Chapter Six
My maternal grandmother, Sarah Besmosgin, was born in the final decade of the nineteenth century in a small village in Russia called Orsha (now part of Belarus). Her father, my great-grandfather Yitzrok, was a scholar, a prestigious occupation in the Jewish community that didn’t bring in a single ruble of income. Sarah’s mother, my great-grandmother Riva Leah (pronounced RIV-er LAY-uh), had to work as a baker to support her family. The job of delivering those baked goods to wealthy families fell to Riva Leah’s eldest daughter. When twelve-year-old Sarah looked through a grand parlor window and saw a girl her own age playing a piano, that image became a symbol of the wealth and accomplishment to which she could never aspire. She resolved instead to become an aishes chail (rhymes with “gracious mile,” has a guttural “ch”). Loosely translated, an aishes chail is “a woman of worth, a virtuous woman.” To my grandmother it meant becoming the mother of a renowned classical pianist.
After emigrating to America, Sarah met Israel Benjamin Cammer—my Grandpa Bennie. They had two daughters, Eugenia and Gladys. Like many women of her generation, my grandmother understood that she was powerless out in the world, but inside the home she ruled with an iron will. Brushing aside the aspirations of her older daughter—my future mother—to write plays and participate in dramatic productions in school, my grandmother made my mother spend hours practicing the piano. Though my Grandma Sarah never attained her goal of becoming an aishes chail as she understood it, the benefits of her compulsory musical training would accrue to my mother later, when she would use it to write and direct musical theater productions. Benefits would also accrue, through my mother, to me. My mother reunited with her creative muse in college when she majored in English and drama and worked in summer stock as Eugenia Merrill. After I was born she had to quit summer stock, but she stayed active in theater by writing, directing, and acting in local productions.
My mother began taking me to Broadway plays and musicals when I was five. She absorbed everything and incorporated what she saw into her own productions. Combining nepotism, talent, and proximity, she cast my father as Nathan Detroit in what people who saw the show referred to for years afterward as “Genie’s wonderful production of Guys and Dolls.” I, too, absorbed everything. I kept the memory of those shows alive by listening to my mother’s collection of original cast recordings. Along with Guys and Dolls her collection included South Pacific, Oklahoma!, The King and I, Carousel, Peter Pan, My Fair Lady, and, later, West Side Story. When I was thirteen my dad bought me a portable phonograph—a gray-flocked metal turntable in a blue metal case with a handle that made it easy for me to carry it to the girls-only sleepovers we called “pajama parties.” Not long after I acquired the phonograph, my mother’s albums grew legs, walked into my room, and jumped onto the turntable.
At first I was a little confused when my mom cast me in one of her original plays as a bratty girl called Nina. As my mother, she was constantly exhorting me to behave better. As my director, she encouraged me to behave as badly as I liked. Seeing my confusion, she said, “You may behave badly only when you’re playing Nina.” I had so much fun with that role that I began to think more seriously about becoming an actress. That notion continued to percolate until an opportunity arose for me to do something about it.
In the mid-fifties the High School of Performing Arts was located on West 46th Street. In the eighties it would be merged with the High School of Music and Art, relocated to Lincoln Center, and given the unwieldy name “The Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.” LaGuardia Arts would continue its forebears’ tradition as an alternative public high school, offering a rare opportunity for children whose families could not otherwise afford its highly specialized training in theater and visual arts.
In the fifties, some high schools in New York City were beginning to change from four years to three, that is, grades ten through twelve. Elementary schools went from kindergarten through sixth grade instead of K–8, which left grades seven through nine for junior high school. Middle schools would come later.
In September 1952, when I was ten, I entered seventh grade at Shell Bank Junior High School. Performing Arts was then a four-year high school to which students could be admitted from eighth grade and begin the fall semester in ninth, but P.A. also accepted students from ninth grade to become tenth-grade sophomores. I was eleven and a little more than halfway through eighth grade at Shell Bank when my guidance teacher announced that a limited number of New York City public school students would be selected to study drama the following year at the High School of Performing Arts. With my mother’s support and encouragement, I applied for admission. I found two suitable monologues and practiced until I could deliver them with confidence. I came home from the audition thinking I had performed well, but apparently the drama department judges disagreed.
At first I was crushed to learn that I would spend ninth grade at Shell Bank, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.