship with the audience, but that's missing in American theater only by default, not by purpose. I've been lucky enough to run repertory theaters. I had a theater near Philadelphia for a number of years with a wonderful company with people like Viveca Lindfors and Sylvia Sidney and Roy Scheider and Lee Grant.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AAS: Yes, there was a very personal relationship. They were friends and you came to visit them on a regular basis. If that's missing from the American theater, it's by default, not by purpose. I was talking about the fact that when you have -- I had a repertory theater near Philadelphia for a number of years with a wonderful company of people like Sylvia Sidney and John Beal and Viveca Lindfors and Lee Grant and Roy Scheider and lots of blacklisted actors. (laughs) And we had that kind of relationship with our audience. I mean, Sylvia would come back once every few months to do a play. Mercedes McCambridge would come back once every few months to do a play. John Beal, other superb artists. And that kind of friendship, if I may call it that, grew up between those actors and 35:00our audience. That's not dissimilar from what existed in the Yiddish theater. If it's missing from the American theater, it's only because we have not created regional theaters. We have not created -- I presume in Germany, every city of any size has a municipal theater. I presume that that kind of friendly relationship exists between that theater and its community or those theaters and their communities. If it's missing here, it's our fault, not our accomplishment.

CW:So, looking back, do you remember having any feelings about -- what was your relationship or thoughts about Yiddish itself as a kid?

AAS:It was one of my languages. I became aware, because of the war, that -- how 36:00similar some words were to German. And I had, because of the war, because I was growing up during the war, I had an aversion to German. I mean, I could not listen to Wagner. I still have a problem listening to Wagner, but for other reasons. (laughs) But I literally could not listen to German. It frightened me. But I became aware that Yiddish had something akin to German, but in softer clothing. Yiddish never frightened me. I also became aware that there were things that could be said in Yiddish that you just could not find any other way of saying, which is extremely true. It was a warm blanket in which to express 37:00yourself. I loved the music that also was part of the language. Yiddish and Yiddish music are one, and you could not love the music without loving the language. You could not love the language without loving the music. I mean, WEVD was our home radio station. (laughs) And also, became aware of the fun that Yiddish brought with it, with people like Mickey Katz. By the way, have you interviewed Joel Grey?

CW:Not yet.

AAS:You must. But people like Mickey Katz who used Yiddish unashamedly as a source of laughter. It was the language of my grandparents. I knew it was the 38:00language they brought with them from Europe. I knew it was the language I was not gonna speak in my school, but I also knew that it was something -- it was home.

CW:At what point did you know you wanted to get involved in theater?

AAS:I knew I wanted to get involved in theater very early, but I wasn't brave enough to admit it to myself. I went through various phases. I was gonna be a writer, I was gonna be an actor, I was gonna -- and then, it wasn't until I was in college, actually, at Whittier College, and I was about seventeen, sixteen or seventeen, and I had taken a directing class. And I remember -- I actually can answer that question in horrible specific. (laughs) I had taken a directing class and I was directing a scene from "Glass Menagerie." And I was up in the balcony of this theater. There's a scene where Tom has just broken his sister's 39:00glass animals. And he goes out on the porch, on the veranda, and talks about, "I left St. Louis but I --" -- has one of his soliloquies while his sister is picking up the pieces of the broken animals. And I had designed this little cross-fade of lights as this moment occurred. And I was in the balcony watching this, and as the lights cross-faded, this beautiful blue haze was created on the stage. And the young man playing Tom and the girl playing the sister were lovely, really very sensitive young actors. But as this blue haze occurred, I had this sense of: I did that. Whatever it was that I did, whatever those 40:00elements I put together created that moment. And I had a sense of fulfillment I had never experienced before. And I've been chasing that blue haze ever since. (laughs) But that's the moment I knew what I wanted to do.

CW:And what did your parents think about that?

AAS:My parents were always very supportive. I mean, early on, first I went through the acting phase and they said, Uh-huh. But when I told them that I wanted to direct, that made more sense. But then, I would always kid with them. I said, "Don't worry, I'll have a profession to fall back on. I'll be a poet." (laughs) But they were always totally supportive, I think because there were members of our family that actually had made a living in the theater, so it 41:00wasn't impossible. So, I think that my uncle Izzy laid the foundation for my parents' support of my theater career. But they were always very supportive. They never said, Are you sure? If that's what you wanna do, we're behind you and we'll support you in every way. But I think, now that I think of it, I think it was because of Izzy and Jennie. I think if I had not had members of my family who had been in the theater and done well at it, they would have had, perhaps, a different response.

CW:Were there people in that milieu that were models for you? I mean, let's say --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- in your acting phase. (laughs)

AAS:Yes, oh, many. Many. I could name so many. My great teacher and inspiration and guide was Sandy Meisner. Sandy Meisner was a member of the Group Theatre. 42:00Sandy Meisner was in the original company of "Awake and Sing!" When I did "Awake and Sing!" Off-Broadway, my audience included Harold Clurman, who had directed the original production. And Sandy Meisner had been in the original production. I was nervous as could be. My first job in New York was working for Harold Clurman. But Sandy was my great teacher, my inspiration. Still my guide. I admired Harold Clurman enormously. He was a great theatrician. His book, "The Fervent Years," is one of the great chronicles of the American theater. His book, "Lies Like Truth" is -- collection of wonderful essays about theater. His understanding of theater was extraordinary. I admired the Adler family. And when 43:00I told Sandy that I wanted to do "Awake and Sing!" Off-Broadway, he arranged for me to meet -- we rented a hotel room at the Paramount Hotel on Forty-Sixth Street, I think it is. And he invited Stella, Luther, Harold, and I was a stage-struck puppy. I mean, when Stella and Luther Adler began to argue about whose idea was it first that they would produce Clifford Odets' play for the Group Theatre, I was just in awe because they were my gods, my idols. Clifford Odets, when I had a theater in Los Angeles -- even prior to that, I ran a 44:00theater in Los Angeles for a number of years and Clifford Odets was a subscriber. And so, these were all my models. These were all the people whose commitment to theater, whose understanding of the value of theater was of major importance to me. Theirs was the theater I wanted to inhabit. Theirs was the theater I wanted to carry forward. And they're all children of the Yiddish theater. So, there's a direct line for me from Maurice Schwartz and Isidore Cashier to the work I do today.

CW:I want to go back a little bit and ask you about what was going on in the 45:00broader world.

AAS:A war. (laughs)

CW:So, exactly. So, were you aware of what was going on to the Jewish population of Europe as the war was going on?

AAS:As much as any of us were aware. I don't think in the early years of the war we recognized how horrible it was. But I have vivid memories of getting news about relatives who had perished. I have a vivid memory of our greeting -- this was toward the end of the war, maybe even after the war, but a vivid memory of our greeting a relative who had just arrived and him showing us the number on his arm. That's a very vivid memory. I have vivid memories of my grandmother 46:00getting letters that so-and-so was missing or so-and-so was thought to be dead or so-and-so was in a camp. So, yes. There were two wars going on. There was the war I read about in the newspaper with the maps of where our troops were and the battle lines. And there was the war that I heard about at home. There were two different wars. Somehow, they weren't connected because what happened to my relatives, the news that would make my grandmother cry, the news that would make my grandfather pray, was not the news of the 6th Army or the 8th Army or what was happening in North Africa. They seemed to be separate.

CW:Looking back at that time and sort of your growing up with that all around, how did that affect you?

AAS:I became determined to do something about it. That sounds naïve and simplistic, but it is naïve and simplistic. But I became determined to be involved somehow. That's where I went through the stages. I was gonna be a writer, I was gonna write the works that change the world. Or then I was gonna be a lawyer and I was gonna be Clarence Darrow and fight for every right cause. I never was gonna be a fireman, although God knows I admire firemen. But I was 48:00never gonna be a forest ranger. I was always gonna be something that would have an effect on what was happening in the world. And that stayed true in terms of my ambitions for the theater, because the theater I wanted to become part of was the theater that would have an effect on the world. So, it was all one, because the theater that I would see on Second Avenue was -- sure, there were delightful musical comedies and there were funny comedies, but there was a social passion always alive there. The labor movement was very important. Izzy was, I believe, the first president of the Hebrew Actors Union. So, the labor movement was 49:00always part and parcel of what our life was. We were liberal Democrats, we were labor unionists, we were politically active.

CW:Did you have contact with people that were further left --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- growing up?

AAS:Yeah, there was -- it's the whole blacklist period. You never really knew how left people were 'cause you never questioned because when the House Un-American Activities Committee was active, even more so when McCarthy was 50:00active -- I was in high school during the McCarthy years. I was the editor of the school paper. I wrote a very strong anti-McCarthy editorial in the school paper for which I was roundly chastised. And Miss Ryan, the English teacher, bless her soul, made me stand up in front of the class and read the essay and derided me for being a communist. And here I was a fourteen-year-old communist, (laughs) and when I -- it's a quick personal story -- I went off to college, I was at Whittier College, and I got a letter from the new principal at Morris High School saying that I had been awarded a journalism prize by Columbia University School of Journalism for that editorial. And he said, without comment, he said, "And I have framed a copy of it and posted it in front of Miss 51:00Ryan's classroom." (laughs) So, vengeance is mine. (laughs) At any rate, there were shades of left-ness, but you never questioned them. And I think the questioning of them destroyed many a good heart and a good soul. I think it killed John Garfield. I think his agony -- and he didn't give names -- the agony of what he was forced to do killed him. The lady who was his dear friend in his home -- he died, Iris Whitney, became a dear friend of mine and had -- after his death and the publicity surrounding it, she had retired from the stage but was a brilliant actress. And Sandy Meisner encouraged me and her to bring her back 52:00onto the stage. And I ended up doing many, many shows with Iris, who was a gorgeous, wonderful actress. But she was just one of the lives that had been destroyed by McCarthy and by that whole House Un-American Activities Committee which led to McCarthy. Lee Grant, who played Saint Joan for me, was a brilliant actress whose career was never put back on track. So many, many stories. But we were all politically active. You never stopped to question, How far left are you? You were fighting for social values. You were fighting for a better world, and you found allegiance with your fellow artists, many of whom were Jewish, a lot of whom were not. Many of the people in the Group Theatre ended up being 53:00blacklisted, et cetera. The theater was always a home for you, though. The theater never blacklisted anyone. That's the reason so many of the people who were blacklisted came back to the theater and found a creative home again there.

CW:So, can you explain, just to give a little context for people nowadays who didn't live through that time what -- why it was that people performed -- had a home in the theater?

AAS:Because the patrons of the theater were by and large of the same political persuasion. (laughs) I mean, the theater has always been supported by Jews and gays. If you took the Jews and the gays away from the theater audience, there wouldn't be any theater. So, the theater has always been a home for liberal 54:00thinking, a home where ideas were welcomed. And if ideas are welcomed onstage, then why would they be ruled out from the minds of the people creating the stage work? The theater is a place of ideas. The theater is a place; at its best, a theater is a place to challenge ideas. "Death of a Salesman" was considered a subversive play. "Awake and Sing!" was a very subversive play. Just lines like, "Life should not be written on dollar bills" was called communist propaganda. 55:00But the theater has always welcomed -- "Waiting for Lefty," the play that put the Group Theatre into the headlines for the first time was a very labor-oriented, labor movement-oriented play. This is the purpose of theater. The purpose of theater is to challenge, is to create, is to stir up. The purpose of the theater isn't to put you to sleep. It's to wake you up. And when you start detailing the messages that are gonna wake you up, some are gonna be troubling. But they are welcome. I mean, Bertolt Brecht was questioned by the American House on -- Activities Committee. He left the committee hearing room and, I think, went right to the airport and flew back to Europe. (laughs)

CW:Sort of in the same vein of sort of giving context to this --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- for people in other sectors who might see this interview, can you just -- how would you explain what the Group Theatre is?

AAS:Oh my gosh. The Group Theatre was a combination of movements. A man named Konstantin Stanislavski had revolutionized theater in Russia by asking for realism, asking for the theater to relate to life, not to be just whipped cream on top of the cake but to get into the realities of life. In order to do that, he had to create an acting style that was real. Now, real -- there's a quick story on when he was doing "Lower Depths," he actually brought a real beggar 57:00onstage. And he thought, Well, this will make things -- but that didn't work because the reality of the real beggar was different than the reality created by the actors onstage. But still, the goal was for realism. The goal was for theater to reflect life, to be a mirror onto life, to misquote Shakespeare. So, that was one movement. At the same time, there was a social awakening, a political awakening fueled by the labor movement, fueled by the Depression, fueled by political forces. Those two energies came together in a number of ways. They came together in the Federal Theatre Project, which was funded by the Roosevelt anti-Depression measures, by the influx of people who were trained by 58:00Stanislavski, like Maria Ouspenskaya, who started -- best known to audiences as the wolf man's mother in "The Wolf Man" movie, but a wonderful Russian actress who had been trained by Stanislavski, who started a school in New York, and by people, American-bred people, most of whom came out of the Yiddish theater, who wanted to create a theater of relevance for the American audience. A theater of relevance and a theater of permanence, a theater where you wouldn't have to go out and raise money every time you were gonna do a play. You'd have a company and the company would produce plays, a repertory theater concept. They came together and Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman created -- brought together a group of artists ranging from people like Sandy Meisner to an apprentice named 59:00Elia Kazan to Luther Adler and Stella Adler whose father, Jacob Adler, had been one of the mainstays, one of the founders of the Yiddish theater. They created a company -- and Cheryl Crawford, the third founding member. They created a company and that company went out to find plays: powerful, meaningful, damn good theater, but plays of social relevance. "Waiting for Lefty" was their first adventure that created excitement because suddenly, audience was seeing something about us on that stage, something about the labor movement, something about striking, something -- Should we strike or not? The very questions that we in the audience are trying to decide and debate are being depicted onstage. These are us up there. That was exciting. And their great success, then, was "Awake and Sing!", which was about a family in the Bronx dealing with money, 60:00dealing with the Depression, dealing with a grandfather who sacrifices himself for his grandson, the grandson being played by John Garfield or Jules Garfinkle as he was called. One of the first translations of "Awake and Sing!" was in Yiddish, by the way, and done by the Federal Theatre. So, these forces came together to create a theater. That theater found its embodiment in the Group Theatre and for ten years, with "Awake and Sing!", with "Men in White" by Sidney Kingsley, with other powerful plays, they had an impact on the American theater which exists today. If it were not for the Group Theatre, you would not have had Montgomery Clift, you would not have had Marlon Brando, you would not have had James Dean, because John Garfield created something onstage in "Awake and Sing!" 61:00which was revelatory to the audience. He's talking about us. He's talking about me. He's talking about my heart, my soul, my life. He's making me cry about myself. He's making me excited about myself. He's making me want to go out and live a different life than I lived before I came to the theater. Those are extreme views, but movement in that direction. Theater can change your life. Theater can be revelatory. That was a new message that was being sent out from the stages of the Group Theatre, from the stage of the Belasco Theatre where they did most of their plays. That became the key to acting in Hollywood. Hollywood, again -- most of the studios being founded by Jews -- and I don't say that patting Jews on the head but, yes, we did create the movie industry. The 62:00Warner brothers became the leading force in socially relevant movies. John Garfield became a leading exponent of realistic acting, acting that was not fake, where the goal was to recreate life. The goal was to be real. That changed the shape of the American film and the American theater. The Group Theatre was the highpoint of American creativity in the theater. Read "The Fervent Years." No matter what I say, it's insignificant compared to what Mr. Clurman said in "The Fervent Years."

CW:So, I want to return to this concept that you brought up about the through line from the Yiddish stage into the Group Theatre and then out --

AAS:Yeah.

CW:-- beyond.

AAS:Yes.

CW:Do you want to talk about that?

AAS:Sure. The Group Theatre. Luther Adler, Stella Adler, Morris Strassberg, who played the grandfather when I did "Awake and Sing!", Phoebe Brand, Morris Carnovsky, they were all -- literally, two of them (laughs) -- children of the Yiddish theater. I mean, Jacob Adler was one of the giants of Yiddish theater. He sent his children to the English language theater in the form of the Group Theatre. Stella Adler became one of the leading teachers of acting along with Sandy Meisner and Lee Strasberg, who were all children of the Yiddish theater and all children of the Group Theatre. So, that's the connection that leads then 64:00to the people like John Garfield, Edward G. Robinson, who then carried that tradition to the broader American audience. So, it's a very direct through line. Elia Kazan, who regardless of what he did or did not do -- or did do during the McCarthy period or during the House Un-American Activities Committee period was still a director of tremendous importance and tremendous social relevance. And we must never lose our admiration of his genius as a director. But he came out of the Group Theatre. So, the Group Theatre found its pillars in the Yiddish theater and carried it forth into the broader American theater and American films. There's a direct through line. It's not even one that you have to trace 65:00with hazy lines. It's a very direct line and it continues to influence American film and American theater.

CW:So, in addition to the human connection, obviously, with the --

AAS:Yes.

CW:-- people, from your perspective, what is the impact or through line, if any, in terms of a Jewish sensibility or a Jewish approach to theater?

AAS:I would hesitate to call it a Jewish approach. I would call it a humanistic approach. I wouldn't take possession of it. (laughs) I think there is a -- I mean, Arthur Miller was Jewish but Tennessee Williams wasn't, and they are the 66:00two giants of American theater. So, it's a valuing of the human spirit. It's an honoring of the human spirit. And more than that, it's a commitment to being of value. It's a commitment to dealing with life on Earth as a constant effort and as a constant challenge. The hallmark of a man like Edward G. Robinson, for example, who started in the Yiddish theater -- and I think his real name was Goldfarb? Anyway, it wasn't Edward G. Robinson. But the G stands for what his original name was. Was not just the depth and the humanity of his portrayals. 67:00Whether he was playing a gangster or an older man in love with a younger woman, he had great humanity and great honesty. The evidence of him as a man was also the fact that he was an enormous giver to charity, an enormous supporter of social causes. John Garfield, no matter whether he was playing a gangster or a boxer, always had humanity, always had a warmth of spirit, whether it was a violinist in that wonderful film with Joan Crawford -- I can't think of the name of it. "Humoresque"? No. Anyway, whether it's a gangster or a violinist, there was always a depth of humanity that he brought to -- which has been passed on to 68:00people like Montgomery Clift and people like Marlon Brando and James Dean and a whole myriad of actors who followed in their footsteps. That's what the Group Theatre -- the sensibility, the challenge that the Group Theatre introduced. After the Group Theatre, you could not get away with not being real. You couldn't fake it anymore. But as Edward G. Robinson said, the most important thing about being an actor is to always be truthful. And once you learn how to fake that, you can get away with anything. (laughs) But the challenge was to be real. The challenge was to represent the human heart. And that started even earlier with Paul Muni and what he brought to the films, that degree of honesty. 69:00But it was really epitomized by the Group Theatre. So, it's not really a Jewish tradition. It's a human tradition, which has become the hallmark of American acting. The difference between American acting and the cliché British acting, the other acting in English, is that British acting was more surface. American acting, whether it was influenced by the Method or whatever you wanted to call it, was always aiming at inner truth. The British, perhaps falsely accused of -- would settle for exterior imitation of life. The Americans did not want to imitate life; they wanted to recreate life.

CW:Well, going back to your own role in all of this, how do you see the impact of -- again, going back to these Yiddish actors and your family and growing up 70:00in that world, on your own work?

AAS:Oh, it's the goal I'm chasing. I have tried to do as many works as possible that send positive messages. Messages is a bad word. Samuel Goldwyn said, "If you have a message, call Western Union." Not messages but positive instincts, positive energy, put it that way, into the world. I've tried to help create characters of humanity, characters of depth, characters who shed some light on the human condition. So, it's part of me. I can't separate it. I'm stuck with 71:00it. The film we're working on now is a film about refugees. The fact that they are refugees from Mexico is no different. They could be refugees from Lithuania. It's the same story.

CW:So, do you think people are aware of Yiddish theater and its place in the history of American --

AAS:I think, through efforts of the group you work for, the Yiddish Book Center, through efforts of people like you, it's becoming aware again. There is Yiddish theater again in New York. There is Yiddish theater again in Chicago. Yiddish 72:00went through a bad time. When Israel decided that Hebrew should be its national language, it was a great disservice to Yiddish. When Israel decided that it wanted to divorce itself culturally from the shtetl, it was a great disservice to the shtetl and a great disservice to the memory of those who had lived and died in the shtetl. But it is back. Ain't gonna get rid of Yiddish. It speaks to too many souls. It is too beautiful a language. It is too expressive a language. And the fact that the literature of Yiddish is being rediscovered and has been saved -- I think it went through a bad period, but it's back and it's gonna get 73:00stronger and stronger. We're dealing, in this film, with an indigenous Mexican language called Nawat. And Nawat, the fact that we are using Nawat as one of the three languages in this film -- English, Spanish, and Nawat -- is of great importance to the indigenous Mexican community because it's a source of their pride. And it's a source of the expression of -- you express your soul through your language. And if you lose your language, you've used a piece of your soul. So, it's important that Yiddish survive. It's important that all original languages survive, and Yiddish is too strong to go away and it's not going anywhere. And the fact that Yiddish theater is back is important.

CW:What do you see the role of Yiddish theater today?

AAS:Same as it's always been: educate us, entertain us. Make us laugh, make us cry, make us think.

CW:And I have one or two more questions, but is there --

AAS:Sure.

CW:-- anything else you want to say about all of this or particularly about your aunt and uncle?

AAS:They both passed away, particularly Izzy -- uncle Izzy died when I was quite young. My aunt Jennie died -- I was older but still young. One never gets to say to one's ancestors everything we should say to them, even to our mothers and our fathers. You spend the rest of your life trying to make up for what you didn't 75:00say by the way you live. So, I hope I'm saying something to them, not by words but by deeds.

CW:And what does Yiddish mean to you personally?

AAS:Oh, it's music. It's where I came from. I can't hear Aaron Lebedeff sing "Rumanye, Rumanye" without being back in the Bronx. It speaks to my soul in a way that no other language can because it's a language of parts of me I don't understand and never will. I imagine it's what a Mexican child hears when you 76:00hear Nawat. It's my mother's language. It's my grandfather's language. And that's what it is for me.

CW:Just curious: has Yiddish ever come up in your career and the people that you've dealt with or in any of the projects that you've worked on?

AAS:Yeah, I've spoken Yiddish to Ed Asner. (laughs) I've spoken Yiddish to lots of people. I've spoken Yiddish to Sandy Meisner. I've spoken Yiddish to Lee Strasberg. (laughs) Sure.

CW:Do you have a favorite Yiddish phrase or word?

AAS:Oh, so many. Zay gezunt [Be well]. (laughs) Words I heard a million times as I was going out the door on the way to go back to school. (laughs)

CW:And is there any eytse [piece of advice], any piece of advice that you would want to give to younger people today, looking at you and where you've gotten?

AAS:Not where I've gotten, but stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before you. Look at their films. Read their plays. Read their lives. They are there for you. You will stand higher, you will stand taller if you climb onto their shoulders.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AAS:Now, I actually got to produce a play with Jacob Ben-Ami. He was in his seventies and he was still working. But he was a -- are we rolling?

CW:Yeah.

AAS:Oh. He discovered John Garfield or Jules Garfinkle, as was his name, and introduced him to the Federal Theatre and to the Group Theatre. He was a very 78:00pioneering force. He was a young movie star -- oh, I should also mention my uncle Izzy made a number of movies, about six or seven movies. I think the most famous one is "Grine felder [Green fields]." But he made a number of other movies and Jacob Ben-Ami was a young leading man in Yiddish movies in this period. But he was also a great inspiration to a lot of young actors like John Garfield. And I was fortunate enough when I was running one of the theaters at Lincoln Center, the Mitzi Newhouse is what it's called now, it was called the Forum then. I got to produce a play with Jacob Ben-Ami, who was then in his seventies and a sweet, wonderful, brilliant man. But he sometimes is not mentioned in talking about Yiddish theater and he should be, 'cause he was a major force.

CW:A sheynem dank -- thank you very much.

AAS:Thank you very much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]