MIRIAM BIENSTOCK ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is November 11th, 2010, and I'm here with Miriam Bienstock in New York City, and we're going to record an oral history interview as part of the Wexler Oral History Project. Miriam, do I have your permission to record?

MIRIAM BIENSTOCK: You do.

CW:Thank you. Okay, so I thought we could start with what you know about your family -- briefly, the background.

MB:Well, my family came from Russia -- on both sides, my mother and my father. My mother's family came over here in spurts, in the way that immigrants used to come over. And they settled here -- all of them settled here. My father came 1:00over much later. My father came from Russia because he was facing military duty in Russia. And he came to avoid that -- came to the United States and was then immediately drafted into the United States Army in World War I. So, my background was in Brooklyn, New York, which was a big immigrant community of both Jewish people and a lot of Italian people when I was there. Now, Brooklyn is a very chic place, and it's -- to me -- unrecognizable. But that's where I grew up -- I went to school. And my school was really -- I was very lucky at my school, because my public school was an experimental school by an educator who was at that time very unusual. So, there were special classes for people, and I 2:00don't know if they exist in public schools today, but they were teaching people with educational difficulties things like use of the sewing machine, or the boys got shop -- they learned carpentry. There were special classes with people who were blind or had sight problems. And after that, I went to a high school that was really very unusual, too, in that it was originally the first secondary school in New York State for boys -- a Dutch school named Erasmus Hall. And it had all these classical traditions, so that when I went to high school, everybody had to take Latin for four years -- at least two years. And I took Latin for four years, which was part of the tradition of that boys' Dutch school. And actually, when I went to school, we were using the old building -- 3:00the seventeenth-century building -- for classes still. They built another, more modern school around it, but the old building, which is what it was called, was still being used for classes when I went there. And eventually, I took my children to see it, and when we looked at the old building, it was then a museum, and my children {laughs) said, What, you went to school in a museum? But that was my background, more or less.

CW:So, do you know what your family did in Russia?

MB:Well, I don't know about my mother's family, really. My father's family was actually a middle-class family. They were in a very small village, but obviously, they were what we used to call "allrightniks." My father's father came to the United States -- that would have been at the end of the nineteenth 4:00century, I guess -- to give away a nephew in marriage, 'cause that nephew had no other relations. He came on a boat from Russia, went to the wedding, and turned around and went back to Russia. So, I mean, they were probably doing quite well. And as I told you, my father came to avoid the draft. My mother's family -- they always joked that they were horse thieves, but I gather that they were in some kind of business involving livestock. My mother had six brothers and one sister, and they were all more or less intellectuals and revolutionaries. And they left Russia because they were in trouble politically. So, they came here one after another, but mostly because of that. Interesting, though, that politically, they 5:00were left-wing, but they were socialists and then Left socialists -- I mean, all kinds of different denominations that were leftists. And they disagreed politically, vocally. There were times in my mother's family when the brothers didn't talk to each other because they had differences. But they all played cards together.

CW:So, what was your home like when you were growing up?

MB:Well, my home, I guess, was like a lot of immigrant homes. Immigrants in my generation were interested in opera, lectures, all kinds of educational things that really don't even exist today. I mean, I remember my father was very interested in Caruso. Caruso was like Elvis in his time -- really remarkable. 6:00And I think most families were like that. My father had lessons in violin, but my mother never had any kind of music lessons at all. But I was forced into piano lessons, dancing lessons. But my dancing lessons were not ballet, because of the family background. They were very much involved with, for example, Isadora Duncan, who was a titan at her time. And the lessons that I got was Duncan dancing.

CW:Tell me more about that.

MB:Well, my uncle, Mani Leib -- the poet -- was living with a woman whose daughter was the last Isadora Duncan dancer. And she was very much part of our family lore. There's a very funny story about Isadora Duncan and my uncle. At one point, Isadora Duncan went to the Soviet Union and she married a very young 7:00-- a poet much younger than she was. And when they came to New York on a boat -- and she was a big star, so there were lots of reporters who came to interview her and so forth when the boat arrived -- my uncle arrived, too, because he was living at that time in the Bronx in a project called the Coops. They were cooperative houses that were built there, really, to maintain Jewish culture. The labor unions got together and built all these apartment buildings there, and the kids who lived there went to school in the daytime, and after school, they went to Yiddish school. Anyway, my uncle came to talk to this poet with Isadora Duncan whose name was Yesenin. And my uncle, of course, was fluent in Russian, and so were a lot of the people at the Coops, so he asked this guy if he would 8:00come and address the poets and writers and artists who lived in that project, and he said yes. Well, he came to this meeting with his wife, which is like, Arthur Miller comes with Marilyn Monroe. And everybody made a big fuss about her, because she was, after all, a big star. And her husband got very angry, because all the attention was centered on her instead of him, and he began to beat her up. And they tried to separate them. And the guy was not a hundred percent -- he committed suicide -- not now, but later. And he ran out into the Bronx, and all these poets ran after him, and they brought him back and they tied him up with clothesline until he calmed down. And that particular incident was a big thing in the press -- the press got hold of it. And I used to ask my 9:00mother about it. She didn't want to talk about it, but my uncle said that that's what happened, and that the next day, when he went to visit them at a hotel -- the Brevoort, downtown, which doesn't exist anymore -- he said they were lovers again; it was like nothing had happened. But Isadora Duncan was part of our family lore. (laughs)

CW:Are there other stories about your uncle, Mani Leib?

MB:No, I don't think so. I mean, he was an influence in my life to the extent that my parents thought -- because he was -- you know, at the time, there were three Jewish Yiddish-language newspapers. I used to go to the theater with my grandmother to a different play every week, which means there were a lot of Yiddish plays going. And my parents thought I should learn Yiddish, so that I 10:00actually would commute by myself to a school quite a distance from where we lived to learn Yiddish. So, I learned how to read and write Yiddish, which was part of the influence of my uncle, I would say.

CW:And was Yiddish spoken in your home?

MB:Yes. My first language was Yiddish. I never spoke English until I went to kindergarten, and that's where I learned English. I find that people who have English as a second language -- in many ways, when they learn English, they're much more interested in the language than people who are born with it. But I may be wrong. Anyway, between my Yiddish and my Latin, I do very well in crossword puzzles.

CW:So, can you -- if you close your eyes and try to recall the home that you grew up in, what comes to mind?

MB:Well, what comes to mind is -- are you talking about 1920s, 1930s? Any place that you lived in the city was really like a suburb. It was nothing like now. And things were much more innocent. I mean, for example, I used to go from Brooklyn to Manhattan to Carnegie Hall to Young People's Concerts, which happened on Saturday mornings or early afternoon. I would come up on the subway by myself. There was nothing unusual about that. You wouldn't think of sending a kid on -- that kind of distance today by themselves. There's a whole change in the atmosphere. And there's a whole change in the population and the kind of people who are living here now than when I was there. I mean, I used to walk around Brooklyn, and there were people -- Italian families who were there who -- talking about suburbia, they had gardens, they had chickens. I mean, they were 12:00much more rural than the Jewish people, but, I mean, I used to see that when I was a kid. In Brooklyn. When it wasn't chic. (laughs)

CW:And what was Jewish about your home?

MB:Well, what was Jewish about my home is that my parents spoke Yiddish -- they spoke Yiddish to me. They spoke Russian to each other so we would not understand what they were talking about, so of course I know a lot, a lot of Russian words and I have no idea what they mean. And when I see Russian-speaking people, I always ask them, you know, I'm saying this, what does it mean? But I was brought up in an atmosphere that was very much an emphasis on culture, I would say. Books. Music. I guess it was the same with a lot of immigrant families at that time.

CW:Did you have favorite books?

MB:I don't know. But I mean, I used to read books. First of all, the one thing that I can tell you about is, the public library had a very big influence on my life, and I used to just go and read one book after another. Started to read books very, very early on. And the first book that I really remember -- when I was seven -- was "Little Women," which -- the first line I can recite to you now. "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents" is the first line of the book that I remember. (laughs)

CW:So, can you tell me a little bit about school? You mentioned a little bit at the beginning, but --

MB:I was very lucky in school. For example, in grade school, we had music 14:00appreciation. There are people of a certain age who can tell you about what they learned in music appreciation, which is when we learned songs to identify music. For example, (sings) "This is the symphony that Schubert wrote, it never finished." Right? (laughs) Stuff like that. Art appreciation, which was when we had copies of masterworks the size of postage stamps and we put them in an album. In addition to which, you were not allowed to graduate -- girls -- unless you had finished your graduation dress by hand. So, that was a project that lasted a couple of years. And these dresses were white organdy, and we would put 15:00talcum powder on our hands before we touched them. And I think it took two years to make. But I have a picture of the dress, and it's very chic.

CW:And who were your friends?

MB:I don't know. You know, at this age, I don't remember my friends. But what happened was, I recently went through some of my things, and I found a bunch of letters from 1936, which were from my friends. And it seems to me that I had a lot of friends, and that we would write letters to each other. Because I have so many letters from them, they must have been responding to letters from me. And I detest writing letters. I mean, I don't use email, and I hate writing letters. But there are a lot of letters. And they're very strange, because they are political. I mean, these kids are talking about politics, which really (laughs) 16:00absolutely amazes me. But I have lots of letters. And I have letters from one friend who wrote to me almost every day. Unfortunately, she died when she was very young -- she was still in college when she died. But I had two very, very good friends, both of whom died when they were in their early twenties. And the rest of the people I don't know anything about. Nothing. No. It's very strange, because my daughter is absolutely on good terms with everybody she went to school with -- high school, college. I don't know anything about them. They're probably all dead anyway. (laughs)

CW:Can you tell me about your Yiddish school?

MB:Well, it was a school that was run by the Arbeter Ring -- the Workmen's Circle, or "Workermen's Circle," as they said. And it was not political. It was 17:00definitely not religious in any way. And if you were Yiddish-speaking, it was not very difficult anyway, because Yiddish is mostly phonetic. It's not like Hebrew at all. I tell you, the first time I went to Israel, I knew I didn't speak Hebrew -- really didn't attempt anything. And then I thought, Well, I know what each letter sounds like. Let me see what this sign says -- on an umbrella around the swimming pool where we were sitting. And what I read was, "Alitalia." That was the first thing I read in Israel. And then I could see "museum," "telephone" -- anything that wasn't Hebrew I could read.

CW:So, moving into college and --

MB:I didn't go to college.

CW:-- that time --

MB:No. I didn't go to college. I went to work immediately. And I really had 18:00incredible jobs. The reason I say I had incredible jobs is because there was real anti-Semitism at the time that I went to work. And I went to work in publishing -- went to work in book publishing in the production department, where there were no Jewish people. And Jewish people were pointed out to me as being Jewish, which I interpreted as being, they didn't think I was Jewish. My name was K-A-H-A-N, and, I mean, unless you're very naïve, you know that's a Jewish name. But I worked for G.P. Putnam's Sons. G.P. Putnam was married to Amelia Earhart. And there were three publishing companies involved. One of them was the John Day Company, which published John Day's wife's book, and his wife 19:00was Pearl Buck, who wrote books about China. And the other one was Coward-McCann. There were three companies in one. I worked for them for a long time. It gave me terrific background. And then I went to work at J. Walter Thompson, which was at that time the biggest advertising agency -- also with a history of anti-Semitism. I was a proofreader there, and I worked there for some time. And then, I went to work for another advertising agency that was a fashion agency, where I was really going from a great advertising agency to not such a great advertising agency. I stayed there for a while. And then, I got married, and we started a record company, and I left that. So, then my background was really very incredible. As this guy who's making this series -- he said, "How'd 20:00you get all these jobs -- a Jewish girl from Brooklyn?" And I said, "I have no idea." I was really so surprised that I got these jobs. And I remember I said to a boyfriend at the time, "What are they thinking of? I'm clearly Jewish." And he said, "Well, sometimes, if they think something is very attractive, they don't associate it with something unattractive." So, maybe that's what it is. But I was very surprised. I did very well in that regard.

CW:Did you connect with any of the other professionals in the companies?

MB:Which company?

CW:In the first job?

MB:I don't think so. I don't think so. One of the reasons I think I would not have done so is because I was very young. I was much younger than the people who worked there; they were all older. And they were very nice to me. They took an interest in me. And we would talk about lots of things. But I don't think I made 21:00-- at Sterling -- that's the fashion advertising -- I did make friends with one person who was a -- who continued to be a very good friend of mine, even when we both stopped working there, and she married a rather well-known artist who was the head of the art department at Brandeis. And we stayed in touch for, I would say, thirty years after we worked together. But it was only in that agency. The other agencies were really -- people were not -- we were not compatible in any way. But I never had a problem.

CW:So, oftentimes when I interview people, I like to ask them about historic events. So, were there --

MB:Well, I'll tell you, one of the things about work that I just realized when 22:00you asked me is, my father at that time would be very helpful -- and, you know, it was hard to get a job at that time. My father would help me a lot. Because he would just ask people if they could find a place for me. And one of the jobs that I had was very interesting -- was working for an agency called the Elmer Roper. They took polls of people about certain issues; they asked questions, and then the questions came back and they had to be coded so they could be counted. So, I got this job when I was very, very young -- just out of high school. It was not a regular job -- it was a part-time job -- but I worked more or less all the time. And what was unusual about it at that time was, it paid ten dollars a 23:00day, which -- at that time, there were college graduates getting jobs paying fifteen to eighteen dollars a week. So, that was an unusual job. When you said what was historical, I remember the office was in Rockefeller Center -- in that area -- and I remember seeing the funeral of Paderewski. Do you know who Paderewski was? Paderewski was a very famous classical pianist at the time who had also been an official in the Polish government, and so that he was a very great star, and they had a parade down Sixth Avenue when he died with his casket. So, I remember that cultural event. (laughs) And then I remember, you know, the war -- the beginning of the war.

CW:Yeah. So, how did that enter your circle?

MB:Well, when you lived through the war, it was a completely different life. I 24:00mean, people were drafted. There weren't really any shortages, actually. You know, there was rationing of sugar and meat and gasoline, so there were restrictions. There were restrictions on certain things that you couldn't buy -- but more or less, it was not so bad in the United States. And I'm sure it was terrible in Europe, but it was not bad here at all. I remember that -- when I worked at this advertising agency, which was on Fortieth Street, which faced this little park -- Bryant Park -- and then you could see Forty-Second Street on the other side, and there was a small shop there that sold hosiery. And every time they got a shipment of nylons, there would be a line outside of the shop 25:00that we could see from the window of the advertising agency, so we would leave and join the line. (laughs) There was a shortage of certain things, but it was not really terrible -- that I can remember.

CW:Your family was involved in politics on one side, but what about you?

MB:I was (laughs) not involved in politics in the way that I was very skeptical about the left-wing movement when I was very young, as some of those letters proved. And I had a reputation in high school as being a red-baiter, which meant I was antagonistic to leftist people. When I was in high school, I was very involved with the literary magazine. I had stories published. I received medals 26:00for excellence --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

MB:Because what we did -- what they all did, and a lot of people did at that time -- which is hard to imagine, but -- at that time, there were no cooperatives or condos. People rented. And landlords would give what was called concessions if you signed a lease, because you could always rent on an oral contract, but if you signed a lease, they gave you concessions, which meant you got a free month or something like that. What my family did is that they would live in an apartment for about ten months, not sign a lease, and then go to the shore in these houses which were called kokh-aleyns [summer bungalow colony, lit. "cook-alones"]. There would be a community kitchen, everybody would have 27:00their own room, and they would stay there from the beginning of June until the end of September. And it was very, very much less expensive than the rental on an apartment. My parents used to do that. All my uncles and aunts did that. My grandmother stayed in the city. My grandmother was living with my aunt, who was working, and they never went to the shore. So, I used to come back from the shore at about the beginning of September when school started and stay with my grandmother. And when I went to school, I would look around and see where there were "for rent" signs. This sounds like a dream, but there were lots of them, and I would tell my father. And he would come and follow up on where I had seen the signs and rent an apartment, and we would all come back for a year and do 28:00the same thing all over again. He was able to take me out of school at the beginning of June when school ended at the end of June, because I was really doing quite well and so I was able to be excused. That was one part of my life that was interesting.

CW:Yeah. Wow. And can you tell me more about the summers? What was that like?

MB:We were in Far Rockaway. And we were in houses that were huge -- must have been mansions at one time, because there were so many bedrooms. And we were quite a distance from the beach. And we would have to walk to the beach, which was about a ten- or fifteen-minute walk to the beach. And we'd walk past all these bungalow colonies that are now considered very exotic, because they have eliminated a lot of them. And this television show that they're showing now on 29:00HBO called "Boardwalk Empire" -- whenever they show the bungalows that are supposed to be in Atlantic City, they're actually the ones in Far Rockaway that we used to walk past to go to the beach.

CW:Wow. So, did you enjoy working? It's pretty amazing that you got those jobs, but --

MB:I enjoyed working, because that was a time that -- it was a different climate for women workers. And there was such a thing called a -- I don't remember what it was, but if you were working in the kind of jobs that I had, it was really quite glamorous. I know that -- about the job that I had with Elmer Roper -- that one -- people would point and, She has a job that pays ten dollars a day! I was a celebrity in that way.

CW:And how did your sense of Jewish culture continue into your middle part of your life?

MB:I guess it always continued. I mean, I've always been culturally Jewish. I've never been religious -- always Jewish. And I really -- I can't answer that, actually. I kept up with trying to read Yiddish. Of course, that stopped at one point, and I didn't read Yiddish at all. I know that once in London, a man that my husband was playing bridge with asked me if I could possibly find a Yiddish book for him. And I went here to YIVO, which was on Eighty-Sixth Street and Fifth Avenue -- just three blocks away from here -- and I asked for this 31:00particular book. I don't remember what it was. And this woman said, "Do you read Yiddish?" And I said yes, and she handed me a file. (laughs) So, when I went through the file, I realized I had not forgotten a lot of the stuff, 'cause I found what I was looking for -- in Yiddish -- reading Yiddish.

CW:So, did you celebrate the holidays at all?

MB:No.

CW:Never?

MB:No. I didn't. My grandmother did, but none of my relatives did. I was very close to my mother's family. My father's family -- well, his mother died when he was young and his father remarried, so all his relatives were really sort of step-relatives, and they all lived in Connecticut. At that time, that was a distance. I used to go and visit them. I was close to them in the sense that I 32:00knew them -- they were not strangers to me -- but it was not the same as my mother's family, who were all around us -- lived around us. And then we would all -- they would all be living in houses in Far Rockaway, so that they would get together for -- they played cards all the time.

CW:Did you ever play cards?

MB:No. Can't hold any cards. My husbands played bridge every single day of his life from three o'clock on. And I can't remember the cards. Somebody offered me just last week to teach me how to play bridge and I can't -- I will not be able to remember the cards. When I married, my husband promised to teach me bridge and chess. And when I read books -- for example, if I'm reading a book about a battle and they're explaining the battle strategy, I skip that part. And of course, chess is war. And, well, bridge -- people used to come and play bridge 33:00with him here in the house, and when I heard some of the conversations between husbands and wives who were playing together, I said, I'll never be able to catch up with anybody, I'm not interested. So, I never played cards.

CW:So, what did you enjoy doing?

MB:I enjoyed theater. I enjoyed reading. I enjoyed jazz. A different era -- there were a lot of nightclubs with jazz being played, and when I was young, I was very much involved with that.

CW:How did you become interested in jazz?

MB:I became interested in listening to jazz. And then I became friendly with somebody who was a disc jockey on the city station in New York City, and he began to take me to jazz concerts and to visit people -- jazz people. I met a 34:00lot of people when I was quite young. And at that time, jazz was sort of an esoteric thing. There were a lot of jazz fans -- they mostly all knew each other. All the East Coast people knew each other very well and didn't know the West Coast people very well, but there was a community. And I was part of it. Met my first husband as -- being part of that community, 'cause a jazz guy who -- I was working at one point in a department store that doesn't exist any longer, and this guy was the head of the advertising department in that store, and he was a jazz fan and he introduced me to my husband. But there was always an interest in music.

CW:And you used to go to the theater, you mentioned, with your grandmother?

MB:Oh, yes. We used to go to the theater. Every week we would go to a different 35:00thing. There were so many things going on at that time. Of course, the Yiddish theater died down eventually, especially with the advent of Israel, when Hebrew became the language instead of Yiddish. What was interesting is, we went to see one of the last things that Molly Picon did, which was "Di kashere almone -- The Kosher Widow." And that was already half in English; it was not in Yiddish. But I can tell you, one of the most remarkable things that I've ever seen in Yiddish theater was "Death of a Salesman" in Yiddish language. Now if you see "Death of a Salesman" in Yiddish, you really see (laughs) what it was all about. That was a really extraordinary performance. It was in Brooklyn someplace. But I'll never 36:00forget that. That was something.

CW:Wow. Did you go to that one with your grandmother as well?

MB:No. My grandmother was long gone. I remember, though, that when we went to see "Di kosher almone," we went with friends -- some of them who weren't Jewish, but the whole thing about going to Yiddish theater, it was like going to a folk theater in whatever country you were in. And it was such a ridiculous play that we were sort of giddy when we walked into the Russian tea room here, and the owner said, "Where are you coming from?" (laughs) You know, we were so charged up. And we told him. And he said, "You know, my wife was an actress, and I thought she should see the Yiddish theater. We went to the Yiddish theater, and I had translated for her. And then, after the performance, there was an older lady sitting in front of us, and I went to her and apologized and said, 'I'm 37:00very sorry -- we must have disturbed you during the performance, but I had to translate for my wife -- she's a shikse.'" And the old lady says, "A yidishe shikse [A Jewish non-Jewish woman]?" So, he said, "No," and she said, "A shikse shikse?" (laughs) So, I remember that was very funny after that play.

CW:(laughs) And then, what was it like in the music industry? You were very involved.

MB:Well, I don't know what you mean by "what was it like." (laughs) There was no anti-Semitism. And it consisted of a lot of black people who were almost always -- almost rural. You know, the jazz was different at that time, because the people -- a lot of them were -- some of them were musically trained, but most of them weren't, and most came from backgrounds that were Southern, rural. And it's 38:00not the same now, 'cause all these jazz musicians are really very schooled and sophisticated and so forth -- not that they can't play any type of music.

CW:Were there any memorable people that you met through your work with Atlantic?

MB:I met all kinds of people. Actually -- I mean, it's interesting -- we recorded all kinds of people, not only jazz. We recorded pop people like Bobby Darin. We recorded people who were café singers, like Mabel Mercer. Mabel Mercer had a manager, a gay guy who lived in Brooklyn. And we became friends, and I would go to parties at their house all the time in Brooklyn Heights. One 39:00of the great things is, I met W.H. Auden at one of those houses. Well, I'm a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. (laughs) I thought it was very extraordinary that I would meet those people through a phonograph record background. So, I met a lot of very interesting people throughout my life. Extraordinary. I don't know how it happened, really. And I consider myself to have been very lucky. It was all luck. I didn't do anything extraordinary. Well, maybe I did in a way, but nothing that was notable.

CW:Well, what was it like being a woman in that --

MB:Well, being a woman at the time that I was in the record business was primitive. For example, they would have certain meetings -- industry meetings -- New York Athletic Club. I could just get to the door -- no women allowed. There 40:00were meetings of record industry at the Friars Club -- not allowed. You know, women were not allowed in men's clubs. There was one club in London -- I remember the story was that they didn't allow women, but then they changed their policy so that you could bring your wife to dinner one night a week if you wanted to. And one wise guy said to the secretary or something, "I don't have a wife; is it all right if I bring my mistress?" And the answer was, "Only if she's the wife of another member." (laughs) So, things were very different. I mean, I would get telephone calls from people who -- I'd say, "Can I help you?" "Let me talk to the boss." Well, I was the boss. I mean, I wasn't the boss, but 41:00I was an executive -- I could really have handled whatever it was. But when they heard a woman -- I used to travel -- there were different -- I don't remember exactly what it was, but things that you would get as a man traveling on an aircraft were not available to women. It was just a different time. I mean, I wasn't really very militant about it. I did have friends who were -- feminists, I guess, you would call them -- bluestockings, they were. But, I mean, I was able to get along. But there were very, very few women -- there were a few -- in the record industry. But getting involved in certain ways where the musicians were -- sketchy.

CW:(laughs) And did that start to change at some point?

MB:Oh, I think it's completely changed. Well, first of all, you can't compare the industry as I know it to the industry as it is now. It was completely different. I mean, the whole structure of it was different and the whole music part of it was different. Today, most artists are recording songs they've written themselves or with bands where they write their own material. At the time that we were there, people would write songs for whatever artist would make the record, and people would go around trying to get people to make records of songs that they were trying to flog. Different era. Much more interesting, by the way.

CW:(laughs) Was there Jewish music at all in any part of your life?

MB:Well, there was Jewish music, but I don't think I was -- I can't think of any way that we were involved with Jewish music. (laughs) When you ask me about Jewish music -- I'm laughing because a guy came in to do some painting here, and it turned out that he was the percussionist in a very famous klezmer band called "The Klezmatics." And we became very friendly. And whenever they had a performance in New York -- in one play -- "The Dybbuk," I think -- they were on stage -- but he would always send me tickets. And I have his business card, which says: "Painting, plastering, percussion." (laughs) So, I thought that was funny. But at that time, I was never involved in any kind of Jewish music at all. Didn't even think of it. And I thought that klezmer was very interesting. 44:00But klezmer -- one time they were playing in London and he asked me if I would come, and I went with a friend and my husband. And we got there and it turned out it was not a concert at all the way I thought it was. It was in a dance hall, and the Klezmatics were playing and people were dancing -- and they were all young people, and I don't think any of them were Jewish. But I didn't realize that klezmer music was so popular with young people as a kind of dance music.

CW:So, what does Yiddish -- how does that play a role in your life, if at all, today?

MB:Well, there are very few Yiddish-speaking people. There are some. I have some friends who are Yiddish-speaking. And whenever there's a play -- in London, there are quite a few times that Yiddish theater companies come from Israel, and 45:00if I'm there with my friends, we go and see them. But mostly, Yiddish is a funny language now. I mean, everybody uses words that are Yiddish. They don't even think twice about it. Except -- well, I said to somebody recently, "How are you feeling?" And she said, "Status: kvetch." Which, (laughs) I mean, people use "kvetch" all the time, and (laughs) they don't realize it's a Yiddish word. In England, they use certain words that we don't use in America. For example, you can have a "nosh-up" -- a "nosh up." You remain "shtum [speechless]." I'm just talking about words that non-Jewish people use.

CW:What is "nosh-up"? What does that mean?

MB:Do you know what a "nosh" is?

CW:Yes.

MB:Well, a "nosh-up" is what you're eating up -- it's a "nosh." They don't say "nosh"; they say "nosh-up." And then they say, I'm shtum. And they don't realize -- I don't know if it's German or Yiddish, but it's Yiddish.

CW:Do you have a favorite Yiddish expression?

MB:No.

CW:(laughs)

MB:I have a lot of Yiddish expressions which I use at the proper time, but -- you know. There are certain people I can say to when I meet them, "Vos makht a yid [What's up, lit. "What is a Jew up to"]?" And they answer, Az okh 'n vey [Okay, lit. "alas and alack"]. You know, there are certain expressions that are only funny if you know what they mean. But, you know, in New York City, you hear black people saying, Why are you making such a megillah out of it? They don't (laughs) -- but that's what they say. (laughs) That's New York.

CW:(laughs) Yeah. When was the first time you went to Europe?

MB:Well, I went to Europe for the first time -- lots of times in the '50s, because I was the only one in the company who was able, for various reasons, to go to Europe, and I would go on business. So, I started to go in the '50s. The first time, actually, my first husband was in the army, and I think I started to go at the end of the '40s. I will tell you that when I started to go to Europe on a plane, there wasn't a tremendous amount of travel to Europe at the time. And I can tell you, the first trip that I made to England -- which was I guess at the end of the '40s -- people came to see me off on the plane and brought me one dozen red roses. Which was perfectly appropriate if you were on a ship, but 48:00(laughs) sort of stupid if you were getting on a plane -- I had to give them away. But that was how unusual it was for people to go at that time. I went a lot of times. It was seventeen hours on a non-jet plane to go. I went mostly to England and France. But it was business trips. I went quite a bit. I'm very familiar with London. We've had a flat in London, but later we had a flat in various places. But the flat I have now, I've had for more than thirty years, and people in that neighborhood think I live there, because they see me (laughs) not often, but enough to think I'm in the neighborhood.

CW:And do you notice a difference in the Jewish community in different countries?

MB:Oh, yeah. Well, you notice a difference in Jewish communities -- for example, 49:00I'm very, very familiar with the Jewish community in England, or in London. But you have to understand that in England, there are very few Jews. I think there are about three hundred thousand Jews in all of England -- not London. And I find their communities are very closed, I think based mostly on your economic situation, so that they're very, very closed and clannish. And I always say, what's really remarkable -- that I know of people who are widowed and they immediately find a partner for them, which would never happen in New York. I mean, such a vast population in New York, and it's so very different. But there is anti-Semitism in England that people who live there don't even recognize. 50:00They don't recognize when the newspaper points out that somebody is Jewish. And the newspapers in England will say -- for somebody who's not practicing Judaism at all and hasn't been for two generations -- his grandfather was a rabbi in Vilna -- they will mention that the guy is Catholic, you know, but they always do mention it.

CW:How do you find the community different in New York?

MB:Well, it's so disparate. I mean, and the fact is, there's an enormous population of Jewish people in New York. And I find that the people who are outside of New York are very different from the Jewish community in New York. And it's the same in every other country. In France, I've met a few people who are now very, very upset about the conditions in France, because obviously 51:00there's real danger to Jewish people in France that -- while there's anti-Semitism everywhere, I don't think it's as dangerous -- from what they tell me -- as it is in France from the population there. It's kind of open anti-Semitism that hasn't happened here in that way.

CW:And you mentioned you've been to Israel?

MB:I went to Israel a long time ago. I'm unique for Israel. I don't have one relative in Israel. I've never had any relative in Israel. The first time I went there I was really exotic, because I tried to speak Yiddish and people didn't speak Yiddish. After a while -- I think the second or third time I went -- they were interested in where I learned Yiddish. But I haven't been there for a very 52:00long time, and I think mostly because I don't have any roots there. I mean, I have political feelings about it now, but I don't think I'm gonna discuss that. (laughs) But we went to Israel for a few times -- taken my children. And I haven't been there for years and years. I remember how many -- it was years and years ago that we were there, and we were passing a place where there were these enormous pipes that they were putting into the sea. And we said, What are you building here? And they said, We're building a city. And there was a city. And the city was called Ashdod. It's a big city now, and we saw it being built.

CW:Wow. And do you have two children?

MB:I have a son and a daughter. And I have eight grandchildren.

CW:And where did they go to school?

MB:Well, all my children and grandchildren went to private schools. They didn't go to public school like I did. In some cases, I don't think they got as good an education as I did in the public schools. But they all went to private schools and their children went to private schools.

CW:And did you give them any formal Jewish education?

MB:No. I didn't. I didn't have the background to do that, you know, really. And there would be absolutely no point in having them learn to read and write Yiddish, because at that period, Yiddish had not made a renaissance. And I think it has now, I mean, now that -- a lot of people are telling me their -- this college, that college, that university has a department of Yiddish language and so forth. But at the time my children were growing up, not at all.

CW:And what do you see -- what do you think is going to happen with Yiddish?

MB:Well, maybe it's going to become like ancient Greek or Latin. (laughs) I don't know. But look, it's a valid language with a literature. So, you know, it's not just a patois. The way most people did try -- at one point, it was -- you know, they said, Well, it's not a language, really. But it is a language, and it's got a literature, and it should be learned as a language. But it's very hard if people don't speak it, really, to revive it. So, it becomes very exotic.

CW:Do you ever go to the Yiddish theater anymore?

MB:I don't think there is a Yiddish theater. Yes, sometimes -- if it's something that's interesting. Sometimes they give classic plays -- you know, "Mirele Efros" is a classic play. I don't remember when I saw that. I did. But there was 55:00a famous European actress who came and did that. I forgot who it was. But I haven't been for years. Yes, I have in London, come to think of it. Because there was this Israeli company that came that we saw.

CW:And looking back over your life, are there any moments that you think were very important to you Jewishly?

MB:I think -- not really. But I think that what was interesting is, going to Poland much after the war and finding people -- Jewish people there, or the beginning -- Kharkov -- you know, starting to speak Jewish to people there. What was interesting to me was that lots of times, people would turn up talking 56:00Yiddish that you were surprised about, which became fun. For example, years ago, I was very friendly with people in France in the record business. They were very prominent, actually -- as people in France, they were sort of stars. And they brought along once -- when we were having dinner here in New York -- a man who was the head of one of the television channels. And I don't speak French, really, and he didn't speak English. Then we found out that we could speak in Yiddish, which was really very funny. And that's happened quite a few times (laughs) with French people, which surprised me. But they're people in the entertainment field. I mean, I've never had that experience with restaurateurs 57:00or anything like that.

CW:So, what does a musical or arts -- what has that meant to you over your life? It's been an important part of your life.

MB:Well, the important part of my life was, for a period of time, I was involved with a thing that was a great adventure. Because we took a thing that was really a hobby or an interest and built it into a business. I was involved in a business that we started more than sixty years ago that still exists -- it's still in business. And just this week -- the other day, in the "New York Times," they talked about the fact that they found an archive of all these things -- certain things of -- that they didn't know what they were. I laughed. I called 58:00my children, I said, Look, they found such-and-such, and they don't know where it is. And they said, Oh, we know where it is! (laughs) Because, of course, being in the family, they knew what I was talking about. But I just grew up in that thing. And I've been involved on the peripheries of music for all my life. Because I married a music publisher, and he was a music publisher until he died a year ago, and went to the office every day. And I heard about all his problems, and he was able to talk to me, because I knew exactly what he was talking about. And all the people that he met -- you know, my children met Elvis. (laughs) I don't know if they're telling people about it, but they did. Who was, by the way, a perfect Southern gentleman.CW:(laughs) Really?

MB:Oh, absolutely. Very, very polite. And proper. No matter what you've heard, (laughs) that's how he was. I mean, superficially for him. I mean, he was meeting children of people he knew, so he was very polite.

CW:And what kind of music do you listen to now?

MB:I listen to all kinds of music. But I listen to classical music, I go to the opera. I don't go to jazz clubs at all. I have no one to go with.

CW:And I hear you take your children to the opera, too? Is that right? Or the theater? Your grandchildren?

MB:Well, I've always taken my children to the theater, yes. They all were involved in the theater. I used to take my children to jazz things, which was very interesting, because my daughter, who is the younger one of my children -- 60:00we'd go to jazz clubs -- jazz concerts -- and they were extremely loud, and she would go to sleep. (laughs) She was very young and didn't really concentrate on the music. And my son was five years older than she, and we would take them -- if we were going to certain places where we could go with them. But they grew up with music. And of course they're still involved with music, because both of my children are involved in our family business, which is music publishing. They're both carrying on, in a business that looks like it's on its way out.

CW:Do you think your children have a sense of their Jewish identity?

MB:I don't think my children did -- do. But I think, amazingly, because of their 61:00children -- I mean, their children are picking up with Jewish things and bringing it to them, whereas we had no -- I had no background in anything religious at all. My second husband did, but he didn't impart that to any of the children. And my daughter used to go to some of the services. Both her marriages were to non-Jewish people. My son's married to non-Jewish people. But all their children are saying, I have to do a project for school about the family tree -- and they become interested in Jewish stuff.

CW:And you have a good relationship with your --

MB:Yes.

CW:-- grandchildren?

MB:We have a very good relationship -- I think an extraordinary relationship, in the sense that I used to go to business, and I wasn't home like a lot of mothers 62:00of my generation were. And we are very close. As I told you, we go to Europe every year together. I used to take my children; now I take my children and their children. And the kids all want to come. We're quite close as a family -- which surprises me, because I was never, you know, that kind of nurturing mother, and certainly didn't make Friday night dinners.

CW:Are there any other stories you want to share?

MB:I can't think of any. But if you give me a clue, I will tell you a story. But I can't think of any offhand.

CW:Well, I am curious to know a little bit more about Mani Leib. What was he like?

MB:Well, he was very dashing -- very good looking -- dark hair and blue eyes. And quite a ladies' man, I gather. And he was the first one who came to the 63:00United States. To support himself, he worked in a shoe factory, I think -- he worked with leather. In your magazine, the --

CW:"Pakn Treger."

MB:-- "Pakn Treger," there was a letter that appeared once about somebody who said that his uncle married Mani Leib's sister. (laughs) It turned out it was, like, a second cousin of mine. And I called him up -- I never knew this guy at all -- and he was thrilled. And there was a picture of Mani Leib in a shoe factory. So, he worked there to support himself. He was my mother's oldest brother. She was the youngest in the family, so there was quite a difference in 64:00their age. He died sometime in the '50s. I used to see him a lot when I was a child. He took an interest in me mostly because when I was younger, I was interested in writing, and he thought he was nurturing that. He left his wife -- he had five children with his wife. He left his wife and he lived with a woman who was an author. She wrote a kind of serial for the Yiddish -- I don't know which Yiddish newspaper it was. And he lived with her for years. Most of my uncles were not married to their wives, but they were living only with their wives, like, for forty years, thirty years -- they didn't believe in marriage -- that was part of their political thinking. And I was very close with all of them 65:00as a child. And Mani Leib was, of course, the star of the family. So that as a child, I would go to all these events where he was being honored and so forth. The "Forward" newspaper, where he was a contributor for years -- by the way, he was not well. He suffered from tuberculosis. He was always nurtured by people in the Jewish community. I mean, he was sent to various hospitals; people were paying for all kinds of things for him. And I would say that the early part of my life was very influenced by the fact that there was that part of my life that 66:00was intersected with his life.

CW:Did you get a sense of sort of the Old Country or stories of Europe?

MB:No. No, not at all. I mean, they didn't talk about that at all. Obviously, that part of their life -- you know, I'd say, "What did my grandfather do?" Oh, he was a horse thief. Well, that was a joke. But I don't think that was a very good part of their lives, so they didn't talk about it. And my mother was very young when she came to this country. She was, I think, about eleven or twelve. And she never spoke about anything, either, that I can think of. My father, obviously, led a different life, because he went to schools much longer than my 67:00mother, and he spoke several different dialects of Russian, Ukrainian, so forth. And from what I gather, he was -- they were pretty well-off. Actually, after the war, when a family friend went to the Soviet Union and looked up some of my father's relatives who still existed, they found them in very bad conditions because of their status when the Soviets came in. They were, you know, rich people, and they didn't like them.

CW:Do you have any advice for future generations from all of your wonderful life experience?

MB:I can't have advice, because when I think of myself as having been extraordinarily lucky -- and, I mean, we haven't talked about the people that I've met, but I really met an enormous amount of people who influenced me. A lot of them were romantic relationships, but why they happened to be, I can't understand. Because it was not that I was in a position that was particularly attractive -- by that I mean, I wasn't a singer, I wasn't a model -- I wasn't any of those things. And then, I got into situations where I met the most incredible people. And I think now, I'm a particular bore in the sense -- somebody is talking about something and I say, "Well, I knew him." When I say, "I knew him," I don't mean I was at a party where I met him and he was present -- I mean somebody that I really interacted with. For example, you say, Marilyn 69:00Mo-- Oh, yeah, I know her; she came to my house once, and then I went to her house once. (laughs) I mean, I really interacted with her. Now, that was just an incredible thing, but it did happen. You know, I kept the indentation in the chair to show my husband where she was sitting. (laughs) And then, we went to her apartment when she was married to Arthur Miller. I mean, there are all kinds of things that happened to me that I think are extraordinary, but I don't think there's anything that anybody can do to make that come into effect. It was just luck. And unbelievable. I will tell you, I think my life was really incredible. (laughs) And I don't know why. I really don't. (laughs) People were talking about Kenneth Tynan. Oh! I knew Kenneth Tynan very well. Do you know who Kenneth Tynan is? He was an important part of British theater at one time. He was what 70:00is called a dramaturg. And he was involved with Olivier and the National Theatre and so forth. There are a lot of people that I met who are, in a way, historically famous. And I really knew them. I'm not talking about people I just was in the room with.

CW:Can you give me a couple other examples?

MB:Well, I really can't. You know, it's like jokes. I know --

CW:Yeah.

MB:If you ask me to tell a joke, I can't tell a joke, but if you tell me something that will trigger my memory, and I will tell you. That's why I say it's a bore, because people will say something, and I'll say, "Oh, yeah. I knew him." Auden? Yes, I knew him.

CW:Well, I think you did some pretty amazing things, it sounds like, too.

MB:I think so, too. But I can't say why. I don't know why. Just -- things happened. And really extraordinary, because, I mean, I came from a very ordinary 71:00background in Brooklyn. Yiddish background. Nothing. Of course, most of the things I was involved with that I would say were interesting (laughs) were not particularly Jewish, but that's something else. But it's never interfered with anything that I did. And while there was anti-Semitism, it didn't exist, really, for me. I never knew any. I mean, I can remember talking to my mother when I was very young -- they were talking about Hitler and how terrible he was, and I'd say, "Why doesn't somebody kill him?" And I remember my mother saying, "Well, it's not going to make any difference if they do. There's somebody else who's gonna pop up in his place." But I don't remember personally that I went through it at all -- in any place in the world.

CW:That's extraordinary.

MB:I think so.

CW:Well, if there's anything else you'd like to add --

MB:I don't know if you could think of something.

CW:Well, this has just been wonderful.

MB:Thank you.

CW:Thank you for sharing your stories. (laughs)

MB:You know, one guy came around once -- they were doing a story about Atlantic Records for -- they were doing a documentary. It was called "Hip to the Tip." (laughs) And they were trying to make me feel at ease, and they were saying -- the director was saying about the producer that, Oh, well they know my husband's a music publisher and that the producer's -- the producer was an Israeli -- and the producer's wife probably has recorded a lot of my husband's songs. And I 73:00said, "Oh, really? I don't --" 'cause I didn't really know any Israeli singers. Turned out she was Annie Lennox. Do you know who Annie Lennox is? Well, she's a famous British singer. (laughs) That was the producer's wife. She was not an Israeli at all.

CW:(laughs) Wow. Well, thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]