BARBARA BULOFF ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is January 11th, 2017.

BARBARA BULOFF: Yes.

CW:I am here in New York City with Barbara Buloff and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

BB:Yes, you do, Christa.

CW:Thank you. Well, I'd like to start by asking, where did your family come from?

BB:My family -- my mother came from Kovno, Lithuania. She was born in 1905. And my father, who was born in 1899, was born in Vilna.

CW:Could you just say their names?

BB:My father's name was Joseph Buloff (pronounced with long "U"). They called him Buloff (pronounced with short "U") in Yiddish when they refer to him. They refer to him as his last name, by his last name. I think it wasn't his original 1:00last name. I think it was Bulkin or Bulow with a W. It shifted around and I don't really know. But I'm giving you that information. My mother's name was Luba Kadison and she was, as I say, born in Kovno to a family of three children. She was one of three, the youngest, and her parents, Leyb and Khane Kadison.

CW:And can you tell me a little bit about your maternal grandparents?

BB:Yes. I can really only tell you about my maternal grandparents, 'cause I didn't know my paternal grandparents. My grandfather, who died in 1947 when I was about five years old, was a painter. He and I -- actually, I have a cradle over there that he made for me when I was a little baby, where I keep magazines. 2:00He was a very talented man who apparently came up in a difficult home and left home when he was seven years old because he wanted to paint and his stepmother wanted him to -- his stepfather, I'm sorry, wanted him to go to kheyder [traditional religious school] and become an Orthodox, learned Jew. And he was an artist. And in my home, which you can photograph later, he, I think, made incredible art. He also did holy icons for the church in Lithuania to make a living. So, my grandfather I had for a very, very short time. But apparently, and I don't remember it, he and I had a special bond. My grandmother lived till ninety, Hanna Kadison. We would laugh that she was the cashier of the Vilna Troupe which my grandfather was founder and director of -- bad preposition, but 3:00we'll leave it like that. And my grandmother and I also were close. So, they came to the United States before my parents did, which was, I think, in the early '20s, 1920s. And they did some theater in Chicago, Yiddish theater. And that's my grandparents.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:Do you have a sense of what life was like in Kovno for your mother, for example?

BB:Not exactly, because in 1915, when she was actually nine, probably, in twenty-four hours, they had to evacuate their home. There were Russians. The Cossacks were there. And she has never spoken to me -- she had never spoken to me very much about her experience in Kovno, except that she came from a very loving home. They had a woman who was named Manke who would take care of the 4:00children. My aunt, Paula, who was four years older was a pianist. And four years older. And her brother, Itzik, was two years older than my mother. He was poetic. He later became very involved in the Communist Party and was killed by Stalin in Europe. So, I never met him and -- but I was close to my aunt Paula. It's a very, very small family that I have and that's really what it is and was, my family of origin. Yes. 'Cause a lot of people were killed on my father's side in the Holocaust. My grandmother and maternal grandmother and her husband died before that. My grandfather, he was in the fur trade and he apparently had asthma. He died of asthma. So, he didn't -- but my father was the eldest of six children. He was the only boy and his sisters were in the Vilna Ghetto, I understand. And some were exterminated. I mean, they had to dig their graves. 5:00They were shot and their children and husbands -- a couple survived, very badly, and one came to the United States. I had -- my father had brought one sister before that to America. And the people were badly damaged psychologically by the war and the violence, even before that, in Europe. So, I don't know if that's what you're asking, but this is part of --

CW:Absolutely.

BB:Yeah.

CW:Yeah.

BB:The family legacy. So, I'm really one of the only surv-- I am the only surviving person because my aunt Paula didn't have children. My uncle, Itzik, had a daughter who ultimately was in a labor camp with her father and her mother and committed suicide at age twenty-four, in Europe, so that's part of it.

CW:When you, either from stories or just imagining that, the period of your grandparents' lives, let's say, before coming to America, what's your sense of what that was like, to grow up and live in Kovno, Vilna before the war?

BB:Well, I think that -- the only thing I really know about Vilna is from my father's book, which was "From the Old Marketplace," which was published posthumously. He had been working on that book in Yiddish for many years. He used to sit in the kitchen in our apartment and work on the book. And so, my mother -- which was a great thing -- after he died, had the manuscript and Harvard University published it. And the book is a kind of phantasmagorical kind 7:00of surrealistic child's imagination of growing up. But this is really the only thing that I know about the growing up. I mean, it sounded like a wonderful life for my mother before the war -- the First World -- I'm talking about the First World War -- broke out and even wonderful after, because my parents were very rich emotionally and had a real depth of vision and passion.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

BB:My parents, I will say this about them. They didn't speak very much about their early life to me. My father didn't at all. And I think that's largely because he suffered from his growing up in certain ways. He got away from home at a very early age. He actually joined the Russian army -- this I know, it's in his book -- when he was fourteen. And that's a very interesting part of the 8:00book. I didn't really know my father very well until I -- except in his -- how he was at home, except when I -- from when I read his book. And my mother had a very rich life because she and her parents had the vision of art. My father's family did not. They were more -- I shouldn't say pedestrian, because that's a pejorative way of putting it. But they were more, I think, of the daily life, struggling to make a living, whereas with my mother's family, there was always talk about literature, poetry, music. They were very passionate. My father was, too, and --

CW:So, I'm --

BB:I don't know if this is helpful, but --

CW:This is perfect.

BB:Okay.

CW:Yeah.

BB:Super, okay.

CW:This is great.

BB:Okay.

CW:So, the -- do you know how your grandparents got into -- your maternal grandparents got into theater?

BB:Well, my grandfather apparently always had an interest in the theater. And when they had to evacuate or escape in twenty-four hours from their home in Kovno, he continued to do his painting, I think, and work. Sign-painting, just anything to make a living. But he got involved with other people who were not necessarily professional actors and they decided to start a theater. And this theater morphed into the Vilna Troupe. And they were young people with ideals and wanted to have a people's theater. And they did that, in Yiddish. A Yiddish theater. And this was in Poland. And what's so amazing about it is that it was very embraced in Poland and they traveled around Europe. They actually performed, my parents did, for the king of Bucharest, King Carol, in Romania. 10:00So, I mean, the history of it is very -- of the Vilna Troupe. And I think you'll find a great deal about it from Caraid O'Brien, who sat at my mother's feet. I shouldn't put it in that way, but it was true. She was a young woman, I think you probably know of her, who did her dissertation at Harvard on a play called "The Singer of His Sorrow," which is "Yoshke muzikant [Yoshke the musician]," which was my father's play. And that's how she came to meet my mother. And she really learned so much about this -- and I refer you to her -- to tell you a lot about Yiddish theater at that time. And I don't know as much about it, okay? So --

CW:Can you describe the home that you grew up in?

BB:Yes. The home I grew up in was a home -- it was in New York City on West Sixty-Seventh Street between Central Park and Columbus. It was a very beautiful block where the Café des Artistes is and there was a horse stable right next 11:00door to us. I was brought up in a rather peculiar way. I was born at -- the very, very last days of 1942. So, I was born during World War II. Now, at that time, my father was rehearsing for the original show, in English, on Broadway, of "Oklahoma," which turned out to be a very popular musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. He had made the transfer from Yiddish theater to the American theater in about 1937. In fact, he was discovered by Mike Todd, who was a producer. And you might have heard of him because, ultimately, he married Elizabeth Taylor, he did "Around the World in Eighty Days," and my father became his protégé. And he produced two plays with my father in it. One was called "To Quito and Back." I know more about these things, okay? And I wasn't born yet. But then, my father was in American plays. "My Sister Eileen," with Shirley 12:00Booth, I -- these names are probably not so -- they are known to you? Okay. So, my father then did some work on Broadway and he went into "Oklahoma." It was not until I saw "Schindler's List" that I realized -- and this might seem very odd, that a grown woman at that time did not realize -- I saw the dates, 1942, 1943, and I was watching the Holocaust. And my father at that time was dancing or singing -- he had a lead, a featured role in this -- "Oklahoma." And I thought, This is so weird because all of this was going on and it was never talked about. I mean, he never really ever talked to me about it. He adopted an attitude in life about you have to let things go. And he would do this to me. He'd say -- he called me Bobbie and he would say, "You have to -- don't get upset about things. 13:00Just go like this and let things go." And apparently that's what was happening.

CW:Did you know that you had family in Europe?

BB:No. At that time, no. I was sent to a French school. This all goes into this situation. I mean, this -- the understanding of how I grew up was, I think, to shield me in any way possible from the Holocaust. So, even though it was never talked about, I was sent to a French school called École Française du Saint-Esprit, where I spoke fluent French from age two to eight, two-and-a-half to eight. And it was a Huguenot school. I was the lead angel in the Christmas play. They named me Barbara. I don't have a Yiddish name or a Jewish name. They didn't say I'm not Jewish. My mother, in fact, was in the Yiddish theater at 14:00that time. I don't know exactly what she was playing. When I was five in 1948, my parents got work in Paris and in London. We went and it was Yiddish, in the Yiddish theater there. But I never went to see it. I stayed with far-off people, relatives, and in Paris, I stayed with someone who was my godsister. This was -- my parents' friends -- it was very interesting -- who were artists in New York. One fled Paris. He was a painter, his name was Arbit Blatas and he and my parents and his wife and daughter became very close, and we both went to the French school. And I went to a French camp. It was a very non-Jewish household. My parents were never religious, so it wasn't that they were shunning religion. They just never were.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

BB:We must have had Passover, but I don't remember Jewish life in my home very 15:00much, until later, when we celebrated more of the traditional holidays. And my grandmother didn't speak English very well. So, she would speak Yiddish and I would understand it, okay.

CW:Yeah. And what were --

BB:(coughs) Sorry.

CW:What was your feeling about being Jewish when you were growing up, looking back?

BB:Well, looking back, I know that -- a certain point, I wanted something of it. And I said -- there was a synagogue around the corner from our home called Stephen Wise Synagogue on Sixty-Eighth Street. And so, I tried to go to their Sunday school for about ten minutes. I was a little bit of an acting out kid. I 16:00wasn't -- I was a little hyper and it was hard for me to sit quietly. So, I think that the synagogue and myself did not make good friends. Where I started to really feel much more kinship with Yiddish was that when I was eleven -- or ten or eleven -- I was in the sixth grade. My mother did two seasons in -- on Second Avenue. They were musicals. She hated musicals, but she played the leading lady in both of these things. There was Dina Goldberg and Irving Grossman and Irving Jacobson and Mae Schoenfeld. You know these people? I'm sure you might. (laughter) So, I absolutely had the greatest time. Every weekend, I would go and I would sit in a box with Ricky Grossman, who was younger than me. He was Irving and Dina's son. And we would sit in the box and we would throw flowers. At the end of the show -- I was always backstage. I loved the people. I 17:00became like this kid around the theater and they loved me and it was -- I felt the feeling of family. And so, Ricky and I, after the show would end, after the matinee, before we went out to Moskowitz & Lupowitz for dinner, which was a Romanian restaurant where a lot of the actors went on Second Avenue before the evening show or after for a good steak, we would perform, Ricky and I, on the stage. We would do all the duets. Very -- it was like a mix of English and Yiddish together. Funny, silly things. "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a tsures [problem]." (laughter) These kind of things. We would get on the stage and we would perform and we would have a very nice time. So, I started to have my Yiddish relationship then. And I loved it because of the warmth of the people. And they were lovely to me. And I was this kid who loved 18:00to be in the wings and be backstage and it was terrific. And then, I went to Israel when I was fifteen. My father used to go and do a lot of work in Israel, because as an actor in America with an accent -- he had movies when I was growing up. My father was away a great deal of the time. Is this -- this is probably -- I mean, for months and months at a time. My mother would go with him and I'd go -- be put in a camp some-- not camp. I would go to camp -- well, the first time, they went to Buenos Aires and they were working and doing some Yiddish. It was all in Yiddish. And my mother loved Buenos Aires. They had been there for years before I was born. But what happened is that my mother ultimately had to give up going, so -- and that's another part of my life, where -- which was a difficult -- this was before she went to the Second Avenue -- but probably in -- between eight and my being eleven, she stayed home and it was -- 19:00I felt very badly about it, 'cause I knew my mother was a fantastic actress and should be on the stage. I don't know if I'm saying too much here.

CW:No, this is great. I wanted to ask about the theater for a minute. What did -- which theater was it and what did it look like?

BB:Which particular one --

CW:The one you were describing where you --

BB:On Second Avenue?

CW:Yeah, on Second Avenue.

BB:It was -- I don't know, it was a theater. I think it was on First Street and Houston or Second -- I don't know. There were a lot of Yiddish theaters at that time. Not that much, actually, because some years later, the Filmore East came there and the Orpheum. But I don't know. All I remember is being back -- I remember people, not the place so much. I remember the shows, I remember the melodrama about the shows and they were kitsch, a little bit. But they had heart and the audiences loved them because these were people who would come from the 20:00boroughs, people who spoke Yiddish who missed their Yiddish roots. And it was very touching, actually.

CW:So, what was the scene backstage? Where would you be hanging out with them?

BB:Well, I was in the women's dressing room because my mother was in the women's dressing room. And I was less with my mother than with Dina and with Mae. And then, I just would be around. I don't know. And I would bring my friends 'cause I -- and my boyfriend, Cyrus. I was eleven. But it was very -- was nice. It was fun. It was just fun. I remember it as fun, and probably because I was near my mother. When I was a kid, I was separated from my parents a great deal 'cause they were working, so -- and I had no brothers and sisters. So, it was a -- I had a lot of friends. But it's different. And I was left with horrible French older women. Older older, who I don't think liked Jewish children. But that's a 21:00whole 'nother story, okay.

CW:And so, they would be on tour, right, for the -- or --

BB:They were on tour or they were -- when they were here, in the city -- and that's also when they did "Death of a Salesman" in Brooklyn. It was 1951. They were here but they would come home and I used to wake up -- I had insomnia as a kid, in a sense, because I wanted to see my parents. And they would come home and that was great because I would sit in the kitchen with them and we would have -- ham and cheese sandwiches or something like this. It was very nice. It was nice. That was the time that was good, 'cause -- it was just warm and nice.

CW:Can you describe the apartment itself --

BB:Sure.

CW:-- the space of it?

BB:It was a beautiful apartment that was not too big. It had a fireplace, which we never lit. It had stained -- not stained glass. It had glass-leaded windows. 22:00There's actually a picture of my father in front of it when he was eighty-something in an octogenarian book. But then, ABC built up around it and blocked the sun. You could see the Empire State Building from Sixty-Seventh Street and then everything got blocked around -- the stables taken away. Corporate takeover of ABC, and that was in the '60s. My parents bought the apartment in the late '50s. It was one of the first co-ops in New York City. They didn't know if they could afford it. It was eight thousand dollars. It was two bedrooms. I had a small bedroom, but it -- I felt like it was a nice, big apartment, 'cause I was little, I guess. And when I went back -- and my mother lived there till she died. She died in 2006 at the age of a hundred, and almost 101. And I would go and stay with her, because she became blind. And so, I was in that apartment a lot, till about -- sold it in 2010 or '11. And so, the 23:00apartment was -- it was just home. It was warm. I loved that apartment very much. And my mother and father loved it, too. They were happy in that apartment. And they had come from poverty. And they lived on Second Avenue with -- in a one bedroom with a lot -- in a one-room with a lot of people that -- my grandparents, when they first came to America. And so, it was -- for them, it was big luxury, so -- and it was special to them. So, that was that, yeah.

CW:Can you describe what your mother looked like?

BB:Yes. My mother was beautiful. To me, she was the most beautiful person in the world. She smelled delicious.

CW:Like what?

BB:She smelled from Arpège when I was young. This was a Lanvin -- she wore Chanel suits. I can show you photographs of her. She was very stylish when she was younger. I mean, when I was growing up. She would go to Paris or I -- when we were in Paris and she would -- she had friends who were designers. She was elegant. And she, when she -- and this is how it is. In a way, my image of my parents is very much when they were on the stage. So, it's a very split-screen, weird, again, kind of thing to be a child of performer-- because they were in costumes, in all kinds of costumes. My mother very often, when I would see her, was in gowns, in elegant gowns. And she had the most mellifluous speaking voice. 25:00I think you heard that. And here she was old when you saw this video. But she was phenomenal. In fact, there's a song called, "I Love You Much Too Much," "Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib," do you know this song? Do you know this song was written for my mother? No. My mother was in a play, and Olshanetsky wrote this song -- you'll see the sheet -- if you look at the sheet music, the original sheet music, you will see a photograph of my mother in there. She played a gypsy, I think, in the play and he wrote that song. So, my mother would sing that to me. And it was beautiful. So, my mother was very beautiful and she was a -- at night, she would put cold cream on her face. (laughs) She didn't go in the sun. So, she had the most beautiful skin. She was a beauty. And she was seen as such and people painted her. Many painters painted her. In fact, in Paris, when they 26:00were there -- it wasn't when I was there. My mother went in 1939, with Maurice Schwartz, to Paris. She was the leading lady. And they met Marc Chagall. Marc Chagall came to the play. He wasn't a famous painter then. And he fell in love with my mother. And she says it in her video: she could have bought a painting from him for the least -- fifty dollars, maybe, now -- I mean then, which would have been a zillion dollars now. But she was an elegant woman and people -- he didn't paint her. But many, many artists did, of her in costume, yeah. In fact, Caraid O'Brien has a painting by Arbit Blatas of "The Singer." I gave it to her as a present when my mother died, which is a very big painting of "The Singer of His Sorrow" backstage, of my father standing with a little violin and my mother 27:00coming in and being in the doorway. So, this is --

CW:And what was she like onstage?

BB:Oh, I mean, my mother was poetic, I think, onsta-- I didn't see her enough, because a lot of her work was before. She was very, very intense. She always played leading lady. She played Anna Karenina. She played in "Gaslight." I can show you photographs of them. She played in "The Dybbuk," as you know. And she played in Molière and -- as did my father. They did "Desire Under the Elms." These things were translated into Yiddish, and one of the interesting things is my father and my mother were quite literate and literary. They never went to -- they didn't go to high school or college, but they were self-taught. And they 28:00would adapt plays from English into Yiddish. Beautiful Yiddish. In fact, they did this for the "Death of a Salesman" that was recently -- with Avi Hoffman. And I don't know if you know that. And they talk about it in the program. Did you see it?

CW:I did.

BB:Yeah. I thought it was a wonderful production. Now, my father and mother, they adapted that play. They saw the "Death of a Salesman" on Broadway in 1949 and they loved it. They saw something in it. They felt the Judaism in it, the Jewish -- not Judaism, but the Jewish that these people -- the Lomans were Jewish people, really, which is -- Arthur Miller kind of took distance from his Jewish roots. So, they were poetic people, both of my parents. They were really -- they were amazing people, I -- they would speak and you would listen. They would be -- you saw my mother. My father was a very funny man and he was a 29:00storyteller. And he would -- people would sit and just watch him and listen. So, what -- I forgot the question. What was she like onstage? She was phenomenal. Now, I could sound biased but I am saying to you this: my aunt Paula used to say to me -- and don't be upset by this. My aunt Paula used to say, "If you weren't born," me -- this was my mother's sister -- "your mother would have really been, possibly, a major" -- because she was. She was -- like any of the people -- and I don't have a problem with it. You might -- and it sounds like denial. I don't feel it, because I was able, from childhood, to really appreciate that part of my parents, because that was them. And I felt it was an amazing thing to see my mother on the stage when I did. One time -- there was this Camp Boiberik that my 30:00aunt Paula played the piano in for twenty-one years. And it was an adult camp and my parents sometimes would go and perform there. And my mother and father did a scene from a play called "[Eyfer zug?]" and it was -- all of a sudden, my father was strangling my mother. Now, this is in Yiddish. I didn't speak Yiddish particularly. I mean, I understood it. But I started to -- I really -- and I was not a child at that time. I was maybe a teenager. But I got so upset and I was crying because it was so real to me. This -- it means jealousy, I believe, right? You know that?

CW:Um-hm.

BB:So, it was -- they were amazing, that -- my father was an amazing actor, by the way. We'll talk about him. But when you ask me -- are we talking about him, too?

CW:Sure, we can talk about him.

BB:We're not just here --

CW:Yeah, yeah.

BB:-- for my mother, yeah.

CW:Can you start with what he looked like?

BB:My father was a very -- again, he was a -- women liked my father and he liked 31:00women. My father was a very sexy man in his way. I never thought of it that way but I understand that to be true. He had a scar, here, from the wagon that fell on his face -- and you'll read about it in the book -- in the Russian army when he was a kid. But it was a kind of little scar here. He had very -- blue-grey eyes. He was intense and he had a very, very interesting actor's face. My father was very, very handsome. But I didn't think so when I was young, 'cause he never was really necessarily there and he was more -- he was a funny kind of guy. It was difficult for me, because he was very preoccupied and I understand it now. He had tremendous laser focus. If he wasn't acting, right, having a job, he would be writing, he would be translating. He was always in another world in a 32:00way until he got older. And when he got older, the last twenty years of his life, we got pretty close. And I saw him more as the human being than this man who lived there who -- I could get on his nerves.

CW:When -- would he write at any specific time? What do you -- what memories do you have of that?

BB:Well, both my parents were insomniacs. So, he would sit up in the chair in the living room and if I would wander out, I think he was writing -- well, he was -- if you ever look at my mother's books, you'll see letters between my mother and my father that were so interesting and very involved. And beautiful to read, poetic. There was a great love between my parents.

CW:Can you tell how they met?

BB:Yes. When my mother was twelve and they were -- the Vilna Troupe was beginning -- my father was an actor in Poland. I think it was Poland, or Lithuania then. It kept changing from one to the other. And he came, he was a -- seven years older. He came to the house of my grandfather. You heard about my grandfather. And he came and a little girl answered the door. It was my mother. And he started to be in the company, in the Vilna Troupe. And he started -- and he was seen as quite a good actor. And they married when my mother was sixteen. They were married for sixty-two years. He was the love of her life. I mean, she was the woman behind the man in this case of this relationship, as was so for a lot of the people of that generation. She sometimes squelched her own needs to 34:00prop his up in terms of acting, in terms of theater. But they had an amazing bond because their vision of what was important was theater and making art. And they didn't care about money. Money was not an issue ever. Security was an issue. They wanted very much to make me safe and they always said, You'll never have to worry, which was -- they were very organized, they were very disciplined, they were very detailed in the way they took care of things and did things. They were very strong together. And my father may have strayed from time to time. He was out of town for months at a time. He would go to Israel for 35:00four, five months. He would be in Hollywood. But basically, they loved each other. And one day, if you ever see this video that NYU made, you'll hear my mother speaking about my father, and it was really real because she respected -- they respected each other's intelligence and their art and their decency. They were very decent people. Very nice people, really.

CW:And what were the --

BB:I liked them.

CW:(laughs) What were they --

BB:I -- (laughter) what? Basically, I miss them so much because they were more interesting than most of the people that I -- it was a different world. This world is not there anymore, that kind of commitment that I come into contact -- well, that's not true. I have been lucky -- I'm a psychotherapist, by the way, and I have been very, very lucky in my practice to work with actors. And older actors sometimes, people who have died since. Older older. And I was very -- I 36:00have been very, very fortunate, actually and -- in my work. And when I would work with these people -- and they would talk theater to me because they knew somehow that I understand theater. Not Yiddish. These were American -- or from other countries but not Jewish, necessarily. But I would feel so good because I would see that passion reflected in those people, which I don't see so much -- I see it in actors mostly, in artists.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:From your perspective --

BB:Yeah.

CW:-- would they -- I don't -- what was their relationship to America?

BB:My father's relationship to America was a very strong relat-- both of them was. I mean, they -- it saved their lives. Had they not been in America -- they 37:00came in 1927 to the States. They were brought by Maurice Schwartz to do Yiddish theater. And my aunt Paula came alone first when she was sixteen. She was a pianist. She played the piano in silent film theaters. People used to play the piano and she played for ballet schools and she was an accompanist. She was very talented, my mother's sister. And my grandparents actually came before my parents. I think I said that. My parents appreciated America. My father sometimes could verge, later on, on if you -- for instance, when Nixon was running -- I mean, we would have a little trouble, my mother and I, because my mother was a little more progressive and liberal. They weren't communists. My father once went to a communist party that somebody -- took him with -- not a Party-party, but to a meeting or so -- but I think because of where they came from, they understood what freedom is. So, my father tended later on to go a 38:00little more -- wasn't called Right then, but a little more conservatively, and I used to have big fights with him about it. But it was okay. He was basically all right about it. And my mother was very progressive --

CW:And what about your grandparents or your grandmother, I guess, did --

BB:I don't know. I don't know. My grandfather died at sixty-seven of a brain tumor, maybe from the paints that he -- all the lead. I don't know. Who knows. My grandmother was sixty-five at that time. When my grandfather died -- and she also -- her man was her life in a lot of ways. She became so depressed that -- she lived till ninety. She lost her spirit and her -- so, I don't know. My 39:00grandmother was basically blintzes. And basically, she would make great cheese blintzes and we would sing a little song here and there, "Oyfn pripetshik [By the fireplace]" or -- she spoke Yiddish to me, I kissed her a lot, that was what it was, yeah.

CW:Do you happen to know why your grandparents came to Chicago?

BB:No. They came to New York -- first, I -- I don't know. I don't know and I guess I won't. I mean, unless I read my mother's book and maybe she says it again. (laughter) I mean, I did read it but I don't remember. I don't know.

CW:Yeah.

BB:I don't --

CW:So, what were your parents like as parents?

BB:They're all I know as parents. So, they were -- they loved me. I think they would have probably -- my father didn't want children, okay, because it interrupted a certain flow. They had me when my mother was thirty-seven, my 40:00father was forty-two. Before that, my mother had some pregnancies which she terminated when she was sixteen, when she was, I think, in her twenties, I don't even know. I think it was a last resort. I mean, last -- she got pregnant again, so --

CW:Did she talk to you about that at all?

BB:No. About which part?

CW:The abortions?

BB:Abortions? Yes. Because my grandmother, apparently, in Europe, would go around the corner and people -- that was the method of birth control. It was not some -- my people were not Orthodox. But abortions were the way you took care of pregnancies. So, it was never guilt or regret. I had regrets about my mother's abortions, 'cause I would have had siblings. But I wouldn't have been born, 41:00probably, so -- and they would have been, now, ninety years old, right? They were parents -- they didn't know what they were doing as parents, really. They learned. They didn't know how to guide me through school or advise me about college or -- I mean, they didn't know this stuff. They didn't know how to do -- they never went to school. And I couldn't do math. I had a very, very hard time. I had tutors, I had a -- so, my father had a book -- you bought books for a dollar. It said "Mathematics Made Simple." He would sit with me and try once in a while. It would make me crazy because his division was done in a different cockeyed way. So, I was a kind of mystery to them. I was this American kid, I hung in the streets, in a way. I was -- they wanted to -- my mother wanted to 42:00take me to museums. I think I was a difficult kid in certain ways, but I loved them, and my mother, particularly, 'cause that's who I knew the best. But as parents, I think they were -- here's the thing. They loved me, but they didn't really understand what parents were supposed to be.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:I'm curious if there's anything special that the three of you would do together?

BB:Oh, yes. That was my best part. When my father was in Israel, I used to go to Israel. And he was doing theater and we would stay in this little hotel. And it had one bedroom. They would be in it, I would be in the kind of living room, and I would spend a couple of months with him. I was -- it started when I was 43:00fifteen and we used to put him -- again, him -- but on the little balcony after the show, we would sit together. I used to travel with the company. This was -- my father would do a lot of work there. He did his best, from where I sit, his best work in Israel because he had his language, he was a very big star in Israel. So, when I would go down the street in Israel, on kiosks, there were always pictures of my father. I was related to as -- in Hebrew, bat shel Buloff, and walking -- the daughter of -- anywhere we went, we were with the president, the mayors, they were with Golda Meir. They had a life there with people I loved. I met, again, not necessarily act-- yes, actors. I mean, in the company, I was very close to the actors.

CW:Now, which company was this at that point?

BB:My father's company.

CW:Yeah, his company.

BB:He had an impresario and so he would go -- he did "The Diary of Anne Frank" in Yiddish, that he had adapted. He did "Death of a Salesman," he did "Tevye," 44:00his own "Tevye." And so, each night in Israel -- at that time, it wasn't the Israel of today. It was an Israel where you went to Ramallah, you went to Hebron. Now they're all the West Bank and you can't go near it and it's a horrible, horrible world. This is 1958, 1961, and before the Six-Day War. And then, after -- they were there during the Six-Day War. And I came immediately after. That was in June and I came in July 'cause I was in school, I think, or some -- I was somewhere. I was working or something. But it was the best time, because my father was happy in Israel and doing the work he loved with his own creation, not with the -- my father was -- did not like what he saw as crappy plays or things. So, he would refuse work. I mean, he was sent scripts here in 45:00the States, movies -- sometimes he didn't do it. And if he thought a director didn't know what they were doing, he would leave a show. So, there, he was directing, he was starring, he had his companies and they all just looked up to him, so he was happy and my mother was happy and we were all happy. We went to -- I went with my mother to the beach, I had a lot of friends. And it was happy. It was like a family. That was my favorite. It was different than being in New York. It was very special and it happened -- and once my father was doing this play, "Gideon," which was in -- they had translated it into Yiddish and I surprised them. I went in November, I took a plane and he didn't expect me and I came for the opening night. And it was just wonderful and there were wonderful people in the milieu there. Great, intelligent, interesting people and I loved 46:00them. So, that was great.

CW:As --

BB:Glad you asked about it. (laughter) Makes me happy to think about it.

CW:I'm curious: for you growing up, what were your feelings about Yiddish and Yiddish theater in particular?

BB:I didn't have very many feelings about Yiddish, except that I wished my grandmother spoke English a little bit more. And I -- my feelings about Yiddish theater was, I had a good time, so -- but I didn't have, like you might have, the wish to learn Yiddish, the -- I didn't. Hebrew, I wanted to learn Hebrew, because I had a lot of friends in Israel. But they all spoke English. I went to the New York Jewish Agency for one year and picked up some Hebrew. I speak a little Hebrew, but not much. Yeah. But Yiddish, it was nice. I liked to hear my 47:00father do recitations in Yiddish 'cause it was beautiful. I liked to hear my mother speak Yiddish because she spoke beautifully. They spoke a higher Yiddish. I knew the difference of a New York, like a dy-- I shouldn't speak of it. But people in the Yiddish theater who were more, yeah, you're talking like this -- was a different kind of person. It was not a -- it was a higher, more Shakespearean -- I don't know. I don't want to go grandiose, but it was a beau-- they were interesting to listen to, my parents. But they were -- I didn't have the -- what do you mean about Yiddish?

CW:No, I just -- I'm just curious, growing up with what you're describing -- is somewhat of a language barrier and yet you're in the scene, so --

BB:I didn't feel any barriers.

CW:You understood the --

BB:I got it, I understood it. I didn't -- it wasn't like I was in China not speaking Chinese. And I had the heart of it. I had a yidishe neshome [Jewish 48:00spirit]? Right.

CW:Yeah.

BB:Okay. (laughter)

CW:Yeah. Did, at any point -- were you interested in acting?

BB:Yes. When I was a kid, I was in this -- in camp, a camp I liked, wasn't a French camp -- I used to play all the main roles in camp. And in my high school, I did that as well. And so, I took some acting classes with a woman named Hazel Wolf, and I would perform for the Hebrew Home for the Aged. We would go and do little things. So, then, I decided to go to college and go into a theater program. I went to Boston University School of Fine Arts, SFAA, and that's a pretty serious acting program where directors from New York would come up and 49:00direct plays, the mainstage productions. So, I graduated from there with a BFA in theater. Here's the thing about it: I went to Herbert Berghof when I came to the city. I did maybe two auditions. I was so shy, and I had this legacy. And people would relate to me in college, even. Teachers. "How's your father?" They didn't even ever meet my father, but it wasn't about me. I'm told I had talent. I did. I think I had talent. But I was very tall. I was going through a sexual identity crisis at that time, which was before LGBT. And I was so inhibited -- now, I'll come out with this part, and then I'll tell you that my parents were wonderful, after they weren't. Okay, they had to adjust. So, there are many 50:00parts to people's lives and stories. And so, I think that trying to inhibit -- and I was -- my sexuality, because I was also -- I was bisexual at that time, I was with men, so -- but I was trying to hide other parts of myself. You can't be an actress and be trying to hide parts of yourself. But given that, I did very well. I did some good parts. But when I got out, all -- and that was in 1964 -- all young actors, writers, poets, whatever we all were in New York City, went and worked for the Welfare Department. You would get a job. You got four thousand dollars a year or something like that. We had very cheap apartments. It was about $114. It was very nice. Many wonderful people worked in the Welfare Department, okay? And so, I went from that to the New York City Youth Board. 51:00Again, wonderful people. I was having a great time in New York. I took some acting classes, as I say, at Herbert Berghof Studios. But I was a natural at relating to people and doing work with children, doing the work with human beings, and I really didn't have to get up and shake in front of -- (laughter) and so, I went to social work school. I went to Yeshiva. It's the only one I tried for 'cause I was not a student, you have to understand. I was never, never a student. I was great in my acting classes and directing classes, all theater classes, but in academics I was not good. And then, I said, Okay, I'll go to social work school, where I met my friend Marie, my best friend. And I did, I got in, and I loved it. I was writing papers. It was a time of great -- we went on strikes about Cambodia. It was a very political time, 1969, '71. And I found 52:00my groove. And I started to work in this place called Hawthorne Cedar Knolls. It's the Jewish Board of Guardians. I worked with adolescent girls. I was happy. I was very, very happy in my work. And I continued and I took analytic training, eventually, and I started private practice and I've been doing that since 1978, which is -- I don't know how many years, 'cause I'm not good at math, as I've told you. And so, that's what happened. And I was happy. I feel happy and fortunate and the great thing was working with people who were in the theater, a lot -- quite a few. So, I could talk and I never was so far removed. And theater and psychotherapy are not so far removed. A lot of people who didn't make it in theater have become psychotherapists, 'cause you break down character, right, as 53:00an actress. You have to find out about motivation, you have to find out what makes people do -- what they doing. And that is not a far cry. So, I'm happy with it.

CW:Did --

BB:I don't know if I answered that --

CW:Yeah!

BB:-- question. Yeah?

CW:Yeah, you did. What was the -- your parents' reaction when you -- back when you were doing theater for a while?

BB:They came to see me act in B.U. I don't think they -- you know what? My parents, because I was a wild kid -- I was a wild kid, 'cause I was kind of like a -- not a feral child, but I was -- I raised myself up. They were happy -- they were amazed -- when I would do anything well, they would be very relieved. So, particularly, then, when I became a psychother-- when I was a social worker and 54:00I went to school and I was doing well, they really were happy about it. They don't, I don't think, wanted me to be in the theater. They didn't care so much about, really, whether I did, whether I didn't. It wasn't a big -- my life was not as important -- I will say this and I'm not saying -- it might sound bitter, and again, it sounds like denial, because I know if I was sitting with a patient, I'd say, "Come on, let's talk about this." But I'm really saying to you that that's how it was. What they were about was more important in a certain way unless there was a crisis. Crisis was when they found out that I was involved with a girl when I was sixteen-and-a-half, or sixteen years old. That was a crisis.

CW:Would you be willing to talk about it?

BB:I am talking about it. (laughter) I didn't have to say a word. So, because I'm actually feeling good about it in this respect. My mother -- they found a letter. My mother found a letter. I was off doing -- I was at the Pocono 55:00Playhouse. It was between my senior year and my college, going off to B.U. I was an apprentice in a playhouse in the Pocono Mountains. They found a letter that -- in my -- I don't know if I had a knapsack. We had something like a knapsack then. And my mother was devastated. And so, my father came down to the Pocono Playhouse where my girlfriend at the time, who used to hitch and see me on the weekends, came to see me, 'cause she worked in New York. She was an actress. And she was older than me. And my father said, "This has to stop or you can't go to college." And I said, "Okay, I don't have to go to college." (laughs) But this person was very wise, who I'm close to still, to this day. And she's seventy-six 56:00years old, which is -- she was eighteen. She said, "You have to go to college." So, she left with my father on a bus. And it was a long, long journey. I won't go -- I don't mean the bus. (laughter) But it was a long journey and we went through a lot of permutations, pain, of me trying to be straight for so many years, too many years. But it was a time when this was a very bad thing to be gay. Wasn't called gay. It was called deviant, perverse, "Well of Loneliness." I don't know if you know what that is. That was a book written about -- everybody was -- whoever was gay committed suicide in movies, "The Children's Hour" and plays. I mean, you're very young, but it was a very horrible time. And to have your only child, who has just graduated high school, a girl, do this was very 57:00devastating. But here's a beautiful thing. I read a letter -- after my father died and my mother d-- they gave me letters. And there was a letter that my father wrote to my mother that said, "I've just read André Gide's 'Strait is the Gate,' and I understood something about homosexuality. And I understand why Bobbie" -- Bobsy, they called me, too -- "I understand more about it." And it was so touching to me, it was so beautiful because I saw how they were grappling. And so, my mother -- in fact, I have a DVD that -- I haven't looked at recently. My friend who's a psychologist was doing mothers -- she's a lesbian -- mothers -- her mother, my mother, she did a whole DVD where my mother talks about it. My mother came to adapt, my mother came to love my lovers. She became 58:00-- my people became her family. It was beautiful, and both parents -- and for my father, too, so -- and my parents' home was a warm home for the people whom I loved, who I loved. Yeah, so it was a long journey and a painful one, but also, ultimately, all's well that ends well. So, that was good and very -- and it's life. We have to go through these things.

CW:I'm curious what your -- you mentioned before, kind of in Israel that you were identified as the daughter of Buloff.

BB:Yeah.

CW:What --

BB:Not with my friends. With -- yeah.

CW:So, what was it like to be the daughter of these actors growing up?

BB:I was proud. I was very proud. When I was in camp, it was in Maine, we went to a movie theater. My father was in this movie, "Somebody Up There Likes Me" with Paul Newman. When my father's name came on the screen, everybody yelled, "Yay, Buloofi!" They called me Buloofi then. I was a kid. And my father was in "Silk Stockings," the movie. Everyone -- it was something to be very proud of, because I was proud of who they were. But it was hard because, in a way, I didn't know -- I did know in camp, because I -- it didn't mean that much to kids, but -- and now it's nothing. I mean, now, who knows my parents? And for years and years and years -- after I established myself in my own profession, it 60:00became not important. But it was -- my identification was, for me, was, in a way as my -- being proud of my parents. So, my development was very merged with their being semi-famous. In Israel, mainly. And here, for a period of time, 'cause my father was on television. When television first started -- "The Goldbergs," there was this show called "The Goldbergs." So, my father had a recurring role on it. That's when we first got our television. It was around the corner. ABC -- I don't know if it was ABC, but the television studio was around the corner. He was on television in many shows. "Philco Playhouse." Television used to be really great because it was Paddy Chayefsky, playwright. My father did this thing called "The Holiday Song" on "The Philco Playhouse." He played a cantor, a rabbi, or something. He had a lot of work in the '50s. He was on the 61:00stage. I would come home from college, he was in plays on Broadway. So, it was more big to me then. But it was bitter, 'cause my father was the one that people knew about, not my mother. And in Israel, it was just who I was, but I -- it was so much joy for me in Israel that it didn't -- it wasn't --

CW:And we haven't talked much about your own Jewish identity. I'm curious how you see that as developing for yourself?

BB:As developing? Developing, or how it did develop?

CW:How it did develop, yeah.

BB:I'm with a group of women who meet once a month. We call ourselves the Jewish Group. We were all women of my age in our sixties, seventies, who wanted to have 62:00some identification with their Jewish roots. Now, some of these people were really brought up and they know their Jewish roots. Mine was very cultural, as you know. And it was not about religion at all. I have a very complex relationship to being Jewish. I loved Israel, I would defend it to my lefty friends who don't really understand it. I have disappointment in Israel. I understand that Israel's doing terrible things. I've had a great disillusionment. Israel for me was more about my Jewishness in a way, but it wasn't about being Jewish. It was just loving Israel. I don't know if you can see the difference between those things. When I go to the gay synagogue, which I do every Yom Kippur, and for yizkor on the next morning -- I'm moved by yizkor 63:00because it's about music and thinking about -- particularly after my mother died -- and the gay synagogue, we have a very kind of radical woman rabbi here. It's a CBST, Sharon Kleinbaum, who speaks about political things and has been criticized for being, as they call her, pro-Palestinian. But I -- she's pro-peace. So, for me, it's a nice place. It's a community. But it's more about the community of my LGBT, and there are many heterosexual people there and all kinds of people. It's like four thousand people go to the Javits Center. And so, it's really, for me, a place of community or feeling a part of a whole. But it's not about Judaism. I don't know how to relate to Judaism. Now, maybe that's 'cause my parents didn't relate to Judaism. Maybe it's 'cause I went to the French school. I don't think so. I relate to the Holocaust. I relate to what's 64:00happening politically in this country and know that I can be hurt for being Jewish. So, I know I'm Jewish. I mean, I don't disavow that part of me. And I know I'm very Jewish inside. I'm a New York Jewish person who had people who were in the Yiddish theater, and my grandmother spoke Yiddish. But it's a very complex thing. It's much more culturally in heritage than any real relationship. I -- I shouldn't say hate -- I have a lot of trouble with these Orthodox Jews who believe in settlements. I have a lot of trouble -- I feel that there's a lot of fundamentalism and I'm -- that I can't relate to those people as having to do with me. And yet, you will see here a painting that I did of the shtetl [small 65:00Eastern European village with a Jewish community] -- that's me who did it, you'll see. I do -- and you'll see a painting in there if you go -- I like to paint Hasidim. (laughs) Now, there's a little -- that's a funny thing. Now, there -- it just comes out of me. So, that's some vestige of my people's past, yeah.

CW:How has being this -- has your relationship to Yiddish theater and through your family -- what piece does that play in your life now, if at all?

BB:It doesn't play a piece -- I mean, except in my memories, except in when I talk to you about it. Actually, I will tell you something, what's hard for me: nobody, my community, they don't know. I can talk to good friends and maybe it's 66:00interesting for a minute to hear about the -- but it's not the me that the people know. I miss a lot of the kinds of people who were in the Yiddish theater in Israel and I had a certain warmth with people that I don't have in the same way. And when you come from a rarified kind of home, which mine was -- not so many people grow up as natives in New York City and go to a bunch of different schools and live in Paris when they're five years old in a stra-- and go to an American school and are on their own. A lot of my friends come from much more conventional lives. And it's lonely in a way, because I don't think that they understand -- I don't have that kind of feeling like I have had, in a strange 67:00way, with the clients that I see or the patients that I see who have grown up as children of famous actors, let's say. That I can resonate with. But I don't know so many people in my own community. I don't know any, actually, and I miss it. And I don't find many people are really that interested, which is interesting, isn't it? I took some friends, they wanted to see the "Death of a Salesman," and they loved it. The Yiddish Rep. That was nice. That was a nice experience for me, in a way. I liked -- I don't know if you met him -- the director of it. I fell in love with Moshe Yassur. I saw him on television, on channel one, talking about that they were going to the "Death of a Salesman" that week it was going 68:00to open. I was very upset because nobody called me about it. They had wanted the script from me. I wasn't feeling safe giving it because of certain things. And then, they got the script. We went through Charles Berlin and all kinds of things and they got the script. And I was afraid to see it because this was a sacred thing. And so, I spoke to Shane and then, when they realized it --

CW:Baker.

BB:-- they invited me to the gala. And that's when I saw it for the first time. And Joan Copeland, who is Arthur Miller's sister, was there. And it was very lovely. And I met -- and I saw Moshe Yassur, who had seen my father do it in Israel, do "Death of a Salesman," and he was talking about my father in such a way that was so -- he had that thing inside him, that Yiddishkayt, that feeling of just home for me. And I fell in love with this man, on television, and then I met him. And I was crazy about him. And there's such a gentleness. And I think 69:00he did a beautiful job directing it. It was really good. I was very moved by it. And I thought that Suzanne -- what's her name, Toren, who played Linda Loman was wonderful. And Avi, too. Avi was very good. It was a very nice experience, so I don't know what else to say.

CW:What do you see as sort of the future of Yiddish?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

BB:What do I think about Yiddish --

CW:Yeah, today.

BB:-- in the future of the world?

CW:Well, let's start with today. (laughs)

BB:Well, as they used to say, everybody who died who spoke Yiddish, one more seat in Yiddish theater was gone, right? I'm impressed by you, by Caraid, by Shane. I mean, I'm blown away by it. I don't understand it, really. I have to tell you, I don't understand and I once saw this wonderful thing you probably saw on channel -- on PBS with this man in Japan or China speaking Yiddish, a Yiddish group, a circle they had. I don't understand it. I think -- except that 70:00it's a phenomenal language and I know that, and idiomatically it's very -- you can't -- nobody can say things the way people can say it in Yiddish. I don't know how I feel about it. I know the Orthodox Jews speak it, right? I think it's a beautiful language. I'm sorry -- it's so amazing that in Israel, when Israel was founded, and after '48, people were fined for speaking Yiddish in the street. They had to pay a fine. And I don't know what you -- I think that it's nice that it exists. I went to see "Goldene kale [The golden bride]." I enjoyed it a lot. I hope Yiddish theater survives. I do. I support it. I'll send my donations to the Folksbiene, and I admire people who are so committed to it. As 71:00I say, I don't exactly understand it. Maybe you can tell me, 'cause I'd be interested. It's very interesting to me.

CW:Well, are -- there was one thing about your mother that you touched on that I wanted to circle back to about how she left touring to be with you. Yeah, can you say just a little bit about that?

BB:Okay. Somebody told my mother, apparently -- some of these things are stories, I don't know -- that I was getting kind of neurotic when I was seven or eight. (laughs) My ballet teacher just said -- told my mother or somebody. This is the story. So, I think my mother realized that maybe this child who had been 72:00kind of taken care of very often by people who were not very, I don't think, nice. I don't have very much of a memory, by the way, about all this, so it must have been really traumatic. Yeah, so she decided to stop for a while until I was eleven. And it wasn't that long a time, but I do know that it wasn't good, because my father was away. And she wasn't -- there was a depression going on inside her. So, it wasn't such a great thing that she stayed home, because I think she was depressed. But I don't remember a whole lot about it. I remember more when I start to be independent, when I was nine. And then, I would go and find havens elsewhere.

CW:Well, is there anything else you want to share about your parents or grandparents that you want people to know about them?

BB:I want them to know that they were two people who lived through two wars. I mean, not -- they weren't present during the second war, but it touched them. The whole Vilna Troupe, practically, who were -- they were very, very close to -- were wiped out, and family -- I want them to know that my parents were dedicated and wonderful people and strong people. And survival was a very, very important aspect. They weren't complaintive at all. There were a lot of people who survived who lived in trauma, in their trauma and in their pain. My parents 74:00made art out of it, what -- Meryl Streep, the other night, when she gave her speech and she talked about Carrie Fisher, saying when you have a broken heart, make art. I mean, here it's just in my mind. I'm remembering 'cause it was two days ago or three days ago. But I think that's a beautiful way to put it. I think that's what my parents did and they were dedicated to that. Most of their -- all of their lives, till they died. As you could see on this video that was made in -- I mean, it's pretty amazing. My mother lost her -- got macular degeneration, could barely be -- just saw contours, peripherally. But still, I bought her books on tape. She learned new things until the day she died. Her mind was totally, totally intact. And I gave her things on Buddhism, on this, that, she would tell me about it. She loved Ram Dass. It was -- the elasticity of the mind, because there was always something to think about and to learn and 75:00to be excited about. And that's something that I think I did inherit, that kind of -- things are always new to me. People, to -- I never get sick of my work and I've been doing it, practically, now for fifty year-- something like this. And so, it's like that. (laughter)

CW:Well, thank you so much.

[END OF INTERVIEW]