RICK GROSSMAN ORAL HISTORY

ISAAC MOORE: This is Isaac Moore and today's April 7th, 2016. I'm here at the Museum of New York City. The Museum of the City of New York (laughs) with Rick Grossman. And today, we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Rick, do I have your permission to record?

RICK GROSSMAN:Absolutely.

IM:Thank you. So, why don't we go ahead and start? Today, we'll be mainly talking about your grandparents and their involvement in the Yiddish theater before going on to discuss your parents and your time --

RG:Sure.

IM:-- as well. So, my first question is: can you tell me the names of your grandparents?

RG:Sure. My grandmother's maiden name was Fannie Ader and my grandfather was 1:00always known as Samuel B. Grossman. And my grandmother came to America from Austria-Hungary, as it was then called. My grandfather was from Hungary and they actually came in their youth and met in New York.

IM:Great. Do you know where they were born in Hungary?

RG:I don't. My grandfather was in a -- outskirts of Budapest. That's about as close as he remembered, and -- but when he came to America, for many, many years, he still had the deed to property that his family owned there. And for a long time, it was controlled under communist regime, so you really couldn't get 2:00access to it. But that was the part of Hungary.

IM:Do you have an idea of when they immigrated to the US?

RG:Yeah, my grandfather came over around -- I would say the both of them came somewhere around 1885, 1890, in that era. I never actually had access to any of their immigration papers. But it was based on when their children were born and they had four children all born in America. It was in that timespan.

IM:Did you know them personally?

RG:My grandmother died, passed away, a year before I was born. So, I did not know her and they kind of named me after her. My grandfather, I shared a lot of time with, up until his passing when I was twelve years old. So, at that time, 3:00he was no longer active in the theater, but still had many, many ties to the Yiddish theater and to the Broadway theater by then.

IM:You mentioned earlier that they met in New York.

RG:Yes.

IM:Can you tell me about that?

RG:Well, I know that they were young. My grandmother, she was the force behind the whole idea of going into theater. My grandfather was a tailor. And they met and he would, as family lore has it, he would write romantic poems to my grandmother. My grandmother had an aunt who had been a chorus girl in many shows for George M. Cohan. So, that's where the theatrical influence came off on her. And she wanted to desperately be in the theater. And she tried her way in some 4:00vaudeville things. Didn't really work out. So, when she met my grandfather, he had this prowess to write beautiful, romantic poems. And she said, Well, if he can write poems, maybe he can write plays, too. And if he writes plays, maybe we can get 'em produced. And if we get 'em produced, then I can star in them, (laughs) so -- and that's kind of how the relationship developed. And he started writing some plays, and marginally they would sell here, sell there. And then, they got married. And by that point, my grandfather was hooked in terms of being a playwright and an actor and a director and then moved on to being a producer. So, that was -- it was really her that was always the driving force.

IM:Did your grandfather tell you any stories about their first meetings?

RG:Basically, my grandfather was always kind of a laid-back person. But he came from a very -- what I would say, almost a classic era of actors in the Yiddish theater. He grew up in the Yiddish theater watching and paying homage to people like Jacob P. Adler and David Kessler. And meanwhile, Maurice Schwartz was more of a contemporary of my grandfather's, but -- so, they all had this very, very classic way about them. And he would relate things to me of -- when he had 6:00access to Adler and it was more of on a social basis. And Kessler. The Yiddish theater community was very, very socially interactive. It wasn't as big as the Broadway community, and as a result of that, many organizations formed and still exist today.

IM:Do you have an idea of what their early lives were in America?

RG:Oh, yes, yes. It was tough. My grandfather, basically he came to America at the age of twelve on his own, without his parents, without -- he had one brother that remained in Europe. And to think of how a boy of that age comes here -- 7:00they did have some relatives, some distant relatives that he stayed with, whereas -- and so, it was tough for him. And the trade that he learned as a young boy was being a tailor. My grandmother had family here. So, for her, it was a bit easier. And she also worked kind of a seamstress and then started getting work because -- through her aunt getting work as a wardrobe mistress in the theater, as well. So, that's how they kind of started to learn the trade.

IM:Can you describe them for me?

RG:Well, as I say, I did not know my grandmother, but from pictures that I've 8:00seen, she was a very strong, kind of imposing kind of woman. And the youngest child that they had was my aunt, who I was lucky to have in my life till about ten years ago. And she was very much like her. Very ambitious, very industrious. And my grandfather was more, as I said, the romantic. He always kept on writing. I still have a letter in my possession that -- just before I was born, he wrote a letter to my older sister from me before I was born like, "I am" -- how he knew I was going to be a boy, I don't know, (laughs) 'cause back then they 9:00didn't really have the technology that they have today. But he just figured, well, there was already a girl there in our branch of the family. And he just figured I was going to be a boy. So, he wrote these kind of things and he nurtured my interest in theater and in musicality. He would take me and my cousin at the time when we lived in New York, and I must have been about maybe seven or eight years old and my cousin was a year younger than I was. And usually, on Saturday, some Saturdays, he'd come with my cousin, they'd pick me up, we'd go down to Broadway and Fifty-Second Street, and they had these recording booths there. And he'd have my cousin and I go in and sing and make a 10:00recording. And he was very supportive of that, yet without being pushy. And, of course, I remember -- and as I come to this time of the year, with Passover approaching, that's the time when I think of him most, and sitting at the seder table, because he would recite the entire Haggadah in Hebrew. And when you're a kid of eight, nine years old, you don't know what's going on. But having him lead those seders with our family -- and as I found myself, years later, being the grandfather, with my grandchildren, doing the same thing, I had those wonderful memories come back.

IM:Did your grandfather have any defining physical features?

RG:Yes. He was a tall man for his time and very striking. Always, in pictures, 11:00always dressed to the hilt, dressed to kill. And always had a -- back then, when it was popular, a walking stick, which had a gold-plated top on it with his initials, S.B.G., which to this -- I have that to this day and I've -- and he also used to like to use it onstage, for characters that he played. And I've done a couple of characters using that same -- onstage, using that same walking stick that he used. And he was alway-- even in his declining years, in his last years, he would always get up every morning, and even if he wasn't going into 12:00his office, he was just going to be home, he would always put on a shirt and a tie, just be in the home, and -- even if he wore a bathrobe over it, that was his culture, and -- very proud man. Very proud man.

IM:Great. Are there any favorite stories or memories that you have of your grandfather?

RG:As I said, the trips that we had down to these recording studios, during the summers, the families would usually be up in the Catskill Mountains. And my aunt who -- my grandfather lived with my aunt, and so, she would take the family up there, her family, and he would kind of hold court. My aunt, his daughter that I 13:00referred to, was also a theatrical agent, she became. So, in the Catskills, many of the comedians, many of the entertainers, they would kind of stay in the same locales. And he would sit out on the lawn during the summer and he would hold court. And many of these up-and-coming comedians would say, "So, Sam, what was it -- tell us what it was like when you had Paul Muni, who was Muni Weisenfreund, in your company in Chicago." And they would say -- and Muni was still around -- "Nice boy, nice boy. And every time he opens in a show on Broadway, he invites me to opening night." He had a lot of pride in that relationship, that he kind of nurtured Muni, and also, what was kind of -- saw 14:00that he had such talent that could go beyond the Yiddish theater. In terms of stories, the funny thing about my grandfather is that he had many opportunities, because he was one of the pioneers in Yiddish theater, to go outside New York. My grandparents took it all over North America. And when he was in Los Angeles -- he had a Yiddish theater in Los Angeles -- when he would go into these cities, he would partner with somebody local who knew the real estate, knew this or that. And they would kind of, as we call them today, be the presenter of my grandfather's company. And he had a gentleman that he worked with in Los Angeles by the name of Carl Laemmle. And Carl Laemmle, at the time -- this was in the 1920s, mid-1920s, he said to my grandfather, "Sam, I'm getting -- I'm in the 15:00entertainment business and I'm going to get into forming a motion picture company. I'm going to put together a studio. I want you to invest. What do you have? Can you -- five thousand dollars, six thousand dollars?" Maybe that's like $100,000 today. But my grandfather said, "Nah, these motion pictures -- people, they go, it's a nickelodeon, it's not art." He didn't consider it art. So, he passed on it. Carl Laemmle then went on to start and was the founder of Universal Pictures. So, for years later, every time my family and I, we would go to Universal Studios, and waiting on line for one of those attractions it's like, "Grandpa, we could have owned this place." So, he took a pass on that, 16:00also buying real estate in places -- "No, no, no, it's not for me, it's not for me." And then, the funny thing was that many years later, when he came back to New York and decided to no longer be involved in theater, he became a real estate broker. (laughs) So, we always found that quite amusing about him.

IM:Great, thank you. So, I want to start talking about your grandparents and their involvement in the Yiddish theater. So, how would you describe your parents' involvement in Yiddish theater to someone who didn't know of them?

RG:Well, as I said, they were always -- the term was used is pioneers of Yiddish theater because back then, in the early 1900s, yes, the mecca was New York, Philadelphia. And actually, in their -- one of the first companies that they 17:00were involved in as producers was in Boston, where my dad was born. And --

IM:Do you know the name of the company?

RG:Ah, that he had there, no. That, in Boston, I know, 'cause they were in and out very -- of a lot of those places. So, New York -- it was mainly New York and Philadelphia -- were the meccas of Yiddish theater. But my grandparents just said there's -- and there was such competition that they felt there's got to be people who have immigrated, Jews who have immigrated and gone on to other places all throughout North America. New York's not the only place. And if they're there, they probably want to hear Yiddish and they want to see the Yiddish plays. So, let's find an audience. And, no, they didn't do it the way the 18:00Goldfaden troupe did it in Europe. They didn't go and -- or Jacob P. Adler, they didn't play on a wooden platform. They went into actual theaters and leased them. But they started taking it to places like San Francisco and Los Angeles and even into -- as far as western Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia. And you would not think that in the 1920s, mid-to-late -- early 1920s that there were -- there would be enough of an audience in a place like Vancouver, British Columbia to bring Yiddish theater to. But I guess they did their diligence, they did their homework, and they kept (laughs) having kids along the way and created a 19:00niche, so to speak, and became very successful at it. After a number of years, they found, You know what? It looks like the biggest opportunity we would have would be to go to Chicago. And they went to Chicago, and they put down roots and they were very successful. And they were the producers -- it was called The Reinhart-Grossman Star Company. And my grandfather directed, produced, my grandmother acted. At that time, my father, his older sister and younger brother all were involved in the theater in all ways. And not only did they act, but they had to learn about lights and they had to learn about costumes and they had to learn about scenery and they had to learn about how to work the box office 20:00because it was like having a small family business where everybody had to do everything. And that's where they really achieved some great success and brought in some other Chicago actors and other Chicago Yiddish theater families that would become a part of that company and then would go onto tremendous successes later on.

IM:When was the company founded?

RG:That company, I would say, was founded around -- about 1918. Around 1918.

IM:Right.

RG:And so, my dad grew up in a lot of the mobster era of Chicago and back then -- the Roaring Twenties, so to speak.

IM:So, who else did your grandparents work with, know in the Yiddish theater scene in Chicago?

RG:Yeah. Yeah, okay. There was a family from Chicago, the Jacobson family, Joe 21:00Jacobson and Bessie Jacobson. And they had four children, three of which were involved in the theater. They had one son, Hymie Jacobson. They had another son, Irving Jacobson, and a daughter, Henrietta Jacobson. And they were all working in my grandfather's company. Irving and Hymie were very contemporary with my dad and my uncle. And that became a relationship that lasted forever and went on to be -- for generations and -- with the Jacobson family. They also had the -- another family, which was their -- Berel and Helen Bernardi. And they also had a 22:00number of children that were involved in the theater, and -- but at the time, their youngest child was too young to be on the stage. But later, he found his niche and became a very well-known actor by the name of Herschel Bernardi, who would go on to star on Broadway in "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Zorba" and TV and everything. So, they were also very -- they were good friends -- they would come into Chicago to do things, the family of Jacob P. Adler, not Jacob P. himself, but Stella Adler and Luther Adler, her brother, they were all -- these were all people that were all very interconnected while they were in Chicago and then, later on, in New York. And then, everybody kind of just gravitated to New York.

IM:What do you know about the Yiddish theater scene in Chicago?

RG:They, at the time, from what I understand, they had about two or three theaters that ran where you would always have one theater that would do more of the classics. And then, you'd have another one that would do kind of more the melodramas, and then you'd have another one that would do some of the lighter plays and musicals. My grandfather really started out -- my grandparents with the melodrama aspect of it. But when they found that my dad had an incredible voice, was an incredible singer, they started picking plays and picking musicals to kind of feature him and went that route. So, it wasn't like you did not have, 24:00in Chicago, the kind of competition that you had in New York, where at one time there were fifteen, sixteen or more theaters on Second Avenue, plus in other places throughout New York, as well. So, that kind of served the audience there in Chicago.

IM:How, if at all, do you think their involvement in Yiddish theater influenced their family life?

RG:Well, when, yeah, when you grow up in the theater, as I did myself, it's just a part of your daily routine. I mean, they made sure that their children went to school, and my dad and his brother graduated from high school in Chicago. They wanted them to get an education and my grandfather, my grandparents were 25:00self-taught. But because my grandfather was such a literary person, he knew that his children would need that education to have that. And their family life was really just centered around the theater. And when you grow up in that environment, you really don't think about it too much, whether your father is an actor or a director or he's a lawyer or is a retailer, you're a part of that world. And obviously, they enjoyed it because all four children that my grandparents had wound up in the theater in one form or another.

IM:How would you describe their work in later years? You mentioned that they 26:00moved from Chicago.

RG:Yeah, yeah. What happened, how that came about was that my aunt was my father's oldest sister. She first -- she got recruited to go and work for Maurice Schwartz in the Yiddish Art Theatre, and became part of his company. My dad was seen onstage in Chicago by Boris Thomashefsky. And Thomashefsky thought he was wonderful and his -- Thomashefsky's roots were actually -- his theater was in Cleveland, but he was then going to start his Grand Street theater in New York. So, he brought my dad to New York. So, little by little, the kids who were at that time in their -- getting into their twenties, were finding different 27:00niches. My uncle, my father's younger brother, he really didn't have the desire to be on the stage. But he loved the business part of it. He loved being the manager. And that's what he did for his whole career. So, they decided, Okay, it's now -- we can't do it on our own anymore. It's time to head back to New York and -- because that's where the children are going to be. And even at that time, my aunt was the youngest of the family. They wanted to get her an education in New York and so, everybody kind of came back. And my father then started to have a very successful career on the New York Yiddish stage.

IM:Great. So, as you mentioned, your parents also performed in the Yiddish theater. So, first, can you tell me their names and where they were born?

RG:Yeah. My dad was Irving Grossman and he was born in Boston, as I said. My mom, she was known as Diana or Dina, as they used to call her in the Yiddish theater, Goldberg. She was born in New York. And she started out as a child actress in New York at about the age of seven at the Lenox Theatre, which was in Harlem. And there were two gentlemen who were the producers there, Nathan Goldberg and Jacob Jacobs. And they saw my mother sing because her mother, my maternal grandmother, was a quintessential stage mother. My grandmother was known as the -- she was the Jewish Mama Rose and she wanted my mother to be a 29:00star. And she took her there, and she sang for Jacobs and Goldberg, and they thought she was wonderful and talented and they put her in shows and then started writing plays for her, and playwrights started writing plays for her. She was a tremendous talent. She was a singer, a comedian, a dramatic actress, a dancer. She could do it all and she had a fabulous career in the Yiddish theater, in film, on Broadway. And met my dad in New York when -- after Thomashefsky, my dad was recruited by Molly Picon and her husband, Jacob Kalich to be Molly's leading man in the company. He was very -- my dad was very 30:00good-looking. He was six-one, which was rare for Jewish actors, those days, and had a -- had this amazing tenor voice. And so, for a good number of years, he did many, many shows with Molly, and then after -- my dad's first marriage had ended in divorce, and then he knew my mom from the theater. And a love affair started and they were married for thirty years, till he passed. And worked together in the Yiddish theater in New York and were headliners. And then, they took Yiddish theater, they went back to Europe in the -- before the war, before World War II and did Yiddish theater there, as a number of actors did. Came from 31:00America and saw what was starting to happen in the '30s and tried to get some people out as best that they could. And then, they went to South America and played Yiddish theater in South America. It's amazing, and we're going back -- I'm talking about seventy years ago, seventy -- before World War II, how there were still all these communities that -- all over the world that were seeking Yiddish theater. And it was mostly the actors from New York who were coming there because they were the big stars.

IM:Yeah. What do you know about the relationship between your parents and your 32:00grandparents? They're all involved in the theater.

RG:Well, as I said, my grandfather, he would always -- when my parents, they were doing theater in New York -- and then they decided in the late '40s, early '50s -- yeah, there was a little bit of a waning of the Yiddish theater. It was going through now the change of the generation of my grandparents to my parents' generation, who were really operating the theaters. And they did it in partnership. So, my parents, along with the likes of his best friend and kind of brother, Irving Jacobson and his wife, Mae Schoenfeld, they became partners in the -- what was then the Second Avenue Theatre on Second Avenue and Second 33:00Street. They produced shows there. Speaking about -- my grandfather would come in and he would always have the artistic eye, so to speak, to keep an eye on him, but -- and would kind of frown on some of the things. But it had to become more commercial. They were trying to attract the audience of their generation, not their parents' generation. And that generation, they were not looking at that time to see the plays of Jacob Gordin, they were not looking to see the operettas of Abraham Goldfadn. They wanted plays with a Jewish theme but that also could relate to life in America. They didn't want to see about what happened in the shtetl [small Eastern European village with a Jewish community]. So, it became known as Yiddish-American musicals. And then, in further partnerships that the four of them -- also went into a partnership with another 34:00branch of the Jacobson family, Henrietta Jacobson and her husband, Julius Adler. And there were -- the three families were partners then at the National Theatre on Houston Street for a number of years, as well. And that's kind of where my generation, along with my dear, late beloved Bruce Adler -- we kind of started there, and working with our parents and other families. The next generation was coming along. So, yeah, at -- well I'll tell you, it was interesting, because I think now -- I was a child actor, my parents were producing, a director, and my grandfather was out there keeping a watchful eye. So, you had three generations that were kind of in the building at the same time (laughs) and involved in it 35:00and -- but you're a kid, you don't think about that, you just -- it's life.

IM:Yes. You mentioned that your parents, your father performed with some of the great Yiddish performers like Molly Picon.

RG:Right.

IM:Can you tell me more about that? Do you ever meet her --RG:Oh, yeah.

IM:-- see her perform with your father?

RG:I didn't see her perform with my dad. I saw her perform with my mother. And I had the immense honor to work with Molly Picon myself as a teenager, when I was in the theater. Molly had gone on to work on Broadway and she was starring in Jerry Herman's first musical, "Milk and Honey," and she was one of the stars of it. And my mom was cast as part of the original cast and also to be Molly's 36:00understudy, because they were very similar in type. They were both small, they were comedians. When Molly would have a play and she would do it first on Broadway, my mother would then do a tour of it. That was kind of that -- and they had this relationship. So, yes, I saw hundreds and hundreds of performance -- I also saw Molly perform in the Yiddish theater, before she went on to Broadway, and I just -- the memories -- you remember, when you're a part of that, you remember people as people, not so much as actors and artists. Yeah, you respected what they did but you remember how they touched your life as an individual. And she was -- Molly and Yankl, they were just wonderful, wonderful 37:00people. Very, very good to me. Very good to me. And every year at Passover when I sit down, there's a Haggadah that Molly and Yankl gave to me and signed it when we were out on tour with "Milk and Honey." And we had a seder for the entire company. Many people were being -- coming to a seder for the first time. And being the youngest in the company, of course, I got to ask the Four Questions. So, those are -- in terms of somebody that I worked with who was a giant. Another giant that I feel I owe so much personally to was Menasha Skulnik, who my parents worked with quite a lot in Yiddish theater. Menasha was 38:00fortunate to also be called to go on television and Broadway. And he did a number of Broadway shows and, then, again, as I was a teen actor and into my twenties, I was fortunate to do two national tours with him and learn so much from him about comedy and acting. And, of course, and then the closest person that I worked with as a kid besides my parents in the scope of the family was, as I said, my uncle Irving Jacobson, who came from the Yiddish theater and would go on to heights on Broadway, most memorably as creating the role of Sancho Panza in the musical "Man of La Mancha." And over the years, the way things 39:00evolved, I kind of inherited that role from him and was so lucky that he got to see me do the role before he passed away. And it's a role that I've been playing for thirty years, and just did it two years ago on a national tour. So, this is what -- as I say, you remember those people as family and you remember -- not so much the onstage experiences, although they were wonderful. But I learned early on, as a young actor, that was my job. That was my work. And you did it and you gave your all to it and, as a result of that and as it is in the theater, in show business, the relationships develop and that's what you remember.

IM:Do you have any favorite memories of your parents performing on the stage?

RG:I mean, the thing about it -- yes, that is a vivid picture in my mind.

IM:Yeah. Can you describe it for me?

RG:Well, yeah, and that they played upon to audiences -- my dad was about six-one and my mother, dripping wet, bare-footed was about four-ten, four-eleven at best. So, they always used that onstage, not only when sometimes they were doing plays, but Yiddish actors -- because the Yiddish theater was a season, when the season was over, they'd have to find other work. And that's how they found it in the Catskills, they found it in Florida. So, all of these actors, 41:00besides doing plays, also had to come up with vaudeville acts, had to come up with nightclub acts, cabaret-type acts, and have material written for them. And they played upon the height thing. And there was always -- they would do a musical number and -- where she was always trying to grab onto him, and he would even stand up on his tiptoes (laughs) and be about six-three. And many people remember that as being a classic thing. And it was captured, by the way, in a movie that they did that's kind of -- has somewhat of a cult following in the Yiddish archives, that they called "Catskill Honeymoon." And they were in that and they did this number, musical number in there, which kind of used that. So, 42:00I have that memory. I just have memories of them really delighting audiences. And my dad had a couple of songs that were written for him by Hymie Jacobson that were really signature songs. And one that was written right coming out after -- well, the first one -- out of World War II, Hymie Jacobson wrote an aria, really, for my dad called -- in Yiddish, was "Lozt mikh leybn," "Let Me Live." And it is an aria of the history of the Jewish people and how the saga had gone for thousands of years. And the message was just, Let me live. I keep 43:00giving to society in every century. I've given -- as the Jewish people, we've given you everything. We've contributed to culture. We've contributed to society, to civilization. Why do you want to do away with us when we've given all -- and up to even the, and at that time, and now it still rings very true, Supreme Court justices that were talked about in the song, and how ironic it is right now -- that our president has nominated another Jewish jurist to serve on the Supreme Court. So, that was really a -- hearing him sing that song to -- and I was a little, little kid. But there was a thing called a "Night of Stars" at Madison Square Garden, the old Madison Square Garden. There must have been about 44:00twelve thousand people there and he sang that song and the place just went crazy. And I guess, Oh, gee, I guess they like my daddy. Yeah, that's definitely a memory that I have. He would then, also -- another song called "Sing, Israel, Sing," which Hymie Jacobson wrote for him just as the 1948 war had concluded and the statehood of Israel was established. And the message there is, Now you have a land to call your own. And my dad was -- because he wasn't really rich, you couldn't say he was a philanthropist, but my parents would go out and do benefits, particularly for, back then, Israeli bonds, because they were selling bonds, people -- they wanted Americans to invest in the new state of Israel. And 45:00he would go out and sing this song at benefits and concerts and people would just pledge thousands of dollars for it.

IM:Great.

RG:So, through his art, he was a philanthropist, so to speak.

IM:So far, we've been talking a lot about your family's work in Yiddish theater. But I'd also like to know more about your family life. So --

RG:Yeah.

IM:-- what was your family life like?

RG:I was born on the Lower East -- not the Lower East Side, but on the -- downtown. And we lived, though, for my entire life, we lived -- I grew up in Manhattan, on the West Side of Manhattan, and had a pretty normal family life, except that my parents did have to work in the theater. So, they normally would 46:00have a nanny for me. And then, when they were working in the theater, on weekends I would go and I would hang out in the theater. I'd be in the box office selling tickets and I would do things around the theater. And then, well, even before that, when I was six years old and they were going into their first season at the Second Avenue Theatre with Irving and Mae Jacobson, they needed a kid to be in the show, so -- little boy. So, I got kind of thrown on the stage and that was where I made my stage debut. But home life was pretty normal. I loved sports and I lived down the block from Riverside Park. So, I had friends that -- we played basketball and we played softball and baseball. It was pretty 47:00normal. We were fortunate, because of my parents' work, they would travel quite a bit. And when I was younger, when they could, until I got a little too old, they would take me with them a lot. So, as a kid, I got to see lots of places that probably most seven and eight-year-olds don't get to see. And now that I look back and go -- Wow, I was really lucky to be in that situation. And I had very wonderful, loving parents and a sister that was somewhat older than me and got married young. So, she kind of moved out of the picture and wound up living upstate. But we had -- because of their work, summers were usually spent in the Catskills with all the other Jewish actors from New York. And winters, a lot of 48:00time during the winters, they would take -- after their shows would conclude in New York, they would take them for a month down to Miami Beach, 'cause that was another great cluster of where Jews went to vacation as -- and they went -- go there for the winter. So, we would go down there and be in South Florida for a good number of weeks during the winter months. So, it was a pretty -- because of my family's life in the theater, I think I benefitted from it and got to be in surroundings and certainly get to meet incredible people that -- I was telling somebody the other day about when you grow up in this business and you don't do some normal things. My fifth birthday, I didn't go to Chuck E. Cheese or 49:00McDonald's. (laughs) My parents took me to the Copacabana to see Jimmy Durante because he was a friend of my dad's. So, things like that, that's -- little different family life.

IM:So, what languages were spoken in your home?

RG:Basically English. Well, of course, my parents were fluent in Yiddish because they did and -- but it was then the type of thing of that generation, for the most part, they would speak Yiddish when they didn't want me to understand something. Oy, redt yidish, dos kind bist du [Oh, speak Yiddish, the kid is here]. (laughs) And my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, who emigrated to the U.-- when she was about fourteen years old and she really didn't have formal education. She spoke Yiddish quite a bit and -- in the house. That's where, I 50:00think -- where I learned most of my Yiddish from. When I was in the Yiddish theater, I had to speak some -- although it was Yiddish and English, I had to speak and I had to sing in Yiddish. Well, how did you learn it back then? I mean, I think back -- I was just probably learning to read English at the time. So, everything was taught phonetically. And everything -- the scripts would be written out for me phonetically, because I could not read Yiddish. And that's kind of how I learned the language, being exposed to it, from my grandmother and my affiliations with the theater. But at home, I mean -- and again, my parents were both American-born and went to school and had an American education. So, 51:00Yiddish was, to them, more of a tool of the trade.

IM:Can you maybe describe a time when you and your grandmother were speaking Yiddish? What was it like --

RG:Oh, well, she would speak Yiddish, and particularly she loved her curse words. (laughter) In Yiddish, which I won't repeat for this. But she was really -- that woman was a character, and I was blessed and fortunate to have her live till I was even into my twenties, and she was able to see some of my success in the theater. And she would mix, as most of them did, English with Yiddish and 52:00come up with crazy words. And she was quite a character. Up until about two years of her death, she was involved in political things on the Upper West Side and that nature. And, yeah, that was -- Yiddish was her comfortable tongue.

IM:So, how would you describe, briefly, your family's religious observance and Jewish identity?

RG:Yeah. Not highly -- I mean, my grandparents belonged to an Orthodox synagogue. I wasn't really raised in a highly religious household. But I was bar 53:00mitzvahed in an Orthodox temple back then. And then, after that, my parents -- well, you can follow however you -- where your heart desires in terms of your Judaism. We would go to temple on the holidays. I think we were a typical American Jewish family. And, of course, I got more of the observant stuff, again, from my grandmother: lighting the candles every Friday night and changing the dishes for Passover and things -- traditional things. And you try to carry that on through the generations after.

IM:Thanks. So, aside from Yiddish theater, what other aspects of Jewish culture 54:00were prominent in your family or your home?

RG:Basically, in the arts. In things that were in literature, in sculpture, in art. That's what was spoken about. And my parents had also friends and colleagues that were authors that would -- and that they would get together with. Because it was interesting, even in the early days of television, because many of the writers who were writing for TV came from Jewish backgrounds. And 55:00they would seek out the people who were in Yiddish theater, had ties to Yiddish theater, to pick their brains. So, it was a lot about -- not so much Yiddish writings, but people and -- that were prominent in the entertainment and in the literary businesses.

IM:Great, thank you. So, we've talked a lot about your family's involvement in Yiddish theater, and now I want to talk about your own time --

RG:Okay. (laughs)

IM:-- in the theater. So, can you give me a brief overview of your time in the Yiddish theater as a child and during the early years of your life?

RG:Yeah, it started when I was six years old, because, as I said earlier, my parents needed a kid to be in -- stage, and I could sing and I could dance. And I guess -- and I had a big enough voice that they could say, Make sure they hear 56:00you in the last row of the balcony. And we didn't have mics back then. So, that's where it started and then, during the summers, when my parents would perform in the mountains, in the Catskills, they would go, they would do their act, which would be -- they'd be on for about forty-five minutes. And then, at the end of that, they would bring me out and I would sing a couple songs. I would do impersonations and was a little ham. And then, there were other plays that came along on Second Avenue that they would need a kid and -- a boy, and so a lot of the times, Bruce Adler and I would kind of share a role. We would go back and forth. We would go and perform in -- they would have -- you'd go out to Brooklyn for a weekend, because they would be the Parkway Theatre, the Hopkinson 57:00Theatre, they would bring in a vaudeville show back then that my parents would do and you would work with Aaron Lebedeff or Jennie Goldstein or some of these great names that would be there. Then, I would -- so, I did a few of those. And then, later on, went on to -- there was the Anderson Theater, the Yiddish Anderson Theater, and I went on to work for Jacob Jacobs at the Anderson Theater who was the same man who started my mother's career and did that in Yiddish theater, did it down in Florida, worked the circuits down there that were affiliated with Yiddish theater at the time. And then, because of the ties that 58:00my family had with people who had gone from Yiddish theater to the Broadway theater to films, I was fortunate that I was able to study with somebody like Stella Adler and work with people like Menasha Skulnik and Molly Picon later on. So, that kind of got to the end of the era for me of working actively in Yiddish theater, and then went on to work in tours and regional theaters that were my mainstream.

IM:So, you made your debut in "Wish Me Luck" by Joseph Rumshinsky and William Siegel.

RG:Yep, yep.

IM:So, can you describe that experience for me?

RG:What I remember, what I would say was getting my first bit of direction and 59:00it was at the opening of the show. And I was wearing a little jacket with shorts, and I had to come down a staircase and I had to do a song and a dance with the actor who played my grandfather. And it was a song and a dance, we were all excited because his youngest daughter, who was my aunt in the play but was played by my mother was getting married and was going to be getting married and we were celebrating that fact. And then, there was a song in that play that Rumshinsky wrote for my -- it was called "My Boy" and it was a song that he 60:00wrote. And it was, "My boy, my dad." My father would sing, "My boy, my boy," and then I would have a thing, "My dad, my dad." And it was a very heartfelt number because, at the time that it came in the play, there were problems in the marriage of the parents. And the couple might be splitting up, and he's telling me, "You'll always be my boy." And, "You'll always be my dad." And that, I mean, it's in my memory, clear as a bell. It has been in my -- a keepsake in our family to the extent that that song that Rumshinsky wrote, that music was played both times when I walked both my sons down the aisle at their weddings. Very 61:00emotional, because here your child's getting married and you're hearing your father's voice -- of the song that you sang fifty-five, sixty years ago. So, theater and these things, that was all a part of that first experience. And then, later on -- and just working with many wonderful people that I mentioned and others such as Miriam Kressyn and Seymour Rexite and people who were just -- they were family. And when people talk about -- and Rumshinsky and another great composer who was like a second grandfather to me, Sholom Secunda, who was best known for writing "Bay mir bistu sheyn [To me you are beautiful]" and you -- yes, people, and rightfully so, have these people in awe. But to me, I don't 62:00remember Sholom Secunda as the composer of "Bay mir bistu sheyn." I remember him as a grandfather figure who would take me to the Turkish baths when I was a kid. So, those were some of the memories, and especially when I started out.

IM:Yeah, thank you. How did the other -- the more veteran actors react to you, the youngster starting out? What was that like?

RG:I have to say, I think they loved me. Not only me, but in my generation, there were -- a lot of the actors in the Yiddish theater didn't have time to have children. They were busy with their careers. So, there were -- my generation had just a small handful. There was myself, there was Bruce Adler. 63:00There was Mike and Suzy Burstein. There was the -- Marilyn and Michael Sternberg, who's -- she's known as Marilyn Michaels. There was a couple, the Bozyks, Reizl and Max Bozyk, who had a daughter, Suzanne. And a couple of others. Jacob Jacobs had a granddaughter, Melanie. Her mother was Thelma Mintz, who was a Yiddish actress. But there weren't a lot of us. And we were all born in about a five-year span, because I think these couples realized they weren't getting any younger and this was maybe going to be their last chance to have children. So, many of us were born of older parents. So, I think those of us 64:00that were there, myself and Mike and Brucie and Marilyn, we were really loved by so many of the people that wanted to be surrogate aunts and uncles and grandparents to us. And so, they loved our talent and just really took us in as family. And it was just, oh, so, sometimes you'd meet somebody who wasn't so nice, but for the most part, they were all just wonderful, wonderful people. And every day, I'll find another picture or I'll -- something will come up and I'll put it on Facebook, and I'm so fortunate to still have relationships with some of my peers from that age, and we can relate back to those times.

IM:Can you briefly describe what you learned from working with Menasha Skulnik and Molly Picon? What was --

RG:Yeah, Menasha Skulnik was my mentor when it came to comedy. People say -- well, I do a lot of comic roles, that's -- I've done dramatic stuff, too, but a good comedian is usually a good dramatic actor, as well, and -- as he was. But working with him every night, he would tell me things about, "All right, here, you'll get a bigger laugh if you underplay it." He was the most generous man when it came to that. And he was the star of -- when I did shows with him, he was the star. And many stars don't want to help other actors, young -- yes, we had a relationship because of my -- but he would be that way with everybody. And 66:00he taught me how to -- things about timing that I still need every night that I walk out on stage now. Yes, you have to somewhat of an instinct for it, but somebody then has to take you and guide you. And now, I find myself with younger actors that I work with who I feel, You've got this great timing, you've got the great -- now you've just got to find the placement of it and you've got to be listening. And you have to be in the moment. And I learned so much of that, just as an actor, also, from Stella Adler. Again, these were people who, when it came to young actors, they were so giving. And with Menasha Skulnik, I just can't say enough. And I was then -- about ten years ago, a theater company came to me and 67:00asked me if I would like to do a play called "The Fifth Season," which was the first play Menasha Skulnik did on Broadway. And I got to do the role that he created. So, it really came full circle and he just -- I mean, it was -- he just possessed my heart and soul and body. I felt if I'm going to do this role, I'm going to just take him on and --

IM:Wonderful.

RG:Yeah.

IM:So, looking back on your childhood and time in the Yiddish theater, how, if at all, do you think being raised in a family devoted to Yiddish theater influenced your sense of identity?

RG:Definitely did. And like I said, hearing my father sing songs about, "I'm a Jew and let me live" --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RG: I knew who I was, I knew where I came from. I knew my identity. And growing up in the era that I grew up in, as a kid, I mean, I was eight years old, probably nine years old, and started to learn things about the Holocaust and learned them from people who went through it and survived it. And those were -- I remember the first time meeting someone and seeing the numbers on their arm, the impact that it had on me. And I just, well -- why would somebody have a number on them? They're a person. I guess that's what went through my mind at 69:00the time.

IM:How would you say, if at all, being in the Yiddish theater and your parents' involvement influence your Jewish identity?

RG:There was just no questioning it. And I was always proud of it. There was, later on -- kind of became somewhat of a stigma, I would say, for a while in a negative sense that people who were coming from the Yiddish theater, they weren't taken seriously as actors, and it was -- Menasha really broke that barrier. He was the first one to make that transition. And people saw, my God, 70:00this man is quite an actor and quite a comedian and maybe there are others. And then, it's come to pass that we know that a number of people that went on to careers in movies and in television either had bit parts in the Yiddish theater or were in a chorus in the Yiddish theater. People saying, How did Jerome Robbins know so much about that identity and that culture to create something like "Fiddler on the Roof"? He was in the chorus of Yiddish theater when he was young. So, many people came from that. But it was -- in terms of being an actor, there was a little bit for a while -- a stigma about it. But that did change later on as many actors -- Skulnik, Molly, Joseph Buloff, another one that went 71:00on to very successful Broadway careers. But in terms of the identity, it was something that I always was and always will be proud of.

IM:Yes. How, if at all, do you think Yiddish theater has changed from the time when you performed as a child and your parents till today? You just --

RG:Well, for many years, it was -- there was still some Yiddish theater going on in the early '70s that was being done. Into the late '70s, people like Ben Bonus, Mina Bern, Joseph Buloff -- was reviving some things. And then, it really -- the only thing that really existed and does today is the National Yiddish Theatre, the Folksbiene. And, of course, where it's changed, it's kind of gone 72:00back a lot to the origins. And now, the plays that are being done are mostly revivals. They're plays about -- and shows about the life in the shtetl, because there has been a renewed interest in -- as people of my generation became older, I think people wanted to finally -- started having a link to their heritage. And the first generation that was born here was really taught and nurtured to assimilate, go away from what we had in the shtetl. We're going to have something better, so -- and that was the first generation to be born in America, to go to college, to become doctors, to become lawyers, and to really become 73:00part of the American scene. So, Yiddish theater, unless they had a grandparent that would take them, was not something that they were really exposed to. When many survivors of the Holocaust wound up coming to America, for many years it was difficult for them to go and hear Yiddish, to go and watch Yiddish plays. It was too painful for them. And that was during the era of the '50s and the early '60s. It took them many, many years to be able to pick their heads up and say, Okay, we want this. But their children, the next generation, said, I want to know that culture that not only my parents -- but I want to know the culture my 74:00grandparents grew up in. So, now this renewal in Jewish themes and Yiddish theater has really kind of started to come full circle. And you see -- and Yiddish being taught in many universities. I mean, the whole project that you're working on and that we're here for today is because there is this renewed interest in the language and in the culture -- and to keep it alive. I serve on the executive board of two organizations: the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance and the Yiddish Artists and Friends Actors Club. And both are there for the -- to nurture that culture as it applies to theater. And about the Yiddish Artists and Friends Club, about three, four times a year, we get together and have events and we'll get over a hundred people coming to each one. And they get entertained 75:00and they're coming to soak in that culture that they -- and a lot of young people that want to find that.

IM:Yeah, great. Well, we have to wrap things up.

RG:Okay.

IM:But I have a number of questions to ask you, but we'll save them for a different time. But I want to thank you so much for participating --

RG:Well, thank you, this was wonderful.

IM:-- in the project today, and sharing your stories and memories and your family history with us.

RG:Thanks so much.

IM:Thank you so much.

RG:Been a pleasure.

[END OF INTERVIEW]