ED ASNER ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is April 30th, 2018. I'm here in Tarzana, California with Ed Asner. 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?

ED ASNER: Eh-yeah!

CW: Great. So, I wanted to start by asking what do you know about your family background, where your family came from?

EA: My father came from -- he came in the last decade of the nineteenth century. I guess it was the nineteenth. And he spent a year --- (sighs) so much I want to 1:00tell about him. He was orphaned. His mother died when he was twelve. His father remarried and she was not nice, the second wife. So, the initial children from the father were somewhat ill-treated. And at the age of twelve, my dad was in the forests of Lithuania chopping shingles. Came from a large family, as they all did, and got to the States -- maybe 1900, somewhere around that date. Came in through Boston and worked for a year in Boston. I don't know what he did 2:00there. But because all the foreigners moved on because of landsmen [fellow countrymen], because of paisans [Italian: fellow countrymen], whatever, he knew of successful Jews in Kansas City. So, he felt that his future and fortune lay there. He got to Kansas City somewhere around 1900. Settled in the West Bottoms of Kansas City, Kansas, which housed the packing houses, the railyards, the stockyards, all that, in Kansas City, and started a junkyard. And he went out with a pony -- he called it a pony -- a horse and a wagon and collected junk. 3:00And by the time I came around, he owned the whole block of shacks and tin roofs. It was across the street from Armour's packing house. So, I lived there until I was in the second grade, approximately seven. And I was daily dazzled by the packing house workers in white coats covered with blood, the sound of the animals being driven over about a half mile away from the railyards into the packing house.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW: Do you know where in Lithuania your father was born?

EA: Well, he called it Eišiškės, or Eyshishok. And I gather it's right on the 4:00border of Lithuania and Belarus.

CW: Do you have a --

EA: Family had a history there. What?

CW: Oh, I was just gonna ask if you have a sense of what that place was like -- yeah, what the Jewish --

EA: Never got there. Didn't want to get there. I had a cousin die last year in his nineties. He was the last survivor of my father's brother. That's my father up there, with his brother. And his brother came and spent a few years with him at the junkyard and then went back to Russia and sired a family. Those kids -- 5:00he had, what, about six sons and a daughter. And the daughter was almost the oldest one. So, one of the brothers had married and lived in another shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community]. That left five brothers and the sister in Eyshishok. And when the Germans came, Abram, my cousin -- they all felt uneasy and queasy and thought they ought to get out of there. So, they were under loose barbed wire. So, the four healthy boys decided to take off into the woods, I guess those same woods where my father had chopped shingles. The 6:00sister -- cause the youngest brother was a cripple and they knew he couldn't make it with them, they decided to stay in the village. And of course, they were disappeared, as was the brother who was married and living elsewhere. So, that left the four boys in the woods and they began to attract other Jews, fleeing. Eventually, my cousin Abram's wife -- and they became somewhat of a guerilla band. They merged with a larger group. They eventually got Russian officers and 7:00the larger group entertained merging with a Polish group. The Poles didn't want the Jews. So, the Jews said -- so, the group was still going to merge. So, the Jews said, Okay, we'll go on our own. And the Poles said, Well, you gotta give up your guns. And the Jews said, No. So, they left and they kept their guns. I guess they didn't have any trouble, but during the course of the war, there was Abe and his three brothers. And I get fanciful and I say one was killed by the Poles, one was killed by the Germans, and one committed suicide. So, that left Abe and his wife and they eventually emigrated to Canada, Windsor, and they had 8:00-- one child was born in the camps. They had two girls. My mother came from a shtetl thirty-five kilometers from Odessa. So, she's a Ukraiński [Ukrainian: Ukrainian] and very different. They were very different Jews. My father was -- you could see the German blood in him and the bearing he had. Grey-eyed and austere. My mother brought the darkness and the gypsy-like quality of the Jews 9:00of Odessa with her. And they came in 1913 out of the port of Galveston. There are five or six girls and two boys, two men. One was fat and pacific, and the other was a scrapper. He would beat up the hunkies and the Polacks who made fun of my grandfather's beard in the packing house. They all went to work in the packing house. The girls as well. That lasted for about a year. And around about that time, my father was introduced to my mother, and she wasn't crazy about him in the beginning. Her father pled for Morris Asner to come back. I guess he did. 10:00And perhaps, I guess, my mother finally warmed up to him. He was sleeping down with his dog in the Bottoms, tending his own junkyard with his dog. And I guess one of her first activities in marriage was to pick the fleas off of him.

CW: And what is the home that you remember, the house that you remember first?

EA: Well, the first house was above the junkyard. It was a railroad flat across from the packing house.

CW: And you're the youngest of five?

EA: Of five, yeah. Hot Kansas summers. Those were the summers of the '30s. And it was a scorcher, I can remember. In the Bottoms -- which was near the river, 11:00of course -- about the only tree was the Ailanthus tree, called the tree-of-heaven, and it grows -- it's the tree that grows in Brooklyn. And it's where nothing else grows. It's a beautiful tree. I could remember, as I got older -- and working in the junkyard, waiting and waiting and waiting for the rain to come. And when it finally came, you'd look down at the dirt that you were standing on -- never grass -- and as the first drops fell, it looked like they were about that long. And they'd hit the dirt and you almost felt that the 12:00dirt was reaching up like that to grab the water. I'll never forget that feeling. So, spent my first seven years there.

CW: What was it like to grow up across from the packing houses?

EA: Well, it was filled with Mexicans and hunkies. I don't recall if there were many blacks, 'cause Kansas City was a segregated city. But there were blacks there, of course. Kansas City was considered a way station for the jazz musicians coming up from the South. So, the Kansas City jazz was special jazz.

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CW: Did you have any exposure to that? To jazz?

EA: To the jazz? No. I was not that big a music appreciator at the time. It was yidishe zingen [Jewish song].

CW: What were the languages in your home?

EA: Well, while the first four were being raised -- there's fourteen years difference between my oldest brother and me. So, I guess they spoke Yiddish until my siblings began to learn more and more of it. By the time I came along, they reduced the Yiddish and reverted back to Russian. And it was a constant 14:00ritual where my father, being a Litvak, would come home. And I guess my mother would say, "Nu [Well]?" And he'd say, "Ni" --- "puter [butter]" and "piter," that type of thing. He loved good humor, but he never indulged in it. He still was the twelve-year-old boy in the woods. And I was taught to fear him, which was the great regret of my life, because the others were used to his slaps and blows, and all I got was from them and my mother, Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't. Don't provoke dad, don't. So, I never got the slaps and the blows. 15:00And equal treatment under God, I believe, is the word, is the phrase. I wanted that equal treatment, as I later felt, because all I lived under was a shadow of fear of my father without ever experiencing the discipline. So, my jury's out on slaps and blows. My brother would tease -- he was six years older, my middle brother. We'd sleep together and he'd tease the hell out of me, torture me. And I'd scream and yell and giggle and laugh. And my folks would be playing cards down on the first floor. This is when we moved to "White Bread Village." 16:00Westheight Manor, it was called, and that was due to the influence of my older sister's urging. She wanted respectability. And she was the beauty. So, my folks'd be playing cards in the dining room and I'd be screaming and yelling and laughing. And mom would holler up, "Stop it, stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it. If you don't stop it, I'm sending dad up!" And keep it up. My brother continued to torture me. Finally, you hear the chair pushing back. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, as the heavy steps mounted up the stairs. And he'd burst into this small room that we slept in and beat the shit out of my brother. But he didn't hurt 17:00him. And my middle brother was shorter than my older brother and me, and he didn't tend to fat like my older brother and me. So, I always thought of him as the Ulysses of the family, the schemer, the plotter, the conniver. He was clever. He probably had the highest IQ in the family. My two sisters were lovely. One was heavy and butch-ish. But she mothered four kids, all very successful, wonderful kids. And my beauteous sister never married. So, she was 18:00going with a guy in St. Louis. She was an assistant buyer in St. Louis for Stix Baer & Fuller. And my folks came to St. Louis to visit her and she introduced him to the guy she was going with at the time -- who was a divorcee. And when my father said that, No, no, no, no. So, I don't know if she would have married him or not. I never heard her express regrets.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

EA: She spent her latter years here in LA and she took my last kid, my fourth kid, born out of wedlock, Charlie -- and she'd always take him with her to yard sales. So, the junkman's daughter could never resist buying cheap and selling 19:00dear. And she'd take him with her and he'd always end up with a game or a toy or two after spending a boring time while she perused the items for sale. And she died in '14, I guess, at the age of ninety-eight. And she left him her fortune. So, it was worth the wait. And she was a good economizer, a very good economizer.

CW: So, when you were growing up, what was Friday night like?

EA: The candles -- my father was Orthodox. He didn't walk to shul, but he didn't 20:00smoke on Shabbos, and he was -- you didn't want to cross him on Shabbos, 'cause you'd come in for some healthy cursing. The other kids didn't -- they were bar mitzvahed. But they didn't have to go to kheyder [traditional religious school] like I did. When we started, they got an American-born rabbi for our synagogue.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

EA: So, we instituted new rules that the younger kids would be going four days a 21:00week after school and the older kids, knowing that they'd piss and moan and make trouble for him, would only have to go two days a week. So, we started that process and I started. Every day after public school, I'd take the streetcar and a bus and I'd go to kheyder. Four days a week. And finally, the time came where I was the only kid that day in school. Nobody else was there. And I knew my buddies were out playing football, basketball, whatever, and I wasn't doing any 22:00of that, learning any of that. So, I was very saddened and bitter and told the rabbi about it. And he said that he had great hopes for me to be a Yiddish scholar. I think what I eventually got was a five-thousand-word Hebrew vocabulary, and it wasn't even a formal language at that time. So, he said he had high hopes for me. So, I said, "Okay." Victim of adults again. And as time passed, I turned around eventually. I looked around me and I was the oldest kid 23:00in kheyder. I'm still going four days a week. And I'm looking at all the other kids going two days a week. I said, Somehow it got reversed in there. He said, What, what, what? And once again, I heard his speech: High hopes for me, blah-blah-blah.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

EA: I accepted my lot because of my father. I knew I couldn't talk him out of what the rabbi would like. And finally, he instituted a contract with his bar mitzvah boys that they agreed to go to kheyder a year after bar mitzvah. And I signed it. And finally, the time for my bar mitzvah came. And not only was I 24:00going to learn my -- the brokhes [blessings] and the ble-- and the haftorah, but I was going to lead the Saturday morning service and do the speech, of course. But he said he was going to be taking a long vacation with his wife, so that we only had six weeks to prepare. That turned me into a worrywart. I became self-defeating. I studied and practiced and studied and practiced. The day of my bar mitzvah came and I invited some of my Christian school friends. And I 25:00started my haftorah. And my hands were clasped behind my back and my dad came along at one point and he brushed them, slapped them aside and said, "Kik nisht git [Doesn't look good]." I said, "Yeah, yeah, you're right, yeah" -- but in the middle of my performance. Then, I went on and I got into a very high tenor and -- reciting very fast. And either my uncle came along or my dad and said, "Tsu shnel, tsu shnel [Too fast, too fast]." So, I did it all. It was a harrowing 26:00experience. We had the big lunch afterwards where the gifts were bestowed and everybody had lunch in the basement of the shul. And then, as we prepared to go home and I'm loading up all the gifts in a big, huge cardboard box -- and I turned to my dad and said, "Dad, look at all the gifts I got!" And he said, "You son of a bitch." And he cursed me. And I realized I had failed. The prized pupil had failed. The stigma was intense. I finished packing the gifts and brought 27:00them home. But I think it probably turned me into an actor.

CW: Your first performance.

EA: Having failed my first performance, I was determined to make better. I guess I'm still trying.

CW: Were you exposed to Jewish culture growing up? Did you have any Yiddish music in the home or did you ever go to Yiddish theater?

EA: In Kansas City, it was scattered. It was always scattered. We didn't appreciate New York Jews, Eastern Jews. Thought that they were the cause of all the anti-Semitism. I can remember, during the war, we opened the house to two Jewish guys from the East to stay overnight to have -- was it (UNCLEAR) or was 28:00it Pesach or --

CW: Seder?

EA: -- or Rosh Hashanah. But these two guys stayed and made passes at my sister and I didn't like what I saw. And they had Eastern accents. And the next day -- they stayed overnight and the next day they said they were going for a walk. They never came back. So, they had a night out on the town. And I resented them, resented New York.

CW: So, what was it like to grow up Jewish in Kansas City in the '30s when you did, '30s and '40s?

EA: Well, you're always aware of anti-Semitism: He Jewed me down, he Jewed me down. But I call that gentle discrimination. It's nothing fervid like other towns, other intensities. Much lower heat. So, you did what you could. You said you were a Jew and you kind of apologized for it when you said it, but you still 30:00finished your task. This is what God dealt you. And besides, they had blacks to pick on and Mexicans in great number. So, it was -- they had church school in my public school, and kids were released Wednesday afternoons to go to their church and take lessons. Naturally, as a Jew, I stayed and went to kheyder after school. So, I always felt like a pariah because of that. I wasn't the only kid that stayed. But it varied. Some were sick, some stayed. A couple each time. My 31:00best friend was Dee Roy. Marianne Richards was the belle of the class. I was the only Jew in my class. Marianne had the hots for Dee and she wanted him to take her out. This was in the eighth grade. So, I was favoring a lovely lady named Nancy Ruthrauff. And he said, "Well, I'll tell you what." He said, "You ask Nancy out and I'll take Marianne." Said, "Okay." So, I asked Nancy and she said she'd have to check with her folks. She checked with her folks, came back and said she couldn't go. And I felt, 'cause I'm Jewish -- I don't know. Must be. 32:00So, I don't know if Dee went out with Marianne or not. We finished school, entered the high school. It's a large high school. Two thousand, at least. And my friends joined fraternities almost immediately, Dee and -- couple of others. And I thought, I won't be asked to join a fraternity, although there was a Jewish kid, older -- a year older than me that belonged to one of the fraternities. He was popular enough that -- and I said, Well, I'm not gonna be asked. So, I'm going to dedicate myself to being successful in all areas. Went 33:00like that. I went out for football every year. And by the time -- I was editor of the paper, one of the editors of the paper. I did radio, did the paper, did football. And by the time I became a senior, I became a starting lineman on the football team. Editor of the paper, one of them.

CW: This is in high school?

EA: Yeah. And still wasn't being asked by this one fraternity that the other Jewish kid belonged to. And I said, Well, okay. A different fraternity started 34:00inviting me to their meetings. At the time, there was a custom -- three meetings and you're voted on. So, I went to three meetings and I was voted on. And a guy who lived a block away from me and a returning vet who played football with me voted against me. So, when I came to class one day, the next day -- and my friend on the paper who had submitted me to the fraternity said they had voted and rejected me. And I said, "Why? Is it 'cause I'm Jewish?" He said, "Yeah." 35:00And I was relieved, yeah, like a schmuck. I said, "Oh, it wasn't because of me. It's 'cause I was Jewish." So, then the one fraternity that my Jewish friend had belonged to asked me to participate. So, I did and I became an underclassman -- as a senior. And used to get my ass paddled and laugh about it. But it confirmed the Jewish aspect for me, very much. I dated girls and never told my family about it. Always sneaking out with the shikses [non-Jewish girls or women]. And 36:00finally graduated.

CW: Were there any aspects of your Jewishness that you were interested in growing up or that felt --

EA: The grandiosity of Judaism was always something I gloried in, the bigger-than-life heroes, the drama of Judaism. At the same time, playing Humble Harve.

CW: And you said before that you sort of disdained the Eastern Jews who would come through. Did you have any Jewish theater in Kansas City?

EA: Somewhere around that time, "The Dybbuk" movie was playing and my brother and a cousin were there to see it. And the thing that they carried away with 37:00them was, Dos iz a dibuk! Dos iz a dibuk! [It's a dybbuk! It's a dybbuk!] So, all I can remember is my brother and my cousins saying, Dos iz a buik! Dos iz a [It's a Buick! It's a]" -- (laughs) the jokes, it's the jokes. Funny.

CW: Any Yiddish phrases or jokes that you remember from your home growing up?

EA: Chai kaks ba-da-bom, which I gather is not Yiddish. It's probably Russian.

CW: What does it mean?

EA: And was used by my father a lot. Somebody'd say, You like this coat? How 'bout this coat? You see the velvet lining? Ba-da-ba-da-ba. And finally, you get 38:00so tired of listening to them brag about it -- and finally, you just go, "Chai kaks ba-da-bom." Eighty pieces of gold-covered shit. You'd use something like that. "Shtop [Have sex]" and "tomevote [blockhead]" was another favorite. You know "tomevote"? What is the exact interpretation, do you know?

CW: I think it's used in various ways in different --

EA: You're not gonna tell me 'cause you don't know.

CW: I want to know what it meant in your family.

EA: It meant blockhead, yeah. "Kurve [prostitute]," "nafke [prostitute]."

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW: Any Yiddish songs or singing?

EA: "My yidishe mame [My Jewish mother]," naturally. We gloried in old cantors 39:00singing the arias in shul. And you waited for the tears and the chest-thumping. "Mamenyu, mamenyu [Dear mother, dear mother]." And you would break down with them.

CW: So, as you recounted earlier on, you had this family still in Europe. Were you aware of what was going on with Jews in Europe?

EA: No, we hardly knew, we hardly knew. We knew -- we had relatives in Belgium, 40:00we had relatives in Russia. My mother's oldest sister -- they were in Romania, I think. And when the Germans began to invade, they were sent to -- I guess where they sent a lot of Jews, which was Siberia. Or was it Kazakhstan? I don't know. I don't know where they went. This sister had two children, a daughter and a son. The son walked to Paris, either having become a doctor or to become a doctor, which he did in Paris, and was assigned to the Pyrenees as his district. And he serviced the Catalans who lived in that part of the mountains, the Pyrenees, for the most part. And he'd cross over into Spain and service the 41:00Catalans there. Then, he was in the army as a doctor, I guess, when the war came. And then, as they demobilized, he was saying how he was standing in a long line to surrender his papers and his title, whatever. And his name was [Kiva Rabinowitz?]. And so, as he's walking in the line, he's saying, Oh, my God, Germans --- and of course, nobody really knew what the Germans were doing. They certainly kept the secrets well. He says, Oh, my God, that -- what will they do to me with my name [Kiva Rabinowitz?]? So, the guy in front of him was an 42:00Italian. So, [Kiva?] decided -- so, as he came up to announce his name, he gave it as [Kiva Rabinovitzi?]. And they let him through and he finished the war in the Pyrenees.

CW: Do you have any memories of your parents talking about it or letters or anything?

EA: No, our knowledge was meager. We knew they were Jew haters. We didn't know anything about -- and I suppose there were rumors, which -- you never get substantiation of rumors.

CW: And your --

EA: We didn't know.

CW: And your parents must have been -- had stories of pogroms and --

EA: Oh, yeah, all the time. All the time. Where my mother was concerned. My father never talked about pogroms. Think there were too many Jews in that area for -- the stories that weren't told, that's the tragedy. That's the tragedy. The fact that I was too ignorant to ask questions, that's the tragedy. I could have filled myself with such Yiddishkayt if I had wanted to. But you're busy running away to be accepted. And so, I denied my heritage all too often.

CW: When you moved away to -- first to Chicago, right, did you have any 44:00connection to Judaism?

EA: No, no. Both my roommates were Jewish. One from Montgomery, Alabama, the other from Newark, New Jersey. Neither was -- certainly the Alabamian wasn't that religious. His mother worked with the progressives in Alabama. So, he certainly had good liberal instincts. The Jew from Newark, he's a rotund little 45:00guy who eventually became either a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I'm not sure which. Had offices on Central Park South, I think. And I think he became a homosexual, I'm not sure. And he was very Jewish. His folks had a big catering establishment in Newark, Steiner's. Oh, I guess he was as Jewish as you could be, but I don't recall -- he was Jewish just in his manners, his habits. But he 46:00never thrust the religion at me or its customs. And of course, at the University of Chicago, you come upon all those Jews who deny the fact they're Jewish. So, my first taste of denial. My older brother had married a non-Jewish girl. My middle brother was very involved with a non-Jewish girl and went to the army and that ended that. He ended up marrying a Jewish girl. And I was surrounded by non-Jewish beauties all over the place and wanted a piece of the action. So, any 47:00dates I went on were always stolen. And eventually got involved, my first year in college, with a non-Jewish girl. She was part of my reward. I ended up doing the lead in "Murder in the Cathedral." And they had a women's chorus and I fell under the influence of one of the ladies of the chorus. And as I prepared for 48:00one of my -- second performance, I guess, I would rehearse my lines with her, the lines of Thomas Becket, the archbishop, as love lines and I became very empowered. So, we started an affair. And the affair was lovely. It was my first affair. That began in the summer and I went home for Christmas. And while I was home, I guess I talked to her long distance. And a letter came and I came down to the junkyard one day and my brother was with my dad, naturally. And my dad 49:00sat behind his desk and he said, "This letter came for you." I said, "Oh." From her. He said, "Is she Jewish?" I says, "No." And he says, "Are you going to stop seeing her?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, sure." So, I began to encounter those enormous steps that take place. I went back to Chicago. Did not break up with her, 50:00naturally. And my studies were falling into the toilet. And though you were only graded by your final test, the school knew that I was not attending classes and wrote home to tell the folks about it. So, by this time, I tried to get through my finals, got Cs in almost all of them. I think I got a D in physical science. Got one B, in Spanish, which, of course, I shouldn't have had to take anyway. So 51:00then, that brings us to the summer of '49, I guess, yeah. I didn't go to summer school in '49. Shortly after New Years of '49, I guess, they were going to be doing "Oedipus Rex" and they wanted me for Creon. And I did it and I did well. And then, moving along, moving along, and finally, my nonexistence in class was so obvious that --- it was ridiculous. And my dad also realized that I had not broken up with the girl and said, "No more school." And I said, "Okay. Fine by 52:00me." And I told them I would stay and do Creon, even though I wasn't in class or anything. Did it, did it well, and I came home afterwards. And in the meantime, her folks were going to Europe for an extended holiday and she was gonna go with them. She was attending Goodman, the Goodman School. And so, I started a post 53:00office box and then I would call her with all kinds of coins at least once a week. By this time, I was working in the auto plant.

CW: On the assembly line?

EA: Yeah, as a polisher. Had an evil son-of-a-bitch for a boss. Looked like Uriah Heep. Or what you can imagine Uriah Heep looked like. My first day on the job or one of my first days, I was doing roofs. I was part of a band of men doing roofs. It was blistering hot. [BREAK IN RECORDING] I jumped off and 54:00forwent during my job to get a drink and the foreman caught me doing it. Says, "What are you doing?" "I was getting a drink." He's, "You don't get a drink till you get out of the hole!" Okay, okay. So, I went back to penal servitude and continued there until -- and, no, as the day wore on, I decided I had to quit. I got to leave this goddamn job. And I looked around for the foreman to quit. He was nowhere to be found. (laughs) And I couldn't do that to my fellow workers. Well, I had to make some attempt to stay there to -- and finally got to lunch. And then felt better after lunch and then did the job. He was never happy with 55:00me. I was a deficient worker. You had to work nine hours a day, six days a week. So, eventually, my foreman was able to palm me off on another foreman who did hoods and fenders. And I did the hoods and fenders and he was pleased with my work.

CW: So, before she went to Europe, you were already working at GM?

EA: Yeah. And I talked her into coming to Kansas City for a weekend, which meant that I would not be able to do my Saturday forced labor. So, I had her call in 56:00sick for me. And when I came back to work on Monday, my card wasn't in the slot and they said, The general foreman wants to see you. So, okay. And I went in to see him and he said, "Where were you on Saturday?" I said, "I was sick." And said, "What was wrong with you?" Says, "My feet hurt," I said. And they did. He said, "Oh, well --" -- he's sitting on his fat ass and he's saying, "Well, my feet hurt, too, but I was here. And this is going down as a black mark on your record." And I thought, You clown. You think I'm gonna worry about what you're gonna do to me in years to come? I ain't gonna be here. That was good. So, I 57:00went back to work.

CW: What other jobs did you have before you could make a living at acting?

EA: Well, I had two stints at an auto plant. I worked in the steel mills in Gary for a short while. That was boring. I sold over the phone. I drove a cab in Chicago. Checker Cab. Sold shoes. Didn't make a living. I was a failure at all of them. I don't know how I ever became a success as an actor, if you can call this success.

CW: Was it something you aspired to as a kid, to act?

EA: No, I loved to get up on stage and do the religious plays. Judas, Judah Maccabee, Samson, whatever. And always felt triumphant. I loved that; I loved 58:00being chosen for plays in public school. You never volunteered at the time, of course, 'cause you'd be considered a sissy. So, you're always delighted when they chose you. Then you didn't have to apologize.

CW: What did your parents think of your -- of acting, of theater?

EA: At one point, when I called home and said, "I've dropped out of school and I'll be coming home but I'm gonna stay here and do this play first" -- and my father sent, through my sister, who was on the line -- saying, "Well, tell him 59:00that if he didn't make it as a success as a student, he's not gonna make it as a success as an actor." And so, my simple response was, "I'll be the judge of that." So, I stayed on and I did my role. They never said another thing about it until finally I was in the army, came back, went back to Chicago a week after I was home and immediately began acting in Chicago. And I always wanted them to come see me. So, I waited until we did "The Dybbuk." And I played Rabbi Azriel. So, they came up. My mom baked a chicken, which she brought with her 'cause my 60:00dad wouldn't eat in hotels. They came to the theater and they were brought up the back way, I guess. I don't know. I was in charge of clean-up for our company. My dad said to me, "Listen, you're in charge of the clean-up." I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, that banister was dirty. It was dusty." He said, "You got to get that cleaned up." And I said, "Oh, okay then. I will. I'll see to it that it's done." Okay, so I made sure to -- I cleaned that goddamn banister, that's for sure. So, they saw the show, with me as Azriel. And two young girls were sitting next to my mother. And I guess they were very excited at seeing the 61:00show. And my mother said, "It's my son." "Oh, my!" (whistles) My dad never said anything. Later on, I heard that when he came home -- 'cause I played Azriel as being ninety or something like that -- and he said, "He was so old, I wanted to get up on that stage and help him." But that was his being impressed by my performance. "So old." So, it came off well.

CW: That was an English production?

EA: Yeah.

CW: Yeah. So, I guess to fast forward a little bit, when you were talking about earlier not knowing necessarily what was going on in Europe, do you remember when you were aware, became aware of the Holocaust and the --

EA: You only would learn it in bits and pieces. And it's like, when you finally hear it in all of its entirety, it's as if you heard it before but you forgot about it. I don't know. It's piecemeal. I mean, look what just came out just in the past week: Asperger was a Nazi murderer, sending diminished kids or troubled 63:00kids to their deaths so they wouldn't have to be treated.

CW: How did you feel about Israel in '48?

EA: Oh, I was all gung-ho. Very gung-ho, yeah. Carried guilt that I hadn't dropped everything and joined up. But then, over the years, of course, that's changed.

CW: When you started having your own family and home, what decisions did you make about what religion and culture, if any, to --

EA: I didn't make any decisions. The girl I married is non-Jewish, and we wanted to -- and we got married with only my sister attending. My dad was gone by then. 64:00I'm sure that I probably married only -- feeling safer after he was gone. To make my mother happy -- she came to town and she wanted to have us have a Jewish ceremony. And she even prevailed upon my very lovely, accommodating wife to undergo a conversion. So, we found a rabbi whose conversion was minimal. And she converted after a short amount of time. And we had our little Jewish ceremony 65:00and my mother was made happy. And for selfish Ed, it was a good wake-up call, because it established purpose and form to the kind of marriage we got.

CW: What do you mean?

EA: Well, my son became bar mitzvahed. And at his bar mitzvah, remembering the disaster I had -- they turned to me to make a few remarks at my son's bar mitzvah. And I was tremendously pleased with his bar mitzvah. And I began 66:00talking and I began -- finally, it became too much for me, and I couldn't go on. And I stopped momentarily. And the rabbi, who I was quite friendly with, reached out and attempted to console me and at the same time pick up the conversation, the speech. And I shook him off, saying I had to finish, I had to finish. So, I did.

CW: Do you remember what you said or what you were feeling?

EA: No, it's the fact that -- I don't know what I said, but what it was is that my son had redeemed me.

CW: And what role has your Jewishness played in your own sense of self?

EA: Well, first of all, I think that --- (pauses) Israel has become the New York Jews, as far as I'm concerned, and that Jewry is being split into two: the liberals of America and the apartheid creatures of Israel who no longer allow conversions, I guess. They never did. I don't know if they do now or not -- weddings by Reform or Conservative rabbis. So, if that persists, the gulf will 68:00become even wider and wider and wider because the majority of America is Reform and Conservative.

CW: Once you got into Hollywood, I'm curious if you connected with other Jews in the business.

EA: No, I always feel both acceptant and resistant. It's a love-hate relationship. I love to see you're Jewish, but you don't owe me. That's almost what's inherent in the response. A typical example is for me to go through "The New York Times" Sunday paper and to get to the section that covers weddings. And 69:00I look through and I look at each one, see who's Jew, who isn't. Who got married, who didn't? Who were they married by? Why am I doing that? What is this impulse, this compulsion? So, it's a sick relationship I have with Judaism, which -- probably common for the field.

CW: And how do you feel about Yiddish?

EA: I love it. I love it. I'm sorry I'm not a master of it.

CW: How much Yiddish do you know?

EA: Genug [Enough].

CW: Mir ken haltn a shmues af yidish [Could we have a conversation in Yiddish]?

EA: Ikh hof azoy [I hope so].

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW: Hot ir a mol gehert yidish [Do you sometimes hear Yiddish] in Hollywood?

EA: Nu, voden [Well, sure].

CW: Who spoke Yiddish when you first got involved?

EA: I was friends with Theo Bikel. Yeah, I can't form sentences as I should. But I certainly know enough of it. Anyway, what I was going to say is that, interestingly enough, there came a time where Hebrew was so emphasized in Israel that Yiddish was falling by the wayside. And the homosexuals, who were rejected in Israel at that time, anyway, were turning to Yiddish more and more because Hebrew wasn't accepting them or they weren't finding acceptance with Hebrew. So, mame-loshn [mother tongue language, i.e. Yiddish] became the homosexual shprakh [language].

CW: How did you observe that or come to know that?

EA: I didn't observe it. I just read about it. I could understand why. To me, Hebrew -- I suppose it's very difficult for the Sephardim to adapt to Yiddish. But to me, Hebrew is just another Arabic language. And Yiddish contains all the joy and the tears and what Eastern European Jews know for being Jewish.

CW: And you said you've never been -- you've never felt the desire to go to Eastern Europe?

EA: Oh, I've been there.

CW: Have you been to the places where your family was from?

EA: No, I went as a SAG president. We went to Moscow for an international conference and you were allowed to visit one other city. Rather than try to seek out, on my own, my father's village, et cetera -- my cousin was a Communist Party official in Riga. So, I went there. Had a lovely time visiting him there, his wife, and his daughter, who eventually came to the States. And after his 73:00wife died, he ended up here, as well. He was a shtarker [strong man].

CW: I'm curious whether your Jewish identity influences your other identities, as an actor, as an activist?

EA: I think it certainly does as an activist. Even as an actor.

CW: This is not necessarily a question about Jewishness, but I'm curious about your most famous role as Lou Grant. Was there any of you personally in that role, in that character?

EA: Well, there are two answers. I wouldn't know, and of course! If I did it, of course there's me. When I did the comedic Lou Grant, I always said -- I'm not 74:00sure of its verity -- that I based it on my two brothers, their pomp and bombast. Then, when it came time to do the hour show and I tried using those same influences, at least in the back of my mind, I found it difficult and realized that I had to plunge into myself, use more of myself as the character in the hour show, which is what I did. So, in both cases, it was me, me, me. (laughs) In all cases, it's me, me, me.

CW: Where do you see Yiddish in the world today? What's its role or status?

EA: It can never die. I once read that Yiddish was fourteenth century Plattdeutsch [German: Low German]. I don't know how true that is. But as I gave you the instance of my mother and my father -- nu, ni, piter, pater -- piter, puter -- I'm sure it will continue to thrive with that kind of inflection going on.

CW: And why should people care about Yiddish or give it attention nowadays?

EA: I think it's a wonderfully interesting language. I call it a whore language, as I call English a whore language, and a whore language being one that -- 76:00there's nothing to fill the gap here? Okay, we'll take it from over there. Boom-boom. Boom-boom, boom-boom. All languages are based on other languages, of course. English certainly is and Yiddish certainly is.

CW: Any favorite Yiddish words or jokes?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

EA: Shtik -- shtel zikh arayn in tukhes [Stick it up your ass]. [BREAK IN RECORDING] Nafke bayis. What's that -- translate the -- whore what?

CW: Bayis [home]?

EA: Whore trappings? Yeah.

CW: Well, yeah. "Bayis" means "home," yeah.

EA: Shtunk [Stink]. Hoyz, vinde, kleyder [House, window, clothing]. [BREAK IN RECORDING] [Gey korbn ya matye?][Russian: Go sacrifice your mother?]. You know that one?

CW: That one, I think that's Russian, 'cause --

EA: Yes, of course.

CW: -- I don't know that one.

EA: And a second one, which I think is also Russian, yep tvoyu mat [screw your 77:00mother]. Yeah.

CW: What did that one mean? It's Russian, so I don't -- what does that mean?

EA: Same as [gey korbn ya matye?]. And I used to think that all these languages that have languages for screwing your mother. And then, only later did I discover that Yiddish has its own version.

CW: Now, did you ever read any or know any Yiddish authors? Were you familiar with Sholem Aleichem or Peretz?

EA: Yeah, we did Sholem Aleichem in our theater. I've come across most of them, I think. I seek out -- Doctorow, of course, was a big author for me. Well, we're 78:00called the children of the book, why not?

CW: Right. Well, speaking of children, do you have an eytse [piece of advice]? Any advice for young people today?

EA: God help you. I think the world is shit. I really don't care about mankind, that's the -- I have to get that in. Humans don't interest me at all. Or if they do, I deny it. And trying to save the beauty of the Earth is what I wish 79:00primarily, because I think it's a beautiful place if man doesn't touch it.

CW: Great. Well, was there anything else you wanted to get in about these subjects we've been talking about?

EA: I think I've talked too much.

CW: Well, a groysn dank [thank you very much]. Mir iz geven a koved redn mit aykh [It has been an honor for me to speak with you].

EA: A dank dir, zeyer sheyn [Thank you, very nice].

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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