Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... Read Free

and husband hunting morphed from merely an idea into an intense pursuit. The starting point of this organized search was the synagogue. Who in the congregation did they know had a son the right age, preferably a doctor or a lawyer? My mother remembered a German family living in the Fourth Reich, so called because of the many German-Jewish refugees who settled there. They had a son who would be just about the right age and she phoned them. Chutzpah? (Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines the word as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts’; presumption plus arrogance such as no other word, and no other language, can do justice to.”)
    I told my mother what she was doing was embarrassing, but she was determined to find out the son’s marital status, and there was no other way but head-on. In the conversation with this family of German refugees, she hit pay dirt. “He’s an attorney from a good family. Now I remember the parents,” she said. “We used to say hello in the shul.” (At that point she had not attended services for more than a dozen years.) “You’ll be a mother with a baby in a carriage. You won’t need to work hard all your life like me.”
    So off we went to observe the Sabbath (which I never did, nor did she really) in a temple where we were no longer part of the congregation. I sat on a bench five rows ahead of my mother’s pick, turning every now and then in order to steal a glance without being seen. Caught in the act. He smiled at me.
    I agreed to go out with him. He was considerate and attentive, and best of all he owned an old Pontiac convertible. We drove to City Island for lobsters, to Brooklyn for dinner with his friends, to the beach for the day. We shared our love of movies and theater. No bells rang, but being with him felt good. I never for a moment thought I was in love, and no —just in case you’re wondering—we never slept together before we married. In 1957 “nice” Jewish girls didn’t do that. I expected him to ask me to marry him, and he did it charmingly on bended knee while putting a perfect two-carat diamond ring on my finger.
    Finally, one sunny April afternoon, on the day Greeks celebrate their independence, we got married at the Plaza Hotel in the “Gold and White Suite” on the second floor, overlooking the very corner where the Greek marching bands turned from Fifth Avenue into Central Park South. Given that I was also celebrating my independence, marching bands seemed entirely appropriate, even though the martial music of the parade drowned out the entire ceremony. I couldn’t hear a word the rabbi said.
    The irony in all this is that my mother pushed me into marriage with a man who was even more starstruck than I. It was an accident to be sure, but then again, maybe no accident at all. Had it not been written somewhere in the stars that I should be in show business, my new husband might have discouraged me from a theatrical pursuit; but this kind and honest man adored every aspect of entertainment. All he ever wanted in life was to be an actor, but instead he passed the bar to satisfy his parents—just as I was trying to satisfy mine by marrying.
    He quickly decided he was going to live his dream vicariously through me. I had his full support to delve into the world of showbiz, and that was all I needed. I felt capable of finding my own way, starting at the bottom of the ladder. The rest was determination, something I owned in abundance. I would make it. I just had to. I would finally realize the dream I had dreamed all those Saturdays in the uptown movie palace.

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Girl on the Bottom
    In 1958 the only start-up jobs available, besides retail, were for women with decent secretarial skills. It was a time when, after you got your college degree, graduate work generally meant that you took a course in either the Pitman or Gregg method of stenography, and