{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/9882j68q85/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Lux, Lillian"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Preferred Citation"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eLux, Lillian. 1998. Interview by Neil W. Levin and Barry Serota. Milken Archive Oral History Project. October 22.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Milken Family Foundation"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e© Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Lux, Lillian (Performer)","Levin, Neil W. (Interviewer)"," Serota, Barry (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["1998-10-26"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["New York, NY (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (Primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Lillian Lux focuses on her entry to Yiddish Theater as a child actress, her marriage with Pesach Burnstein, and her travels around the world as American Yiddish Theater Performer. In particular, Lux narrates the story of her timely return to the U.S. before the start of WWII and reflects upon her collaborations with her contemporaries. She also discusses her translation of Pesach Burstein's autobiography Geshpilt A Lebn (What A Life) and her work for the Forverts program (the Forward Hour) in the later stage of her career.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["Beta SP"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Theater, Yiddish--United States (Topical Term)","Jews--Music (Topical Term)","Cantor (Topical Term)","Oral History (Genre/Form)","Olshanetsky, Alexander, 1892-1946 (Person or Corporate Body)","Breslov Research Institute (Person or Corporate Body)","Halpern, Dina, 1909-1989 (Person or Corporate Body)","Ellstein, Abraham, 1907-1963 (Person or Corporate Body)","Salzman, Esta, 1914-2008 (Person or Corporate Body)","Hebrew Actor's Union (U.S.) (Person or Corporate Body)","Yablokoff, Herman, 1903-1981 (Person or Corporate Body)","Goldstein, Jennie, 1895-1960 (Person or Corporate Body)","Jewish theater (Topical Term)","Weil, Kurt, 1900-1950 (Person or Corporate Body:)","Skulnik, Menasha, 1892-1970 (Person or Corporate Body)","Michalesko, Michal, 1888-1957 (Person or Corporate Body)","Operetta (Topical Term)","Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) (Topical Term)","Rechtzeit, Seymour, 1908-2002 (Person or Corporate Body)","Secunda, Sholom, 1894-1974 (Person or Corporate Body)","YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (Person or Corporate Body)","Sholem Aleichem, 1859-1916 (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Aaron Lebedeff (1873-1963), Abraham (Avrom) Goldfaden (1840-1908), Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), Alexander Olshanetsky (1892-1946), Al Jolson (1886-1950), Alan Hirschfield (1935-2015), Arch Street Theater, Arnon Goldfinger (1963-Present), “Beautiful Love” (1931), “Be My Love” (1950), “Bay mir bistu sheyn,” Bella Meisel (1902-1991), Belz, Ben Vereen (1946-Present), Ben-Zion Witler (1907-1961), Berlin to Broadway, Bernard Mendelovitch (1925-2004), Berta Gersten (1894-1972), Betty Siminoff, Bialystok, Bob Hope (1903-2003), Boom un Draydl, Boris Thomashefsky (1868-1939), Breslov Research Institute, Broadway Show, Bronx, Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, Café Crown (1942), Café Royal, Camp Boiberik, Canada, cantor, Charlotte Goldstein (1912-2015), Chayele Shiffer, Chicago, Chile, Chita Rivera (1933-Present), chorus, Clinton Theater, D. P. Camps, Daniel Leivick, Danny Kaye (1911-1987), Dave Lubritsky (1903-1959), David Opatoshu (1918-1996), Der Arbeter Ring (the Workers Circle; formerly, Der Goldener Soldat (1925), Der katerinshtshik (1933-34), Der letster Tants, London, di megile fun Itzik Manger [The Magile of Itzik Manger], Diamonds of the Rebbe, Diana Goldberg, Dina Halpern (1909-1989), Dorothy Small, Abraham Ellstein (1907-1963), Dos Meydel fun Gestern [The Girl of Yesterday], Dos Meydl fun amol, Drake Hotel, Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), Esta Slazman (1914-2008), Ester Rachel Kamińska (1870-1925), Europe, Fannie Lubritsky, Fanya Rubinoff, Florence Weiss, Forverts program (the Forwad Hour), Fyvush Finkel (1922-2016), Gene Barry (1919-2009), Gertie Bulman, Geshpilt A Lebn (What A Life), Gilbert and Sullivan, Goldie Lubritsky, Graf Spee, Grand Street Theater, Haim Gamzu (1910-1982), Harry Ariel, Harry Lubin, Harry Thomashefsky (1895-1993), Hasidic plays, hazzan, Hebrew Actors Union, Helen Beverley (1916-2011), Helen Traubel (1899-1972), Henrietta Jacobson (1906-1988), Henry Rosenblatt, Heritage Museum, Herman Yablokoff (1903-1981), Holocaust, Hopkinson Theater, Hymie Jacobson (1895-1952), Ida Kamińska (1899-1980), “Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib,” Ilia Trilling (1895-1947), Irving Grossman (1900-1964), Isa Kremer (1887-1956), Israel Becker (1917-2003), Itzik Manger (1901-1969), Jacob Anami, Jennie Goldstein (1896-1960), Jerusalem, Jewish theater, Joseph Kaminsky (1903-1972), Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956), Joshua Waletzky, Julius Adler (1906-1994), Kiddush Hashem, Kraków, Kuni Leml, Kurt Weil (1900-1950), Lang ist der Weg (1949), Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976), Leibush Lehrer (1887-1964), Leon Gold, Liberty Theater, Lily Shapiro, Louis Freiman (1891-1967), Louis Markowitz, Luba Kadison (1906-2006), Lucy Dawidowicz (1915-1990), Lucy Levine, Lyric Theater, Mario Lanza (1921-1959), Maurice Schwartz (1890-1960), Menasha Skulnik (1892-1970), Menashe Openheim (1905-1973), Mendel Elkin, Merchant of Vennice, Meriam Kressyn (1910-1996), Merry Salyano, Metropolitan Opera singer, Meyer Steinwurtzel, Michael Sachs, Michal Michalesko (1888-1957), Miriam Kressyn (1910 –1996), Moishe Oysher (1906-1958), Molly Picon (1898-1992), Moses in the Twentieth Century (Susan Roth 1994), Nellie Casman (1896-1984), Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), New York, Nicholas Brodszky (1905-1958), Odessa, Operetta, Paramount Theater,Paul Muni (1895-1967), Pearl Harbor, Pesach Bernstein, Philadelphia, Poland, President Hotel, Reb Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810), Robert Mandel, Saõ Paulo, Sarah Blacher Cohen (1936-2008), Scala Theater, Second Avenue Theater, Seymour Rechtzeit (1908-2002), Shaul Raskin, Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916), Sholem Aleichem Institute, Sholem Rubenstein, Sholom Rubinstein, Sholom Secunda (1894-1974), Shulamis, Solomon Shmulewitz (Solomon Small, 1868-1943), Sophie Breslau (1892-1935), South Africa, South America, Steinway Building, Stella Adler (1901-1992), Susan Roth, Swan Lake, Tannersville, The (Purim) Jester (1937), The Forward Hour, The Girl of the Golden West (1938), The Komediant, The Mike Burstein Show, The Syracuse Press, The Vilna Balabessel, The Workmen’s Circle, Toite Hasidim, Tom Wilson, Trostyanets, Ukraine, Trybunalsk, Tzvi Rubinstein, vaudeville, Viennese operettas, Vilnius, Lithuania, WABC, Wandering Stars,Warsaw, WBNX, WFOX, What A Life, William Siegel (1893-1966), Willie Schwartz, WLTH, World War I, World’s Fair, Yankele Halpern, Yiddele Dein Kleine Ist A Pintele Yid, Yiddish radio, Yiddish theater, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Yossele Rosenblatt (1882-1933), Zalmen Reisen (1887-1940), Zygmunt Turkow (1896-1970)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eOral history interview with Lillian Lux focuses on her entry to Yiddish Theater as a child actress, her marriage with Pesach Burnstein, and her travels around the world as American Yiddish Theater Performer. In particular, Lux narrates the story of her timely return to the U.S. before the start of WWII and reflects upon her collaborations with her contemporaries. She also discusses her translation of Pesach Burstein's autobiography Geshpilt A Lebn (What A Life) and her work for the Forverts program (the Forward Hour) in the later stage of her career.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u0026copy; Milken Family Foundation. Unauthorized use is prohibited. For inquiries, please contact info@milkenarchive.org.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/110/831/small/Lillian-Lux.jpg?1618940843","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - X2196_Lilian_Lux.mp4"]},"duration":4710.66998,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/110/831/small/Lillian-Lux.jpg?1618940843","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/110/831/original/X2196_Lilian_Lux.mp4?1616453484","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4710.66998,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Edited Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You’re born in America?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  Which makes you probably one of the first of the Yiddish theater stars to be born in America, no?  Most of the…\n\nLUX:  Then there were others.  Oh, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean, Molly Picon…\n\nLUX:  Molly was born here.\n\nLEVIN:  …she was born here.\n\nLUX:  Diana Goldberg was born here.\n\nSEROTA:  Irving Grossman was born here.\n\nLUX:  Irving Grossman — Gertie Bulman was born here.\n\nLEVIN:  Were your parents involved in the theater?\n\nLUX:  No, no, no.  But my father was a Yiddishist, and an idealist, and he used to teach me recitations.  I was small.  I used to recite Sholem Aleichem and Flug, and — and then he brought me to Morrie Schwartz.  And Schwartz was looking for a little girl.\n\nLEVIN:  Your father came from…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=16.0,59.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  My father came, my parents — both parents — came from Russia.\n\nLEVIN:  Where?\n\nLUX:  From between Odessa and Kiev, a little town called Trostyanets.\n\nLEVIN:  It was Ukraine?\n\nLUX:  Ukraine.  And my ancestors were all Hasidim.  As a matter of fact, the chair that’s in the Breslover (Breslov) Institute in Jerusalem was carved by my great-great-grandfather for Reb Nachman.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=59.0,92.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So they were not only Hasidim…\n\nLUX:  They are…\n\nLEVIN:  They were Toite Hasidim.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  They, they, we’re related, we’re somehow related to Reb Nachman of Breslov.\n\nLEVIN:  Which is where?  Uman, wasn’t it?\n\nLUX:  Uman, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Uman, Uman.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  We signed, my family signed a document, because we’re trying very hard to, to bring the remains of Reb Nachman to Jerusalem, and the government’s having trouble.  They can’t bring him.\n\nLEVIN:  I know.  There’s a big, now, there’s a big…\n\nLUX:  Well, we’re involved in that.  And — too bad I didn’t bring pictures of my daughter with the chair.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=92.0,128.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, we’ll get that in.  We’ll get it in afterwards.\n\nLUX:  My daughter is in a new book that just came out about the Rebbe.  Diamonds of the Rebbe, it’s called.  About celebrities who were close to him.  And my daughter is in that.\n\nLEVIN:  And your daughter’s name is…\n\nLUX:  Susan Roth.\n\nLEVIN:  So your, on one side you were from a Hasidic…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=128.0,155.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  We, we stem from a Hasidic background.\n\nLEVIN:  …background.  And your father came, your parents came from Europe?\n\nLUX:  My, my parents were cousins, incidentally.\n\nLEVIN:  First cousins?\n\nLUX:  Their fathers were brothers, but from the same father, not from the same mother.\n\nLEVIN:  It was very common.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=155.0,172.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Mr. Serota’s family has such a…\n\nLUX:  The, the first wife died, he married — and the, my mother’s father was the son from the first wife.  And then, my father’s father was from the second wife.\n\nLEVIN:  Yes, I knew a…\n\nLUX:  But they didn’t know each other until they came to America.\n\nLEVIN:  …big family.\n\nLUX:  Because my mother was also born in that little town, but she was taken to Odessa when she was six months old, and grew up in it.  And was raised — until she was 16.  She came to America.\n\nLEVIN:  I once knew somebody…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=172.0,199.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  She was 12 — no, she was 12, when she came to America.\n\nLEVIN:  …who knows, who, he used to say that he was his own brother-in-law.  And how could you figure out…\n\nLUX:  Well, my, my mother was the niece of her mother-in-law.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  That’s how he went.\n\nLUX:  And all my father’s brothers and sisters and my mother’s brothers were all cousins. It’s beyond us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=199.0,220.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …you did not come from a, hardly a theatrical background, if it was a Hasidic background.\n\nLUX:  No, no, no\n\nLEVIN:  And how did you then get into, know you could sing?  Know you could act?\n\nLUX:  Well, Morrie — my father brought me to Morrie Schwartz then, because he was looking for a little girl to play in Kiddush Hashem.\n\nLEVIN:  Your father didn’t object?\n\nLUX:  He wanted me to be an actress.  And…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=220.0,246.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You say he was a Yiddishist.  Let’s just stop there for a moment.  I mean, in the sense of involved with Yiddish literature, organizations, Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX:  Well, I’ll get to that. I didn’t speak Yiddish well then, yet.  At that age.  The recitations that my father taught me I knew.\n\nBut then — and, and also, at the same time while I was in Kiddush Hashem, my father arranged for me to be on the Tuk program, that Sholom Rubinstein’s father was conducting.  That was before the Forverts program, the Forward Hour.  And it was, I remember, in the Steinway Building, on WABC.  And Tzvi wrote — his father…\n\nLEVIN:  Rubinstein?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=246.0,291.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Tzvi Rubinstein.  I remember he ran all over the building looking for a soap box for me, because I couldn’t reach the microphone.  I was too small for the microphone, which was not adjustable. And on that same program — I’m trying to remember his name — we became related yet later, because my, my mother made a shidduch between her cousin’s son and his daughter.  The man that wrote Yiddele Dein Kleine Ist A Pintele Yid, and, and he wrote — Shmulewitz.  Shmul, Solomon Shmulewitz.\n\nLEVIN:  Solomon Shmulewitz.\n\nLUX:  Right.\n\nLEVIN:  Later was known as Solomon Small.\n\nLUX:  Small.  Dorothy Small was his daughter.  She called herself Small.  Dorothy Small.  And we met them at that program.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=291.0,340.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I remember Abe Ellstein was at the piano.  He was a young man.\n\nHe ran — incidentally, Schwartz had a studio for the children that were playing in the show.  And in this studio, we learned diction.  I should have brought along the script.  This is a script of — I’m telling you the script of, of the program.  I did it, that myself, about two months ago.  We learned diction. What was his name again?  He was always with Jacob Anami.  And make-up by Shaul Raskin, who was a great artist, and Lily Shapiro.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=340.0,379.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Mestal?  Wasn’t there a Mestal?\n\nLUX:  Mestal.\n\nLEVIN:  Wait a second.  Shaul Raskin.  That’s not the same one, the illustrator, of (SOUNDS LIKE The Yagoda) and the…\n\nLUX:  Right, right, right.\n\nLEVIN:  And another one that’s even better than The Yagoda, which is the…\n\nSEROTA:  (SOUNDS LIKE The Pigyovotz).\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  He taught us make-up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=379.0,393.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  He actually was also a make-up artist?\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you know that?\n\nLUX:  And Lily Shapiro, Lily Shapiro taught us dancing.  And Mendel Elkin — you know the name?\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\nLUX:  Mendel was our director.  And in the cast with me was a girl, a woman — I keep up a friendship to this very day, Helen Beverley.  Who married Lee J. Cobb.  Right.  My…\n\nSEROTA:  She was the co-star in the Vilna Balabessel.  With Moishe Oysher.\n\nLUX:  Before that.\n\nSEROTA:  Well, obviously, right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=393.0,428.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  When she was in, in the movie, in all those pictures, I was in Europe with Pesach, and in Argentina.\n\nAnd there was, he produced a show, a musical, which Abe Ellstein wrote the music for.  It was his first musical.  He must have been then about 19 or 20 years old.  Called Boom un Draydl. Years later, when we were in South Africa with The Megille of Itsik Manger (di megile fun Itzik Manger), we came to a Jewish school.  We were invited.  And in the halls, there were pictures of all the productions that they had done.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=428.0,466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"My son spied a picture that said, “This is mom look Boom un Draydl.”  That was the only other place I had seen it.\n\nAnd so, I sang, and, and we sang and danced in those, in the shows.  I played the (SOUNDS LIKE princessa in Golden Gleckl (di Goldene Kale).\n\nAnd then, when I was too tall for children roles — I remember there, also, at that time, I was about, I must have been about ten years old.  They brought me to Molly Picon.  Who was looking for somebody to play her little brother in the Dos Meydel fun Gestern — The Girl of Yesterday.  But when they brought me to Molly, I was taller than Molly.  At the age of ten.\n\nLEVIN:  What did the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=466.0,506.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  So I did, I didn’t get the role.  But had I gotten the role, I would have met my future husband, who was in that cast.  Pesach played, Pesach Bernstein played with her in — it was in the Second Avenue Theater — Dos Meydel fun Gestern (amol).","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=506.0,522.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And then, about the age of 12, I was as tall as I am today, and couldn’t play children parts anymore.  So my father found a new profession for me — Yiddish radio.  We had the, more than a dozen Yiddish radio stations in those days.  WBNX, WLTH, WFOX — who remembers all the names?  And I used to sing, and I was a, I wrote sketches. About the same time, I remember my father — when I was about 13, my father had a hotel in Tannersville.  And on the social staff — of course, I was the prima donna already.  They put my hair up with a long dress, with earrings, and I sang. But on the staff were two young men.  One was Henry Rosenblatt — Yossele Rosenblatt’s son — and one was Harry Tomashevsky — Boris’ son.\n\nNow, later, I had found out that my husband had been brought to this country by Tomashevsky.  Tomashevsky (Thomashefsky) brought him.  And so, they were on the social staff. And they made, they gave him a benefit, the two of them.  So they invited their two fathers, Yossele Rosenblatt and Boris Tomashevsky.  And I remember in the village, there was a — what do you call it?  Hung across the whole village in, on the canvas.  And it was so packed, I remember.  And I sang a song then.  Then they had come out. And my father used to bring me up all these songs — (sings) Beautiful love, you’re just the melody….  And Yossele loved — and then I began to study with, singing, with Henry.  He was a teacher.  He still teaches, I think.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=522.0,632.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.  He passed away.\n\nLUX:  Henry passed away?\n\nSEROTA:  About a year ago.\n\nLEVIN:  Less than a year.\n\nLUX:  Aw…\n\nLEVIN:  Around this December, or something like that.  Almost…\n\nLUX:  And I was going to call him.\n\nLEVIN:  He was 91.  Something like that.\n\nLUX:  Well, he was my teacher.  And I used to study to, singing in Yossele’s house. And, but at that time, he loved that song — Beautiful Love.  But he says, “I can’t sing about love.  I’m a hazzan.”  So I translated it for him.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=632.0,661.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I used to translate then.  Because, starting with Schwartz, I went to the Sholem Aleichem shul, and then the Sholem Aleichem mittel shul, and Camp Boiberik, and I became a Yiddishist.  Then I first learned the language.  You see?\n\nLEVIN:  So Yiddish was not the language of daily discourse in your home?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Your parents didn’t…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=661.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  No, no.  Because my parents came as children.  My mother came here at 12; my father at 13.  And…\n\nLEVIN:  And your parents didn’t — I mean, they weren’t involved with Workmen's Circle or…\n\nLUX:  No, no, no, no.\n\nLEVIN:  That was later, for you.\n\nLUX:  My father was an inventor.\n\nLEVIN:  An inventor?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  So I…\n\nLEVIN:  So who was the Arbeter Ring…\n\nLUX:  No — I was with the Sholem Aleichem branch…\n\nLEVIN:  Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX:  …not with the Workmen’s Circle.  But in camp and in mittel shul, I, we were a, a group.  There was Dave, David Opatoshu and Danny Leivick, Leivickson.\n\nLEVIN:  Is that the poet’s son?  Leivick the poet?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=679.0,718.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Right, yes.  And Auerbach’s son, Heshe.  And that was my, that was my group.\n\nLEVIN:  Who ran Camp Boiberik?  Was that under the…\n\nLUX:  Laib, Leibush Lehrer.  It was Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLEVIN:  But it was under the aegis of Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX:  Sholem Aleichem Institute, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And we just, just had a reunion, recently.\n\nLEVIN:  They still exist, don’t they?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Isn’t there?\n\nLUX:  No.  I don’t think…\n\nLEVIN:  Which is the camp where Zalman, still, they still…\n\nLUX:  That, that’s the Circle Lodge.  That’s the Workmen’s Circle.\n\nLEVIN:  Workmen’s Circle.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  But Zalman’s mother and aunt were in Camp Boiberik with me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=718.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I know.  Did they do extracts?  They played me some examples of Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you know that?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Well, when I, I — that’s where I met Trilling.  IliaTrilling was music director.  And he produced Shulamis.  And they knew I was an actress, so I played Shulamis.  And then, when I came into…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=755.0,776.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The famous, you sang the famous…\n\nLUX:  Sure.\n\nLEVIN:  …the famous lead song from there, which is…\n\nLUX:  Sure.  (sings) Shabbes Yontif…Then, in, when I entered — the same year, we entered, we all entered mittel shul, which was at Number One, Union Square, which is still standing there. And the graduating class — we were in the first grade.  And the graduating class was producing Shulamis.  And they didn’t have a Shulamis.  So they took me from the — Josh — you know Josh — he, he’s in with films.  His father played opposite me.  I forget his name.  Josh — what is his name?  He’s made quite a few documentaries.  Well, anyway…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=776.0,830.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Waletzky?\n\nLUX:  Hmmm?\n\nSEROTA:  Waletzky?\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Josh Waletzky.  His father played opposite me in, we were all youngsters together at that time.\n\nAnd meanwhile, my father was my agent.  I played in the, my first production professional when, as a grown-up, was at the Lyric Theater in Brooklyn.  Yab, with Yablokoff. And in the middle of the season, I got a call from Michael Sachs, who was the manager of Second Avenue Theater.  That he was producing a big operetta, (SOUNDS LIKE Da Katarenchik).  He had asked my father at the beginning of the season, he wanted — because I wasn’t in the union yet — for me to come in, in the chorus. My father says, “What do you mean, chorus?  She’s not a chorus girl.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=830.0,886.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But in the middle of the season, the Lyric broke up.  And Sachs says, “I’m enlarging the chorus for (SOUNDS LIKE Da Katarenchik).  Would you like to come in?  In the middle of the week, you’ll play soubretz, you’ll play parts.  And this way, you’ll have the, the protection of the chorus union, you’ll be able to work in the theater.” I said yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, this union — you’re talking about the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX:  Hebrew Actors Union.\n\nLEVIN:  You’re talking about the same one that’s down on Seventh Street?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nSEROTA:  The one that Seymour is the president of.\n\nLEVIN:  The one that Seymour is president.  Now, the…\n\nLUX:  Seymour and I are the only original people, outside of those that came after the Holocaust, that are here now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=886.0,922.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And the chorus was part of the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX:  Part of, part of the Hebrew Actors Union. Well, at any rate, the prima donna got sick.  It’s like the story of 42nd Street.  And they pushed me on in her role. Fannie Lubritsky — she was one of the, her sister was married to Irving Grossman.  Goldie Lubritsky.  And the brother was married to Dinah (Diana) Goldberg.  So the brother-in-law and sister-in-law fell in love.\n\nLEVIN:  Irving and Dinah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=922.0,957.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And left the sister and brother.  But they had another sister, Fannie, who was a prima donna.\n\nLEVIN:  Who was David?  David Lubritsky?\n\nLUX:  Dave, he, he’s not alive anymore.\n\nSEROTA:  I’m sure not, because there was a record that was made…\n\nLUX:  David?\n\nSEROTA:  …around 1920.  Of Fannie…\n\nLUX:  Yeah, he, he later married Esta Salzman.\n\nSEROTA:  Oh, Esta.\n\nLUX:  And they called themselves Lubin.  They shortened the name to Lubin.  She had, her son is about a week younger than my twins.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s not related to Harry Lubin?\n\nLUX:  Pardon me?\n\nLEVIN:  They’re not related to Harry Lubin?\n\nLUX:  No.  No relation to Harry Lubin, no.\n\nSEROTA:  And Esta was Seymour’s co-star in a few movies.\n\nLUX:  Was she?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  In fact, she gets better billing than he does.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=957.0,1000.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  I didn’t know that.  I, I didn’t keep up with all the pictures .Well, at any rate, I played the lead.  I was fifteen-and-a-half years old then.  And Olshanetsky got into the pit afterwards and he looked at — I, sure, I used to stutter a little.  He says, “Who’s th-th-th-that?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1000.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Anyway, when I came into the Second Avenue Theater, I found Trilling was assisting Olshanetsky.  He was assistant conductor.  And he was teaching the chorus.  He taught the girls. That was the best thing I ever did, going into the chorus.  Every girl who wants to be in musical theater should, as a, it was a new world for me — running with the girls, with the coffee.  I didn’t like coffee up till then, but I forced myself, because everybody else was drinking coffee. But anyway, I did so well that I went on the road with them.  In Chicago, I got chicken pox.  At the World’s Fair then, and they had to send me home.  But Olshanetsky invited me up to the President Hotel, then, because of that appearance, where he was musical conductor.\n\nLEVIN:  Where was the President Hotel?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1020.0,1070.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Swan Lake, New York.\n\nLEVIN:  Up at…\n\nLUX:  And my partner there was Danny Kaye.  We worked together for two summers.  In fact, we hung out a lot after that.  But we came back to the city, Danny didn’t have a job.  And my father already arranged for me to appear in the Clinton Theater, on Clinton Street.  And that’s where I worked with Pesach for the first time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1070.0,1094.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The first time you met him outside…\n\nLUX:  That we played together, yes.  I knew him from the Café Royale, from….And Danny used to come to the theater every day and sit and wait for me until we finished.  Because we played what they called vaude — it wasn’t vaudeville.  It was condensed shows, with a picture in between.  So they, we’d do two a day or three a day.  And it was continuous, and you had to go out to eat.  So Danny Kaye used to sit and wait for me. In fact, when I — then, Pesach invited me to go to Argentina as his partner.  And of course, my parents objected very much, but they knew.  Guskin, of the union, told them.  He said, “If you want her to be an actress, she has a wonderful chance.  She’s going to Argentina now.  She’ll become a star.  And she, as an actress, she’ll have to travel all her life.” So, and they agreed.  And we had relatives in Argentina whom I stayed with.\n\nLEVIN:  What year was that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1094.0,1159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  ’37.  And after eight months, I was supposed to come back to the States.  But Pesach got an engagement in Europe.  And we fell in love.  And I felt that this is my place.  This is my future.  And so, we got married in Uruguay.  And went to Europe.  And played Poland.  ’38, ’39.\n\nAnd until — we left Poland on the last boat.  Four days before Hitler came in.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1159.0,1196.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In September of ’39.\n\nLUX:  August.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean, but…\n\nLUX:  August 26th, we left Poland.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And thanks to an old acquaintance of my husband, we got out.  The consul, the American consul.\n\nThis is, this is something that’s, I thought it was, I thought it was a gag.  We came up to the American consulate, because I had a friend from, from mittel shul.  Oh, and she died recently.  She was a writer.  Mmmm — my, my memory is going.  She wrote about me in the book, in her book.  She was quite a famous writer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1196.0,1239.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yiddish writer?\n\nLUX:  She wrote in English and in Yiddish.  She was married to a Yiddish writer, too.  Lucy Davidovich (Lucy Dawidowicz).\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, Lucy Davidovich.\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, she was more than a famous writer.  She was a famous historian.\n\nLUX:  Well, Lucy was working at the YIVO in Vilna (Wilno; Vilnius).  And she, she was in the graduating class when I was in first grade.  We knew each other because I had played Shulamis.  So we knew each other from mittel shul. And when we came with our company to Vilna, and my husband was very friendly with, with the, he was at the head of YIVO, his brother.\n\nSEROTA: Weinreich?\n\nLUX:  No.  His brother — my son met Weinreich.  Reyzen’s brother — Zalmen Reyzen (Zalmen Reisen  (1887-1940).  Zalmen Reyzen.  Headed YIVO in Vilna.\n\nLEVIN:  In Vilna.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1239.0,1292.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And he also was an editor of a newspaper.  And my husband was very friendly with him. So when we came, we found Lucy was his secretary.  And so, it was at, a yontif, you know.  And so, we wrote to each other all through my working in, in Poland.  Because we traveled all through Poland.  We were in Bialystok and in Krakow and then (SOUNDS LIKE Turkinetstry (Trybunalski)) and all the little — Lodz.\n\nLEVIN:  What were…\n\nLUX:  Operettas.\n\nLEVIN:  You did operettas?\n\nLUX:  Operettas.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you do — when you say operettas, I mean, that was the code word, really, what we would call…\n\nLUX:  Shows that were written, shows that were written by Louis Freiman and Willie Siegel and…\n\nLEVIN:  Ellstein.\n\nLUX:  …Kalmanovitch, and…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1292.0,1344.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But written in America, mostly?\n\nLUX:  Written in America.\n\nLEVIN:  And you were bringing them to Poland?\n\nLUX:  And we brought them Poland.  We brought the American-style operetta to Poland.\n\nLEVIN:  It’s important, you see, because the word “operetta” — it really is more like a, a Broadway show, a musical show.\n\nLUX:  Right.\n\nLEVIN:  It isn’t an operetta, really.\n\nLUX:  Well, there were, there were Viennese operettas, too.  I played (SOUNDS LIKE Sil Manchow Ashev), Princess.\n\nLEVIN:  In Yiddish?\n\nLUX:  In Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you do…\n\nLUX:  I did the Yiddish translation.\n\nLEVIN:  You did it, yeah.  But you also did things like, things that were running on Second Avenue.  Things that had been popular here.\n\nLUX:  Mostly — yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Mostly…\n\nLUX:  Mostly show…\n\nLEVIN:  Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib, come from any of those…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1344.0,1385.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Which, which?\n\nLEVIN:  Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib for example.\n\nLUX:  Now, when I came into thekaterinshtshik, Luba Kadison was singing Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib .  Olshanetsky wrote it for Luba, and Luba was no singer.  She recited it, more or less. Now, when we went on the road, I had to sing it on the radio in every show — in every city.  Because we used to go to the Jewish radio stations immediately when we arrived in a new city.\n\nLEVIN:  And again, you were bringing them…\n\nLUX:  I was the first one to sing Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib outside of the theater.\n\nLEVIN:  In America.\n\nLUX:  In America.  On the road.\n\nLEVIN:  Outside of New York.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1385.0,1424.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Outside of New York, right. And in fact, when Pesach was in Europe before me — he used to go to Europe every year.  Because they used to play in the summertime.  So wintertime, he played in New York, and, and after Pesach, he’d go to Poland.  He was a very big name in Poland.\n\nSo when Belz was written, he brought it to Poland.  He sang it.  So somebody went and published it without permission and put Pesach’s face on the cover, saying, “written by Pesach Burstein.” well, the trouble he had when he got back!  Because he knew nothing about it.  Those things happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1424.0,1466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I’m curious, if you can recall this.  I mean, how much of the humor — because this was immigrant humor in America, to a large extent.  Or whether it was humor, or whether it was nostalgia, or both.  How much of that…\n\nLUX:  Well, most of the shows were written so that they started in Europe, and everybody went to America.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s right.\n\nLUX:  But we did Hasidic plays, as well.\n\nLEVIN:  But the Hasidic I can understand, but the music — but those weren’t musicals, were they?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1466.0,1491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Musicals.  Of course.\n\nLEVIN:  Give me an example of a…\n\nLUX:  A Hassane Shtetl (A Khasene in Shtetl) was written for my husband.\n\nLEVIN:  Here.  Again, though, here, in America.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  In, he started it in Toronto, I think.\n\nLEVIN:  But my question has always been…\n\nLUX:  My, my son just played his father’s role in A Hassane Shtetl in Israel.\n\nLEVIN:  But the shows that took place here…\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Where the plot was here, where the plot had to do with the trials and tribulations of immigrants and first-generation, second-generation…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1491.0,1521.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, we…\n\nLEVIN:  …Bronx humor, whatever.\n\nLUX:  Pesach never bought shows like that, that wouldn’t fit in.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, Belz, for example.  Could people — this is nostalgia for Belz.  But people in Belz didn’t…\n\nLUX:  You know, when they opened the Heritage Museum, my son and I were invited to sing.  We sang Belz.  The Cardinal spoke first, and then Pataki, and then…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1521.0,1543.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I read about that.\n\nLUX:  Were you there?\n\nLEVIN:  No.  But I read about it.\n\nLUX:  And then the, you know, Elie Wiesel, and Koch.  And then, they all sat in the first row, and Mike and I sang Belz.\n\nLEVIN:  I read about that.  But going in 1937, just, or whenever…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1543.0,1557.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  But they loved to sing operettas about America.  I, for example, played an American girl.  I came out and (sings) Hranga binga hagriese vi nu, benga hagriese vino.  And I would tap. Because my father told me immediately, “If you want to stay in the theater, you’ve got to study singing, and you’ve got to study dancing.  Either be the best or get out.” And I still say, you know, maybe they used to, people used to say to my husband, “Oh, your wife is so…”. I’d say, “Look.  If I didn’t think that I could stand next to Pesach and do just as well, I would sit home and koch lokshen.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1557.0,1595.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  How’s your lokshen?\n\nLEVIN:  You could do both.\n\nLUX:  I do both.\n\nLEVIN:  I haven’t had a good (lokshen) in a long time.  I’ll tell you right now.  I had one in Bloom’s in London, and it was a microwave…\n\nLUX:  Well, I’m, I’m better in the acting department, I think, than in the cooking department.  But I did okay with, by my family.\n\nLEVIN:  Now all the actresses come with cooks.\n\nLUX:  We traveled, we traveled with, with the children since they were seven years old.  I said, “I don’t leave them anymore.”  We traveled with winter clothes and summer clothes, and children clothes, and, and books, and toys. And in every town we came, whether it was a hotel or whether it was an apartment, when we’d close the door at night, there was no more theater.  It was family.\n\nAnd they went to school — to 14 schools.  They went to school in Argentina, and Uruguay, and Brazil, and in Paris, and in Africa, in Johannesburg, and in Israel. Oh, my daughter is angry with me to this very day.  She said, “I had no childhood.”\n\nI says, “I did the best I could.” See, my son is a ham.  He loved it, and he stayed in the theater. He is very, very active. And my daughter is active in a different way. She wrote a book recently called Moses in the Twentieth Century.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1595.0,1669.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So now, anyway, we were stuck there in ’37.  And when you got out, you were fortunate enough to get out.\n\nLUX:  Well, I started to tell you.  I was writing to — Lucy and I were corresponding.  And we came back from a tour.  We were in Krakow and Drohobych and Turkin, and all of these places.  And Novaladomsk.  And we came back to Lodz.  We had a contract to open the following season in Warsaw, at the Scala Theater.  That would be after Yontif of ’39.And so, and I, I had letters from, I wanted to get back to the States.  But people around us said, “Don’t be foolish.  If there’ll be war” — they never believed that they — in Poland that there will be war.  “There’ll be war, it’ll be like in the first war.  There’ll be prosperity in Lodz.” ‘Cause Lodz, at that time, was better off than Warsaw.  Lodz was under the Germans.  I mean, something like — and Warsaw was under the Poles. But I said no.  We got back to Warsaw.  We had our things.  I had a letter from Lucy telling me that she had heard that the American ambassador, American embassy sent letters to American citizens to leave the country.  And they were withheld, the last minute.  So I fooled my husband. I said, “Look.  Lucy wrote me that everybody got letters, and we were on the road, evidently.  We didn’t get any letter.” So we went up to the American Consulate.  And we walked into the Consul. The moment he got our passports, he came out and started to embrace my husband.  “Mr. Burstein!”  I thought it was a joke.  He says, “Don’t you remember me?  Tom Wilson, Philadelphia!” This Tom Wilson had been a law student in Philadelphia, and had a Jewish roommate in college who used to bring him to the Standard Restaurant, which was right opposite the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1669.0,1788.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And my husband was at the Arch Street Theater that season.  And Hymie Jacobson used to — all the actors used to come to eat in this Standard Restaurant across the street, and the students came.  He with his Jewish friend. And Hymie Jacobson befriended these two boys, and he used to bring them backstage.  And he fell in love with my husband’s whistling. Pesach used to whistle on his fingers.  That was his shtempl — that was his…. And he never forgot him.  And we come up into — he was a, he’s the Consul in Warsaw.  And he says — so, of course, Pesach became very friendly right away.  He says, “Tell me, Tom, will they, you think there’ll be a war?”  He says, “We have a contract.” He says, “Look.”  He says, “You want to listen to me?  Go home.  There won’t be a war, you’ll come back at, for the holidays.  If there’ll be a war, you’ll be home, you’ll be safe.” We had been out of the States already three or four years. He says, “On the other hand, if you stay, I can’t guarantee you that there won’t be the, won’t be a war.” At that time, this, this English guy with the umbrella — what was his name?\n\nSEROTA:  Chamberlain?\n\nLEVIN:  Chamberlain.  Neville Chamberlain.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1788.0,1865.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Came to Warsaw then, and Shmigley Ridge was president of the….  And it, it, it was hot.  I remember I had a letter from my grandfathers saying, “(was ist mit dir)?”  He says, “Bist du an American girl, everybody wants to come to America, and du liegst dort in Poland?” So we immediately went down to the Gidinya America line.  We had tickets.  ‘Cause I had told him, I remember I told him in Krakow, I said, “Why carry around money?  Let’s buy tickets.”  Steamship tickets.  So we went right down to the Polish American line for reservations.  My husband and me. And they said, “You and who else?” Every ship was booked solid.  You couldn’t get on a ship.  Not only in Poland — the same thing was in France; same thing was in….And so — but they said that the Pulsutsky is leaving Tuesday from Tigin.  My husband said, “Oh,” he said, “I made three trips on the Pulsutsky.  I know the captain, I know the chief steward.  I gave two concerts,” he said, “on the ship.” He says, “Well, if you have acquaintance, you should take a chance, go.” We went home, we packed.  Took the boat train to Gidinya and got off the train and walked right into the arms of the chief steward.  And he says, “Panya Burstein, so panta lobish.”And he says, “I want, we have to get home.”  He said, “We have no reservation, we have no cabin.” He says, “Don’t worry.  For you, there’ll be a cabin.” It was luck.  And he also took away our zlotys, gave it back, gave us money back on the ship.  And of course, we got to the boat, went through customs, we had a cabin.\n\nAnd how do you thank him?  We said, “We’re going to do a concert.” Every, there were a lot of people that were traveling to the World’s Fair, then.  The World’s Fair was in New York.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1865.0,1975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  ’39.\n\nLUX:  ’39.\n\nLEVIN:  But Chicago was ’37?\n\nSEROTA:  ’33.\n\nLEVIN:  ’33.\n\nSEROTA:  ’33 and ’34.\n\nLUX:  Then I remember there were, there were a lot of people that knew us from a, a lot of Jewish people from all over the — we had been playing all over the country.  And there was, I remember there was the boss of the biggest chocolate company — like Hershey’s, here — Hazzet, it was.  He was on board ship. And so, when did we give the concert?  On September 1st.  I remember, the captain waited until we finished, and then he went up on stage and announced that Poland had been attacked. A Yom Kippur — it became a Yom Kippur on the ship.  Then we traveled in black-out, they had. And when we got back to the States, I remember it was a Sunday.  The — it was such a fog, it was, in mid, the beginning of August, second week in August.  The East River was clouded.  We couldn’t see.  They told us the Queen Mary was standing on one side of us, and the Île de France was standing on the other side.  Nobody could move, an entire day.  And Bob Hope was on one of those boats. And, interesting — he had his, when — he had his radio program, then.  He sang, (sings) “Thanks, for the memories, some slept on the floor, some in the corridor, but I was more exclusive — I had ‘men’ written on my door.  So thanks…”.That happened right then, when we came home.  And immediately, we had a contract to come back to South America, to open the season in Uruguay, which was something new.  Because you always opened the season in Buenos Aires.  And the troupe came to Uruguay like, on tour. And so, this director brought us to Uruguay, into a theater off the beach.  Off the boardwalk.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1975.0,2095.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Like a summer theater, but very big. And our first — when we arrived, the Graf Spee — the German submarine — was in the bay.  And we come up in the hotel, you — it’s with food.  And the entire cast — not cast — the entire crew of the Graf Spee is sitting there.  All the Germans were there.  I knew all their faces. And we opened the show and a terrible rain and a gale starts, during our first performance.  And it’s packed — there are 1500 people there.  And it began to rain, and such — it was a tin roof.  We had to stop the performance a half hour early and let the audience out. And in the morning, they woke us and told us that a tornado had hit the theater.  Caved in.  If we hadn’t left the theater, everybody would have been killed.  So, we were left without a theater. We played in the Solis — I remember that’s the government, the ballet theater.  And, and a director from Brazil, Libelcik, brought us, with the entire company, to play in Rio and Saõ Paulo.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2095.0,2171.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And we traveled with the Conta Grande, an Italian ship, which was full of Italian immigrants that — a lot of Italians in Argentina.  They come to work, and they bring their money back to Italy.  And we got off in Rio. Now, this is 1940.  We get off in Rio, and the boat goes further, toward Italy.  And is sunk.  In the Atlantic.  By the Allies.  ‘Cause it was a, a, an Italian boat.  Now, that was luck. So we, and we came back to Argentina, and we, we played there.  That season, Berta Gersten was there, and Hymie Jacobson came.  He had just been divorced from Miriam.  Miriam met Seymour that same season, playing with Yablokoff, I remember.\n\nSEROTA:  Miriam went down to South America somewhere around that time.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2171.0,2229.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  In South America with her first husband, Hymie Jacobson.  Bruce’s uncle.\n\nAnd who else was there that — then?  Jennie Goldstein was in Buenos Aires then.  And she had an apartment.  They all used to come play cards in her house.  And Nellie Casman.  We were all there, that season. We came back.  We came back a week or two weeks before Pearl Harbor.  We opened in Jersey, in Newark, I remember.  There was a Jewish theater in Newark.  And it was, a Sunday morning. We went, after the first performance, we went in to eat with my parents, my uncle.  And we hear the radio, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  My mother said, “Where’s Pearl Harbor?”  Who knew of a Pearl Harbor then?  We found out later. And so then, there was no more traveling.  Because when we came back then, the ship we came back — we used to go every, back and forth — later on, we went back and forth to, to Argentina.  But they took our passports away when we returned, then. And I reported — they asked if we have anything to report, because we’d been in the area two years, did we see any activities?  I told them a few activities.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2229.0,2310.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"In Brazil, I met several, I saw several people from this submarine, the Graf Spee.  Because they had to, there was a whole a complot in Argentina, in Uruguay, and they all ran away.  I, and I met one of them in Saõ, Saõ Paulo. And then, I told them, we went to — when we finished in Buenos Aires, we went to Chile for concerts.  And I learned that the director in Chile had listed us as Protestants.  Otherwise, we would not have gotten a visa.  And we were very angry with — we would not have gone, had we known.  And I told that to the authorities, when we returned. They took us into a little cabin.  They said, “Whatever you tell us is confidential.  But we know that you, you were in the area for two years, three years.” But there was no more traveling, then.  So we traveled in the United States.  Boston, Philadelphia, Canada — all through the United — Cleveland, Chicago.  Until we opened with Dina Halpern in the Bronx, I remember.  And then, we went into the Hopkinson Theater with a radio drama.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2310.0,2383.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  When you were in the Bronx, this was a dramatic program?\n\nLUX:  A treatment — yes, it was a, a dramatic show, with music.\n\nSEROTA:  Dina didn’t sing?\n\nLUX:  No, she didn’t sing.  She sang in one of our shows.\n\nSEROTA:  Yeah?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  The play was Ver Da Fa Mama.\n\nSEROTA:  I didn’t…\n\nLUX:  She was the mother; I was the daughter.  Yeah.\n\nSEROTA:  Who wrote the music?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2383.0,2406.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, we did one of our — and we played repertoire, too.  We did a show called M’ken lebn nor m’lost nit , where Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn originated from.  Secunda’s music.  And she played with us in that show.  And she did, she sang a song then, I remember. And then, we got, we went into the Hopkinson Theater with a radio drama called Vel Shildik.  No — first we, we, we went in with a — at that time, the United States was friendly with Russia.  We went in with, before Vel Shildik, we went in the Hopkinson with a play called De Reite Soldat.  Written by Louis Freiman.  Music Moishe Lauch. And there was a role for a young man, a young boy who should — it took place in Russia.  I was a daughter of a, the American ambassador, and fell in love with a Jewish boy.  And it turned out that my mother was really Jewish, and hiding.  She was his aunt.  I….","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2406.0,2471.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And Florence Weiss played my mother, then.\n\nSEROTA:  How was Florence Weiss?\n\nLUX:  Moishe Oysher’s wife.\n\nLEVIN:  Moishe Oysher.\n\nSEROTA:  Were they married then?  They were, they were separated already, at that point.\n\nLUX:  They were already separated, yes.\n\nSEROTA:  What kind of performer was she?\n\nLUX:  She was, she was a, she was a nice actress and a nice singer.\n\nSEROTA:  She also was an American.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2471.0,2491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  Florence was American.  Was born here. And at the, so, as — getting back to the story — they needed this boy that the father was hiding.  He didn’t want him to become a soldier, a Red Soldier.  And they needed, and the father — I forget his name.  He was a short, little man.  Nice, good actor.  But they needed a son. And there was this boy, who was partnering Nellie Casman — Fyvush Finkel.  And so they decided, they said, “You know, this is going to be very funny, because he’s so tall and the father is so small.” That was his first, really, adult part in the theater — Fyvush.  He was 18, then.  And they engaged him for this.  Then he played with us for three seasons.  Then, he played with us in Ver is shuldig, the radio drama that Freiman used to broadcast.  Charlotte Goldstein was in it, and, and then we, he made the show.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2491.0,2552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Charlotte Goldstein was married to Menashe Openheim?\n\nLUX:  Openheim, right.  She lives in, in Palm Springs, now.\n\nSEROTA:  California?\n\nLUX:  She was just — yeah — she was just in New York.  And she goes to Paris every, every summer. And so we, we played this show, Ver is shuldig, which was very, very popular.  Bruce’s parents played with us, Henrietta Jacobson and Julius Adler.  And Fyvush was in the cast.  And that’s when Bruce was born.  That season. And the following — and, and it, that’s the season I became pregnant with my twins.  And when they were born, we, we were — before the season — ‘cause my twins were born in July.  The following show that we played, the next season was called Ehrlich iz Shverlich. But when, you know, there was a Trio Press that did all the posters and publicity for the theater.  He was a cousin of my husband’s — Louis (Louie) Markowitz.  And so, he made up an announcement when my twins were born — “Ver is shuldig, my Pesach, Pesach, my, (because they were) twins.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2552.0,2627.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Where was your husband from?\n\nLUX:  My husband was born in Warsaw.  But was brought to Russia when he was about six years old.\n\nSEROTA:  But from his billing, you’d think he came from Vilna.\n\nLUX:  And Berdyansk.  I’ll tell you why.  Because when he came to America, Tomashefsky brought him as a opposition to Lebedeff.  He wanted the same — he was…\n\nLEVIN:  Lebedeff wasn’t in Tomashefsky’s camp.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2627.0,2653.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  No.  And so, when he arrived, and they started to, to plan his publicity — in Poland, he was called Pavel.  And in Vilna, in Lithuania, in Kovna, where he played a few seasons, he was Paulus Borstainus. So he says, “What did your mother used to call you?”  ‘Cause he’s — tried to figure out. He says, “My mother used to call me Pesachke.” “Okay.”  He says, “That’s what you’re going to be — Pesachke.  And tell me — where did you play?”  ‘Cause he wanted, Lebedeff was the Litvishe Comicke. And he says, “Well, I played here, there, I played in Vilna.” He says, “That’s it.  You’re going to be the Pesachke Burstein, the Vilna Comicke.” So Pesach said to him, “So, okay.  If that’s what he wants.”  That’s what he remained. He played in Vilna, but he wasn’t actually from Vilna.  He ran away from home, from Berdyansk, at the age of 15, to join an acting company.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2653.0,2711.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Berdyansk is in the Ukraine, isn’t it?\n\nLUX:  No.  Beldyansk is on the…\n\nLEVIN:  Armenia?\n\nLUX:  …where is it?  On the Green Sea, the Black Sea, there.  But the…\n\nSEROTA:  The Black Sea, the Black Sea.\n\nLUX:  The Kaiser, the Czar had his…\n\nSEROTA:  Engel was from there.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  Huh?\n\nSEROTA:  Engel was from there.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  The Czar had his summer home there.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  It was a ranch…\n\nLEVIN:  No.  The summer home, I’ll tell you in a minute.  It will come to me.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  But it’s, and that’s the general region.\n\nSEROTA:  Didn’t he have a summer home in Yalta?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2711.0,2737.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  It was on, it was on the sea.  It was on a sea.\n\nLEVIN:  In the Black Sea area.\n\nLUX:  Was it on the Black Sea?\n\nLEVIN:  Something like that.\n\nLUX:  Oh, well, it was a town, it was a city where they grew grapes.  They exported grapes and melons from.  Fish.  And he sang in shul.\n\nAnd the, the cantors, the choir director was an actor also.  And he said, “You will make a good actor.  And do you want?” And he, he wanted to be an actor.  He ran after actors that came to town and carried their suitcases and, and when — and he, he joined a circus once.  He was a clown. So he ran away home at night, through the window.  Just like in Sholem Aleichem’s Stars, Wandering Stars. And when they got to the next town — his parents, his father had a factory.  It was ladies’ suits and coats.  In the morning, when they saw he’s missing, they called the police, and they, and the….So they said the, the first city was not too good.  So the director says, “You know what?  Send your father a telegram saying that you’re here, here in this city.  And if he’ll send you 50 rubles, you’ll come home.” The father immediately sent 50 rubles, which landed in the director’s pocket, and the company went further.  And when he said, “I got to send…” he says, “Don’t be silly,” he said.  “You’ll be a big star by the time we come to Warsaw, and we’ll send back, send your father back his money double.”\n\nBut — oh, that’s the story.  You never read my husband’s book?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2737.0,2840.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Not yet.\n\nLUX:  I just translated it into English.  It’s at the — oh, what college?  Mandel, Robert Mandel.  Do you know Robert Mandel?  The Syracuse Press.\n\nLEVIN:  They’re publishing it?\n\nLUX:  He told me that he, he loves it very much.  In fact, I did a play in Albany, at the University, about four years ago.  Sarah Blacher Cohen.  Do you know the name?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2840.0,2872.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah, yeah.\n\nLUX:  Well, Sarah called me now, ‘cause she was going to a convention in Miami.  I did a show there that she wrote.  I have the video of it.\n\nAnd she told me that — I didn’t know she knew Mandel.  She says, “Robert Mandel told me that he’s crazy about the book.  He said it needs some work.” I says, “I didn’t go to college.”  My college was the Yiddish theater.  But I could — and the name of it in, it’s (SOUNDS LIKE Sanyon) in Israel.  It was published in Israel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2872.0,2900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In Yiddish?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  I wrote, he accepted it.  In chapters.  It ran for three years in the (SOUNDS LIKE Letz Danays). And then, we had the, they gave a performance for Pesach’s 80th birthday.  The mayor of Tel Aviv and Sanyon.  And all the proceeds went toward publishing the book.  Gesphicht A lebn.  Sanyon gave it the name.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2900.0,2923.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  When was Pesach born?\n\nLUX:  In Warsaw.\n\nSEROTA:  When?\n\nLUX:  Pesach would have been 101 years old now.  A hundred years old.  Pesach was 22 years older than me.  But we were a very good couple.  And we were together for 47 years. And so, now I call the book What a Life.  And I hope it will be published. He told me, he called me — Mandel.  He said that, “My advisors say that there’s too much material out about the topic.  The Yiddish theaters,” he says, “but I love the book,” he says.  “I’m pushing for it.”  Halavei.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2923.0,2971.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There’s not too much material.  There may be a lot of material, but none of it — it doesn’t matter.  There’s still…\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s still nothing…\n\nLUX:  Oh, his story, his life story is so wonderful.  It is the history of Yiddish theater in Europe during World War I.  What he went through!  He was arrested as a spy, because he spoke Russian, and he spoke Polish.\n\nLEVIN:  You mean, Yiddish theater in World War I was, in Poland could not have…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2971.0,2996.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, they used to push the wagon, and the…\n\nLEVIN:  Had they yet brought the American musical or the operettas to Poland, then?  Not yet.\n\nLUX:  They played different, different things, different shows.  They played some that came from America.  For example, he played, they called it De Americana, I think.  Who brought it to Poland?  It was The Girl of the Golden West, the","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2996.0,3017.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The opera?\n\nLUX:  Yes.  The, no — an operetta.  So he played it with Zygmunt Turkow and with — who was then married to…\n\nSEROTA:  Kaminska.  Kaminska, no?\n\nLUX:  To Ida, yes.  Ida and Sigmund and Pesach went on tour with De Americana.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, in other words, other than, other than Goldfaden, can you think of any operetta or musical in Yiddish that’s from Europe instead of from America?  I mean, that…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3017.0,3052.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Only the Viennese ones.  For example, Die Csárdásfürstin (SOUNDS LIKE Maya Dera) — we played them in Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  Not, but that’s translated into Yiddish.  That’s originating in Europe.\n\nLUX:  Right.  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  But, I mean, when we talk about the, the Yiddish operetta, the Yiddish musical theater.   The Yiddish musical theater.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3052.0,3070.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, the first operettas were written by Goldfaden, actually.\n\nLEVIN:  Goldfaden is one person.  But apart from Goldfaden, can you think any, any operettas that are from Europe, and not from America?  They’re all from America.\n\nLUX:  They borrowed all the material from America.\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\nLUX:  And I…\n\nLEVIN:  The dramatic plays are another story, now.  In Poland, I don’t know if they’re…\n\nLUX:  They used to steal the material.  As soon as you came from America with a show, somebody would be sitting in the theater, rewriting the show.  And Witler would be playing it in two weeks around in a different city.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3070.0,3102.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How was Witler?\n\nLUX:  Hmmm?\n\nLEVIN:  How was he?  Witler — Ben-Zion Witler?\n\nLUX:  Well, my husband never wanted to talk to him.  Because he couldn’t play his own shows in different cities, because Witler would send somebody in. This — what’s his name?  He was in the Habima recently — he did the picture, (SOUNDS LIKE Lang is der Weg ).\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, uh…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3102.0,3126.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  He was — Becker.  Israel Becker.  And we came to Israel in ’54.  Somebody brought him over to us in the café and said, Mr. Burstein, I want you to meet Mister….”. He says, “Just a minute.  (SOUNDS LIKE Chazan faleng vorstellen.”  He says, “(SOUNDS LIKE Ich bin der vus chabayich alup kupita A Hassane Shtetl and Fa Koyt Vittel and fa hindes zlotys).” So — and he had his hand out.  My husband wouldn’t give it to him.  He says, “(SOUNDS LIKE Un titta fa san gans fayn a gonif, zuchta?  Kin zain kin fa kofutz mir zaficht ferda chacha gibbim spay dos zlotys)?”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3126.0,3159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  They were both in South America at the same time — Witler and your husband, were in — no?\n\nLUX:  No.  Witler came to America afterwards, when the war started.\n\nSEROTA:  But I mean South America.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  He came, he was there once at the same time, yes.  He used to travel around.  He came to the States, then he became a….","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3159.0,3178.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I remember one conversation in the Café Royale.  He had played Michel Michalesko’s play, (SOUNDS LIKE De Letster Tants (Der letzte Tanz), where the, that song comes from — (sings) Gle dedes camin.  I played that with Michalesko once, incidentally.\n\nSEROTA:  Olshanetsky?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  Somebody got sick, and they brought me to play it.  And I was about 15, 16 then.\n\nSEROTA:  Did you ever play in England?\n\nLUX:  Pardon me?\n\nSEROTA:  Did you ever play in London?\n\nLUX:  In London?  Yes.\n\nSEROTA:  Yeah?\n\nLUX:  We came to London, we were brought to London several times.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3178.0,3204.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In London, they did have, but it hasn’t been explored yet, but in London, apparently, there were shows and songs, anyway, written locally.  I couldn’t name you one, but nobody’s done any research.  But I, it started a little bit.\n\nLUX:  I have a friend living there who was in the Jewish theater.  He could be probably tell me, but…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3204.0,3226.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There were two fellows.  One of them’s still alive; one died.  They lived together…\n\nLUX:  That’s right, that’s right.  That’s my friend.\n\nLEVIN:  Mendelovitch?\n\nLUX:  Bernard, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Bernard Mendelovitch.\n\nLUX:  That’s who I’m talking about.\n\nLEVIN:  And what was his partner?  The guy’s dead now.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  He played with (SOUNDS LIKE Isa Vasha). \n\nLEVIN:  He died several years ago.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  I know.  He played with us in Warsaw.  And his mother was our property lady.  She had been an actress also. Rushka.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s another…\n\nLUX:  Ariel — Harry Ariel.\n\nLEVIN:  Harry Ariel, yeah.  And then there was…\n\nLUX:  He played with us as a young…\n\nLEVIN:  Anna something — there’s an Anna.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Her father was an actor.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s still an Anna, in London.\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  I forget her name.\n\nLUX:  I don’t know her.  I know of her.\n\nLEVIN:  Somebody should interview her.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3226.0,3268.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Her father was, was in Argentina at the same time with us.\n\nLEVIN:  They did, he did, either Mendelovitch and Harry Ariel did a sketch, for example, on Merchant of Venice in English.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Ariel used to write a lot.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And Ariel brought a lot of stuff from, from Poland, too.  ‘Cause he played with us, he played with other companies.  And, and when he, they were in the, the D.P. camps, that’s the material that they used. For example, I, I used to sing a song in one of our shows — The Komediant.  I used to sing (sings) Maidel, da-da-da…  I was told, then I met an actress in London who came, she ran away from the — what do you call it?  I can’t think of the word now.  From Ida Kaminska’s company, from Poland.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3268.0,3323.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  (INAUDIBLE).\n\nLUX:  She defected.\n\nLEVIN:  What was the company called?\n\nLUX:  Chayele something, I think.  I don’t know.  She’s in Paris now.  And she came and she said, “Oh, they wrote a song for me in the D.P. camps.  (Sings) Kindel, la-la-la, siz a vindel.” And I says, “Who wrote it?”  Ariel.  Because he had worked with us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3323.0,3342.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Ida Kaminska’s company in Poland was not a musical group, though, was it?\n\nLUX:  I think she did some musicals, too.\n\nLEVIN:  She did it?\n\nLUX:  She may have.\n\nLEVIN:  Do you know?\n\nSEROTA:  I don’t know.  After all, was it — her brother was a musician, he was a violinist.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  He played…\n\nSEROTA:  And he composed.\n\nLUX:  But he was, he was the first violinist in the Israeli Symphony.  Yeah, I knew him.  Sure.  What was his first name again?\n\nSEROTA:  Josef.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3342.0,3365.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Joseph Kaminsky, that’s right. But I have — there are pictures, there’s a picture in Pesach’s book of Ester Ruchel.  He played with Ester Ruchel when he was a young, very young man, in Kovna. The picture of Ester Ruchel, she was gorgeous. \n\nLUX:  Big orchestras.\n\nLevin: Let me ask you about\n\nLEVIN:  How big was the orchestra?\n\nLUX:  Big orchestras.\n\nSEROTA:  (INAUDIBLE).","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3365.0,3394.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Do you know that my husband talks about the Liberty Theater, in Brooklyn?  And they did The Goldene Soldat, with Michel Michalesko.  The orchestra rose, the pit rose like in the Paramount Theater.  Oh, there’s a wonderful story in the book about that show.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3394.0,3413.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How big?  Roughly, what kind of size are we talking about — the orchestra?\n\nLUX:  Maybe 16 people.  That I remember in the…\n\nLEVIN:  Sixteen, 18.\n\nLUX:  Sixteen, 18 — something like that.\n\nLEVIN:  But not, never, say, had an orchestra of 30 people, let’s say.  Sixteen — that was big, already.\n\nLUX:  With 32 we sang in Alhambra in Paris.\n\nLEVIN:  But in the American Yiddish theater?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Sixteen would be considered big, already.  Am I correct?\n\nLUX:  About 16, 18 people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3413.0,3439.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  That’s big.\n\nSEROTA:  And how big would the chorus be, if you had a show with a chorus?\n\nLUX:  You know, Gene Barry was in the chorus…\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  …with Menasha Skulnik?\n\nLEVIN:  I heard — Seymour said that.\n\nLUX:  Yes?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  We used to meet, the youngsters used to meet at the Royale in the afternoon.  Because the older people met at night.\n\nLEVIN:  At the Café Royale.\n\nLUX:  Yeah, the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3439.0,3457.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Does anyone have a picture of the inside of the Café Royale?\n\nLEVIN:  Well, there must be.  They did the show — Café Crown.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  They didn’t do it any justice, no.\n\nLEVIN:  Terrible show.  But it doesn’t give you the feeling of what the Royale was.\n\nLUX:  No.  I have a chapter on it Pesach’s book, about the Café Royale.\n\nLEVIN:  There must be — you’re looking for a picture?  We could use a picture.  If you come across a picture, for our project, an interior picture…\n\nLUX:  I haven’t seen…\n\nSEROTA:  ‘Cause there is a drawing that Hirschfield made, for the publicity of the show.\n\nLEVIN:  I saw that.\n\nSEROTA:  Café Crown.\n\nLEVIN:  I saw that.  But it’s not…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3457.0,3488.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  It wasn’t, it wasn’t exactly that.\n\nLEVIN:  No.\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nSEROTA:  No.  But just in terms of illustration.\n\nLUX:  I used to, that was my dining room.  We lived a block away.\n\nSEROTA:  Jack Craft, I think, was the playwright.\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nSEROTA:  Craft.\n\nLEVIN:  It doesn’t matter.  Look — for that matter, it wouldn’t hurt to have a picture of the inside of the Actors Union, but in the days — remember the days when, on 7th Street, when the Hebrew Actors Union had a café?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  It’s, it isn’t there now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3488.0,3511.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  We had a restaurant on the first floor.  But in my husband’s days, when he joined the union, there was a café downstairs.\n\nAnd he tells, he, we write about his, when he rehearsed — they called it “rehearsal.”  It was audition.  And the audience sat there, all the actors.  And if — a, buffe comicke would not give another buffe comedian a yes.  He gave him a no. And Pesach was appearing at the Grand Street Theater then, in — you’ve got to read the book.  And in the afternoon, he had a — between shows, there were three shows a day.  He had to come to rehearse, and then he had to run back.  And when he came back in the evening, he found out, he learned that, he had fallen through — he had, they didn’t pass him. And so, this group of young comedians was standing there by the downstairs.  There was a bar.\n\nLEVIN:  Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3511.0,3569.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And they said, “Nu?  You were a wise guy?  You said you didn’t care.  So, we fixed,” something like that.\n\nAnd he wanted to turn around, and somebody at the bar says to him, “Burstein, come on.  Ignore them.  Come over here, have a schnapps with me.”  It was Paul Muni.  It was Muni (INAUDIBLE). Schwartz was, was failed once.  Stella Adler failed.  And Pesach kept me out of the country every time there was rehearsal in the union, so that I shouldn’t rehearse. And say, the ten percent, you paid the union ten percent of your wages.  Supposedly, they were your, your agent.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3569.0,3611.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Right.\n\nLUX:  But if you were a star, you didn’t — Schwartz didn’t belong to the union, for many years.\n\nLEVIN:  But eventually, he did.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Then, there was…\n\nLUX:  But if you were a star, you didn’t have to be a union person.\n\nLEVIN:  What about vocal training?  Did you take voice lessons?\n\nLUX:  I took voice.  I think a lot of people did.  But there were some that just had naturally good voices.\n\nLEVIN:  See, we can’t tell from…  From the records, you can’t tell.  Because they’re too old.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3611.0,3640.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Madam Prager.\n\nLEVIN:  You can’t…\n\nLUX:  Whom are you talking about, for example?\n\nLEVIN:  No, I’m talking about, it was a different kind of, let’s say, a female voice.  It was a different approach to singing, from the later, Broadway show type of singing.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  But in Yiddish theater, if you were a leading lady, you had to be a prima donna.\n\nLEVIN:  Okay.\n\nLUX:  I had a big voice.\n\nLEVIN:  And you sang, would you say you sang operatically?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Not show-type singing, but operatic-type singing, would you say?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3640.0,3670.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  They wrote songs like that.\n\nLEVIN:  People like Nellie Casman, for example.\n\nLUX:  Oh, well, she was a different genre completely.\n\nLEVIN:  Who was, who were the best of the, let’s say, if you could pick four or five female singers, sopranos…\n\nSEROTA:  Fanya Rubinoff…\n\nLEVIN:  …tenors?\n\nLUX:  Well, Fanya came from, after the war.\n\nSEROTA:  But she was a singer.  She wasn’t a…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3670.0,3692.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  But there was Betty Siminoff, who had a tremendous voice.  There was Lucy Levine.  Big voice.\n\nLEVIN:  What about Kadison?\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Kadison was not really a great singer.  Kadison?\n\nLUX:  Luba?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Luba was not a singer.\n\nLEVIN:  But she attempted songs.\n\nLUX:  She spoke a song.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3692.0,3710.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  What about — did Sophie Breslau…\n\nLUX:  There was…\n\nSEROTA:  No, no.  She was a Metropolitan Opera singer.\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Sophie Breslau.  She didn’t do any theatrical.\n\nLUX:  Sophie who?  Tucker?\n\nLEVIN:  Breslau.\n\nLUX:  I never heard the name.\n\nSEROTA:  She was a Metropolitan Opera singer, and she sang a couple of Yiddish songs.  But she did some Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  No.  Not in my theater.  She didn’t.  There was Betty Simonov, there was Paula Lubelsk, that came from Poland.  There was — who else was there?\n\nSEROTA:  Fannie Lubritsky?\n\nLUX:  Fannie Lubritsky had a big voice.  And Gertie Bullman had a big voice.\n\nSEROTA:  Bella Meisel?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3710.0,3745.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Bella Meisel.  Now, you said it.\n\nLEVIN:  All right.  Now, those people — the six names there…\n\nLUX:  Those were the prima donnas.\n\nLEVIN:  Bella Meisel had a very high voice.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Lucy, Lucy had a higher voice.  Lucy…\n\nLEVIN:  There are no complete recordings of these.\n\nLUX:  And Betty Siminoff had the best voice of all.\n\nLEVIN:  All right.\n\nLUX:  But she was squat and not very pretty.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3745.0,3766.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And today, that wouldn’t matter so much.  But…\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Although it still matters, to some extent.  But, I mean, Helen Traubel…\n\nLUX:  What?  It’s…\n\nLEVIN:  …was rejected from the Metropolitan Opera, because she was too big.  But of course, Jessye Norman’s twice her size.\n\nLUX:  Well, that, it’s, it’s a different, a different profession.\n\nSEROTA:  Helen Traubel was not in musical comedy.\n\nLUX:  It’s a different profession.\n\nSEROTA:  Although she was.\n\nLEVIN:  Actually, she wound up her days very sadly, singing at the, at the Drake Hotel, in the cabaret there.  But in any case…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3766.0,3791.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Those were the, the, the better-known prima donnas.\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, yeah.  Is there a recording of Simonoff?\n\nLUX:  There may be.  Seymour may know.\n\nLEVIN:  But I mean, a commercial recording — there was none.\n\nSEROTA:  Maybe.\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nSEROTA:  There might be.  There might be.  I don’t know.\n\nLUX:  No.  She sang with Rumshinsky a lot.  She sang in the, the, big, old…\n\nSEROTA:  Anna Hoffman.\n\nLEVIN:  See, if you go to get…\n\nLUX:  I, I don’t remember her.\n\nLEVIN:  If you…\n\nLUX:  I remember her.  I, I, as a little girl, that…\n\nLEVIN:  But if you go to buy, even 25 years ago, whatever records you could get, of Yiddish theater…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3791.0,3823.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, I have a lot of material at home.  That’s the reason I can do these programs.\n\nLEVIN:  But it’s not going to have those names on it.  It will have Miriam and Seymour.\n\nSEROTA:  Miriam, by the way…\n\nLUX:  Miriam had a gorgeous…\n\nSEROTA:  When Miriam made her debut in Poland…\n\nLUX:  Miriam had a beautiful voice.\n\nSEROTA:  …in The Purim Jester, at that time, she had a beautiful voice.\n\nLUX:  Right.\n\nSEROTA:  Do you know who wrote the music for that movie?  Nicholas Brodszky.  And after he did that movie, he went to Hollywood and wrote Be My Love for Mario Lanza.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3823.0,3847.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Really?\n\nSEROTA:  But before the war, he was in Poland, and he wrote the music for that show…\n\nLUX:  We were in Poland when she made that movie.\n\nSEROTA:  Her voice was beautiful then.\n\nLEVIN:  What I’m trying to get at is the seriousness of the voices.  And you’re telling me somebody like Simonov was a serious singer.\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Could have sung anything else — classical.\n\nLUX:  Classic, too, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  We have to find recordings.  If there is such a thing.  There probably isn’t such a thing.\n\nLUX:  Who knows?\n\nLEVIN:  ‘Cause it’s very old.  And what about among the men?\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Among the men.\n\nLUX:  Among the men, there was — ah, Willie — wait a minute.\n\nSEROTA:  Schwartz.\n\nLUX:  Willie Schwartz.  Willie Schwartz has a fleet of taxis later, in Miami.  He lost his voice.  They said Rumshinsky ruined his voice.  He wrote too high for him.\n\nSEROTA:  Irving Grossman…\n\nLUX:  Irving Grossman.\n\nSEROTA:  …had a very nice voice.\n\nLUX:  Irving Grossman.\n\nLEVIN:  Classical voices.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3847.0,3878.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Classical.  When they came to the Jewish theater, when they played, sang in the Jewish theater, they had to sing different, really couldn’t sing in a classical style.  They had to sing in an operetta style, like romance.\n\nLEVIN:  (INAUDIBLE) classical style.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  In other words, if you…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3878.0,3894.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  There was Willie Schwartz, there was Irving Grossman, there was — who else?\n\nLEVIN:  No, even if…\n\nLUX:  Pesach — my Pesach had a tremendous voice.\n\nSEROTA:  Lebedeff had a beautiful voice.\n\nLUX:  Yeah, Lebedeff.\n\nSEROTA:  Lebedeff.\n\nLUX:  Lebedeff’s voice started with…\n\nLEVIN:  But nobody played Lebedeff, except for Rumania Rumania…\n\nSEROTA:  No, no, no.  He had a lot of songs with very — he had a very…\n\nLUX:  Lebedeff has….  I had a record — my son took it away with, when Israel was born.  Lebedeff wrote a song, (sings) Israel, Israel….  And he’s on it.  And Al Jolson is on the other side, with an Israeli song.  I don’t remember.  (Sings)  Sing a song of Israel — something like that.  And my son took it away again.  He helps himself to whatever he wants.  But I had — it was a little, a small record.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3894.0,3933.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Uh…\n\nLUX:  My son — I just remembered, he took away, he did Barnum! in Holland, in Dutch, for a whole year.  You know, we had a radio show, a TV show in Holland.  The Mike Burstein Show.  They brought Chita Rivera, they brought Ben Vereen, from the States. In fact, Chita was responsible for getting him into Barnum!  She recommended him for Barnum!  And they brought him from Israel.\n\nLEVIN:  Who…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3933.0,3960.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, incidently — yeah, my son told me this morning, he’s nominated for an award in Florida.  Carbonell — something like that.  A Carbonell Award, as best actor in a musical for the year.  He did Kurt Weill last season, in From Berlin to Broadway.\n\nSEROTA:  Did you know Leon Gold?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3960.0,3979.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, Leon Gold!  Ah!  Good for you!  Leon Gold was in katerinshtshik with me.  And he had a big voice.  It — sure, Olshanetsky wrote for him. Then he wrote, he sang this, and then he sang a, a song that Seymour sang afterwards — (sings) Mirele, la, la, la, la la….  You know, that was written for, whom it was written for?\n\nSEROTA:  Jan?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3979.0,4004.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  You, Mirele from Belz was written for Isa Kremer.\n\nSEROTA:  Yeah, she was in the show very briefly.\n\nLUX:  She was Mirele.  And that’s where Belz comes from.\n\nLEVIN:  But she didn’t sing the song Mirele.  She was…\n\nLUX:  No, no.  Leon Gold sang Mirele.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And then, Leon Gold sang in the katerinshtshik.  He was in love with Luba Kadison, and he sang, oh — (sings) Masha, dein Yiddish….\n\nI have the whole score, because we bought the play, later.  We did it in, in Israel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4004.0,4034.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Whose music is that?\n\nLUX:  Olshanetsky.  Der katerinshtshik.  But we called it, we called it — you can’t use original names in Israel.  They don’t go for that.  We had, we had to call that (SOUNDS LIKE The Fayle Cu Mishpucha), I remember.\n\nWell, my whole family played in it — all four of us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4034.0,4051.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Why can’t you use the original names?\n\nLUX:  Der katerinshtshik.\n\nLEVIN:  No.  Why couldn’t you use that in Israel?\n\nLUX:  I don’t know.  You know, we had, we did a play called (SOUNDS LIKE De Meidna Sneiden).  And…\n\nSEROTA:  That’s Rumshinsky’s?\n\nLEVIN:  Rumshinsky’s, isn’t it?  With the…\n\nLUX:  Not that one.  It was something else, and we called it — it was, you have to think of a name to please the audience, in Israel.  Because you had a very simple audience, for a long time.  You had the Rumanians, especially.  They came from the small towns.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4051.0,4074.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And they used to come to the box office and say, “What is it?  Vus maydis?  Erenes vus?”  They understand — we had to change.  Yeah.\n\nWhen we started The Megile of Itzik Manger — you, you know The, The Megile?\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4074.0,4091.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  All right.  We started The Megileh.  And my daughter was just get, got, getting married, at that time.  We were all booked in for The Megile. Pesach said, “Kinder, we’re leaving the operettas and the melodramas.  We’re going to play Itzik Manger.” And then, her wedding took place, and we had to take somebody else in, in her place.  But we started it.  And — in Jaffa — in Jaffa, we started it.  And in Hammam, which was a Turkish, Turkish bath, a hundred years ago.  We sat on little stools. The audience that generally came to us, to all our shows, came, and didn’t like it.  They said, “Vus ist dis fura mein?  Vus ist Manger?”  And we thought, we’re closing. Until — the producers were Israelis.  Hebrew people — not, not Jewish-speaking people.  And they said, “Don’t be silly.  Wait.  Wait till we’re, we’re not opening yet.” It took a month till we did the premiere, the opening.  In my life, I will never forget it.  The whole Israeli press was there.  In fact, and there were 60 newspapers, at that time.  And Gamzu, who was chief — his son is now…\n\nLEVIN:  In the Consulate, here?\n\nLUX:  Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4091.0,4168.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Well, everybody was afraid of Gamzu.  He was the critic there. After, at the last curtain, hats were flying in the air.  I never saw anything like it in my life.  I never experienced anything like it in my life. And then, The Megile first started.  And the youth, the Hebrew youth, began to come to it.  Because Mike narrated every song beforehand, in Hebrew.  He gave all the narration in Hebrew. And I never — in the Yiddish theater, I never saw two youngsters sitting, keppele to keppele like this, during the love songs.  (SOUNDS LIKE Or fasci de fasci vis estele malke). We played — we never got tired of doing The Megile.  We must have done about a thousand performances.  Then we were brought to Argentina, then to Broadway.  And then to South Africa.  And then, back to Israel, where we renewed it — played it again. And we lost our simple audience.  Our regular Yiddish audience we lost, when we began to play The Megile. Then, my son went into the Hebrew theater, and we did a play by ourselves, my husband and I.  We, we were not successful. First of all, they used to say, they said, “Oh, via duz a Yid?” And Pesach, so he says, “Perel ma gitta mit azi?  In vica gittach mit azi?” And then, the simple audience went to Merry Salyano.  She satisfied them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4168.0,4260.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  What happened to her?\n\nLUX:  See?  She’s, lives in Jersey, in Jersey.  She’s raising her children.\n\nLEVIN:  Raising her children?\n\nLUX:  And she doesn’t want to play theater any more.  Mmm?\n\nLEVIN:  Raising her grandchildren, you mean?\n\nLUX:  Oh, I think no.  Her oldest child just got married — he’s laughing.\n\nLEVIN:  But she’s not…\n\nLUX:  I don’t know.  She’s, she should be about 60, something like that.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  That’s what I would think.  I mean she used to do the annual play.  You know, there was the annual show here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4260.0,4286.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  It ran in the fall for a few months.  I forget what the names were.  You know, in the ‘70s, in the, in the ‘80s, for example.\n\nLUX:  No, I don’t.\n\nLEVIN:  With Merry Solyano.\n\nLUX:  Yeah?\n\nLEVIN:  But she doesn’t do anything anymore, does she?\n\nLUX:  Not that I know of.  I think she doesn’t want to.  She grew a little heavier, and…\n\nLEVIN:  What happened to Halpern?  The fellow in the Israel, a Yiddish actor.\n\nLUX:  Oh, he’s…\n\nLEVIN:  A comic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4286.0,4314.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  He — yeah.  He played with us his first season, when he came from Rumania.  He played with us when we came in ’62.  He played with us, then.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean, he did…\n\nLUX:  Yankele Halpern.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  I understand he just had a heart attack, or something.\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, really?\n\nLEVIN:  He had a kind of a Menashe Skulnik imitation he used to do.  Or was he…\n\nLUX:  Maybe he had a role like that here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4314.0,4337.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In those…\n\nLUX:  I have him on recordings with us from Israel.  I have a, I have, really, a lot of stuff.  That’s why I can do programs.\n\nAnd right now, I’m preparing a show on an actress that isn’t even known in this country.  Chayele Shiffer.\n\nSEROTA:  She made records in Israel.\n\nLEVIN:  (INAUDIBLE).\n\nSEROTA:  She made records on Markovitch.\n\nLUX:  That’s right.  She (INAUDIBLE).\n\nSEROTA:  She was a decent singer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4337.0,4360.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  And her daughter is a concert pianist in Israel.  I’m using one of her, a Chopin composition.\n\nLEVIN:  When you say that you’re preparing shows, now, these shows that you do…\n\nLUX:  Yes.  I write out the biography of the person and insert their material.\n\nLEVIN:  Songs?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  Did the same with Pesach’s life, I did the same with my son’s life, with Bruce, myself.\n\nLEVIN:  Bruce, meaning Bruce…\n\nLUX:  Bruce Adler.  And I did Manger’s life, and when Manger came to Israel…\n\nLEVIN:  Where do you do these shows, for example?\n\nLUX:  For The Forward Hour.  That’s the only place.\n\nLEVIN:  For radio.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4360.0,4395.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  For radio.\n\nLEVIN:  And they’re still broadcasting them now?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Do you ever do them in person?\n\nLUX:  Well, I did a one-woman show, for a number of years.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  My memories of the wonderful world of Yiddish theater.  I even have a video of it.  And then, I have a video of the show I did with Sarah Cohen, Sarah Blacher Cohen, in Albany. And then, of course, I have videos of A Hassane Shtetl that I played with my son in Israel.  We played it ten years ago.  Right after Pesach passed away.  Mike went into Pesach’s…. And then we — he’s a very big name in Israel.  But there was no sense in him remaining there.  We didn’t want him to remain there.  He could, he couldn’t go any further than he already went there. He did three Kuni Leml Pictures.  With Kuni Leml, and then he did Kuni Leml in, in Tel Aviv and Kuni Leml in Cairo.  He just did a picture about the Mossad in Israel.  He plays a chief of the Mossad. Anyway, he was on the first Law and Order program that they, that, the first of the season, a couple of weeks ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4395.0,4462.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Did you know Meyer Steinwurtzel?\n\nLUX:  Of course.\n\nSEROTA:  How was he?\n\nLUX:  Wait a minute.  He was a singer.\n\nSEROTA:  Right.\n\nLUX:  On radio.  The names he remembers.\n\nSEROTA:  A tenor.\n\nLUX:  You’re bringing up the whole past.  I’m thinking of the name of this other singer.  His wife was his pianist.  She just died, recently.  She was a member of our club, the Artists’ Club.  You ever been up there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4462.0,4488.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You mean, at the…\n\nLUX:  The Yiddish Artists’ Group?\n\nLEVIN:  …the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance?\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\nLUX:  Not the Alliance.  The theater upstairs.\n\nLEVIN:  Upstairs.\n\nLUX:  In the club.\n\nLEVIN:  We did a program there.\n\nLUX:  When?\n\nLEVIN:  We did it from there two years ago, three years ago.  With Seymour.  And Zalman.  Collin was up there.\n\nLUX:  They did one also about two years ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4488.0,4509.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And Miriam.  Miriam was there.\n\nLUX:  Before they were in — who was it that did it?\n\nLEVIN:  That’s something else.  But we did it…\n\nLUX:  They did — my son and Bruce, together, sang.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s something else.\n\nLUX:  Who did that?  I was there, too.\n\nLEVIN:  A film or a show?\n\nLUX:  A video.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4509.0,4526.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I don’t know what that would be.\n\nLUX:  Oh!  That was the same, my same guys from Israel came in.  That are doing a documentary about our family.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  Yeah.  No, but this was, we did…\n\nLUX:  This Arnon and, Arnon Goldfinger.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  In fact, Miriam and…\n\nLUX:  And Seymour?\n\nLEVIN:  …and Seymour sang together.  It was probably the last time they ever sang together.  They did Gigi in Yiddish.  You know, that business.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4526.0,4552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Tea for Two, they would do, in Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  Tea for Two in Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nSEROTA:  Seymour gave me a bunch of programs that he did in the early ‘50s, late ‘40s.  He has a medley from Oklahoma! in Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  Sure.\n\nSEROTA:  How Are Things in Gloccamorra?\n\nLUX:  You know, I had a program with Sholem Rosen, Rosen, uh…\n\nLEVIN:  Rubinstein.\n\nLUX:  Rubinstein.  My show was called At Home with Lillian Lux.  And I took it because they gave me carte blanche.  We had a theater then — we had the Clinton.  I could do publicity, and I had people on.  It was 15 minutes, but it was at home, in my…The bell would ring, and one announcer was David Opertasher, who was announcer at WEVD then.  And Tober, Chaim Tober was also an announcer. And so, what did I, I used to do?  I used to, had three songs on the program.  Translations from English songs into Yiddish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4552.0,4605.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, I’m not sure I understand…\n\nLUX:  I’m In Love, and…\n\nLEVIN:  I think there are enough good Yiddish songs that…\n\nLUX:  A lot of songs that I did, I used to translate into Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  So you’re still active?\n\nLUX:  Of course!\n\nLEVIN:  We would love to be able to put together some of your memorabilia.  We’ll come over to your home, or Barry, next time, when he’s in New York.  To fill out this program.\n\nLUX:  My home is a museum.\n\nLEVIN:  So we’ll have to come there then, so, and see what you’ve got.\n\nLUX:  I laughed when Dan said today, “Can you bring something?”  I says, “What do you mean, bring?”\n\nLEVIN:  We should probably do something with Michael, as well.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4605.0,4643.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Michael’s on the road.\n\nLEVIN:  Is he?\n\nLUX:  You have to go to, the closest you’ll get him is Boston tomorrow.\n\nLEVIN:  Doesn’t he go to California?  I mean, over the next year, if he’s ever in California.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Does he ever play Los Angeles?\n\nLUX:  Sure.\n\nLEVIN:  So, we can get him over there.\n\nLUX:  We brought the twins in 1964.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean now.  Is he…\n\nLUX:  He is in Los Angeles a lot.  He met his wife down in Los Angeles.  My Tzionele.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4643.0,4668.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It’s been wonderful talking with you.  And it’s just the beginning, because we’ll come go over some of the material you have for this project.\n\nLUX:  Okay.\n\nLEVIN:  And it’s been a pleasure.  And I’ll talk to Michael as well.  We’ll keep in touch.  So I want to, I’ve spoken to him before, but not for a long time.\n\nLUX:  You spoke to Mike?\n\nLEVIN:  Eight years ago, nine years ago.\n\nLUX:  He was just in Los Angeles recently.  You live in Los Angeles?\n\nLEVIN:  No.  But the Foundation is there. But anyway, I want to thank you for today’s been a real pleasure, and a good start.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4668.0,4698.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/24364/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, we just talked.  That’s all.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4698.0,4710.66998"}]},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Interview with Lillian Lux [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=0.0,16.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You’re born in America?\n\nLUX: That’s right.\n\nLEVIN: Which makes you probably one of the first of the Yiddish theater stars to be born in America, no?  Most of the…\n\nLUX: Then there were others.  Oh, yes.\n\nLEVIN: I mean, Molly Picon…\n\nLUX: Molly was born here.\n\nLEVIN: …she was born here.\n\nLUX: Diana Goldberg was born here.\n\nSEROTA: Irving Grossman was born here.\n\nLUX: Irving Grossman — Gertie Bulman was born here.\n\nLEVIN: Were your parents involved in the theater?\n\nLUX: No, no, no.  But my father was a Yiddishist, and an idealist, and he used to teach me recitations.  I was small.  I used to recite Sholem Aleichem and Flug, and — and then he brought me to Morrie Schwartz.  And Schwartz was looking for a little girl.\n\nLEVIN:  Your father came from…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=16.0,59.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: My father came, my parents — both parents — came from Russia.\n\nLEVIN: Where?\n\nLUX:  From between Odessa and Kiev, a little town called Trostyanets.\n\nLEVIN: It was Ukraine?\n\nLUX: Ukraine.  And my ancestors were all Hasidim.  As a matter of fact, the chair that’s in the Breslov Institute in Jerusalem was carved by my great-great-grandfather for Reb Nachman.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=59.0,92.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So they were not only Hasidim…\n\nLUX: They are…\n\nLEVIN: They were Toite Hasidim.\n\nLUX: Yes. They, they, we’re related, we’re somehow related to Reb Nachman of Breslov.\n\nLEVIN: Which is where?  Uman, wasn’t it?\n\nLUX: Uman, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Uman, Uman.\n\nLUX: Yes. We signed, my family signed a document, because we’re trying very hard to, to bring the remains of Reb Nachman to Jerusalem, and the government’s having trouble.  They can’t bring him.\n\nLEVIN:  I know.  There’s a big, now, there’s a big…\n\nLUX:  Well, we’re involved in that.  And — too bad I didn’t bring pictures of my daughter with the chair.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=92.0,128.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Well, we’ll get that in.  We’ll get it in afterwards.\n\nLUX:  My daughter is in a new book that just came out about the Rebbe.  Diamonds of the Rebbe, it’s called.  About celebrities who were close to him.  And my daughter is in that.\n\nLEVIN:  And your daughter’s name is…\n\nLUX:  Susan Roth.\n\nLEVIN:  So your, on one side you were from a Hasidic…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=128.0,155.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Yes.  We, we stem from a Hasidic background.\n\nLEVIN: …background.  And your father came, your parents came from Europe?\n\nLUX:  My, my parents were cousins, incidentally.\n\nLEVIN:  First cousins?\n\nLUX:  Their fathers were brothers, but from the same father, not from the same mother.\n\nLEVIN:  It was very common.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=155.0,172.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Mr. Serota’s family has such a…\n\nLUX:  The, the first wife died, he married — and the, my mother’s father was the son from the first wife.  And then, my father’s father was from the second wife.\n\nLEVIN:  Yes, I knew a…\n\nLUX:  But they didn’t know each other until they came to America.\n\nLEVIN: …big family.\n\nLUX:  Because my mother was also born in that little town, but she was taken to Odessa when she was six months old, and grew up in it.  And was raised — until she was 16.  She came to America.\n\nLEVIN:  I once knew somebody…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=172.0,199.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  She was 12 — no, she was 12, when she came to America.\n\nLEVIN: …who knows, who, he used to say that he was his own brother-in-law.  And how could you figure out…\n\nLUX:  Well, my, my mother was the niece of her mother-in-law.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah. That’s how he went.\n\nLUX:  And all my father’s brothers and sisters and my mother’s brothers were all cousins. It’s beyond us.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=199.0,220.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  …you did not come from a, hardly a theatrical background, if it was a Hasidic background.\n\nLUX:  No, no, no.\n\nLEVIN:  And how did you then get into, know you could sing?  Know you could act?\n\nLUX:  Well, Morrie — my father brought me to Morrie Schwartz then, because he was looking for a little girl to play in Kiddush Hashem.\n\nLEVIN:  Your father didn’t object?\n\nLUX:  He wanted me to be an actress.  And…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=220.0,246.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You say he was a Yiddishist.  Let’s just stop there for a moment.  I mean, in the sense of involved with Yiddish literature, organizations, Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX:  Well, I’ll get to that. I didn’t speak Yiddish well then, yet.  At that age. The recitations that my father taught me I knew. But then — and, and also, at the same time while I was in Kiddush Hashem, my father arranged for me to be on the Tuk program, that Sholom Rubinstein’s father was conducting.  That was before the Forverts program, the Forward Hour.  And it was, I remember, in the Steinway Building, on WABC.  And Tzvi wrote — his father…\n\nLEVIN:  Rubinstein?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=246.0,291.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Tzvi Rubinstein.  I remember he ran all over the building looking for a soap box for me, because I couldn’t reach the microphone.  I was too small for the microphone, which was not adjustable. And on that same program — I’m trying to remember his name — we became related yet later, because my, my mother made a shidduch between her cousin’s son and his daughter.  The man that wrote Yiddele Dein Kleine Ist A Pintele Yid, and, and he wrote — Shmulewitz. Shmul, Solomon Shmulewitz.\n\nLEVIN:  Solomon Shmulewitz.\n\nLUX: Right.\n\nLEVIN:  Later was known as Solomon Small.\n\nLUX: Small. Dorothy Small was his daughter.  She called herself Small. Dorothy Small.  And we met them at that program.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=291.0,340.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: I remember Abe Ellstein was at the piano.  He was a young man. He ran — incidentally, Schwartz had a studio for the children that were playing in the show.  And in this studio, we learned diction.  I should have brought along the script.  This is a script of — I’m telling you the script of, of the program.  I did it, that myself, about two months ago.  We learned diction. What was his name again?  He was always with Jacob Anami.  And make-up by Shaul Raskin, who was a great artist, and Lily Shapiro.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=340.0,379.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Mestal?  Wasn’t there a Mestal?\n\nLUX:  Mestal.\n\nLEVIN:  Wait a second.  Shaul Raskin.  That’s not the same one, the illustrator, of (SOUNDS LIKE The Yagoda) and the…\n\nLUX:  Right, right, right.\n\nLEVIN:  And another one that’s even better than The Yagoda, which is the…\n\nSEROTA:  (SOUNDS LIKE The Pigyovotz).\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  He taught us make-up.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=379.0,393.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  He actually was also a make-up artist?\n\nLUX: Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you know that?\n\nLUX:  And Lily Shapiro, Lily Shapiro taught us dancing.  And Mendel Elkin — you know the name?\n\nLEVIN: Sure.\n\nLUX:  Mendel was our director.  And in the cast with me was a girl, a woman — I keep up a friendship to this very day, Helen Beverley.  Who married Lee J. Cobb.  Right.  My…\n\nSEROTA:  She was the co-star in the Vilna Balabessel.  With Moishe Oysher.\n\nLUX:  Before that.\n\nSEROTA:  Well, obviously, right.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=393.0,428.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  When she was in, in the movie, in all those pictures, I was in Europe with Pesach, and in Argentina. And there was, he produced a show, a musical, which Abe Ellstein wrote the music for.  It was his first musical.  He must have been then about 19 or 20 years old.  Called Boom un Draydl. Years later, when we were in South Africa with The Megille of Itsik Manger [di megile fun Itzik Manger], we came to a Jewish school.  We were invited.  And in the halls, there were pictures of all the productions that they had done.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=428.0,466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: My son spied a picture that said, “This is mom look Boom un Draydl.”  That was the only other place I had seen it. And so, I sang, and, and we sang and danced in those, in the shows.  I played the princess in di Goldene Kale. And then, when I was too tall for children roles — I remember there, also, at that time, I was about, I must have been about ten years old.  They brought me to Molly Picon.  Who was looking for somebody to play her little brother in the Dos Meydel fun Gestern — The Girl of Yesterday.  But when they brought me to Molly, I was taller than Molly.  At the age of ten.\n\nLEVIN:  What did the…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=466.0,506.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  So I did, I didn’t get the role.  But had I gotten the role, I would have met my future husband, who was in that cast.  Pesach played, Pesach Bernstein played with her in — it was in the Second Avenue Theater — Dos Meydel fun Gestern [amol].\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=506.0,522.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: And then, about the age of 12, I was as tall as I am today, and couldn’t play children parts anymore. So my father found a new profession for me — Yiddish radio.  We had the, more than a dozen Yiddish radio stations in those days.  WBNX, WLTH, WFOX — who remembers all the names?  And I used to sing, and I was a, I wrote sketches. About the same time, I remember my father — when I was about 13, my father had a hotel in Tannersville.  And on the social staff — of course, I was the prima donna already.  They put my hair up with a long dress, with earrings, and I sang. But on the staff were two young men.  One was Henry Rosenblatt — Yossele Rosenblatt’s son — and one was Harry Thomashevsky — Boris’ son. Now, later, I had found out that my husband had been brought to this country by Thomashevsky.  Thomashefsky brought him.  And so, they were on the social staff. And they made, they gave him a benefit, the two of them.  So they invited their two fathers, Yossele Rosenblatt and Boris Thomashevsky.  And I remember in the village, there was a — what do you call it?  Hung across the whole village in, on the canvas.  And it was so packed, I remember.  And I sang a song then.  Then they had come out. And my father used to bring me up all these songs — (sings) Beautiful love, you’re just the melody….  And Yossele loved — and then I began to study with, singing, with Henry.  He was a teacher.  He still teaches, I think.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=522.0,632.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.  He passed away.\n\nLUX:  Henry passed away?\n\nSEROTA:  About a year ago.\n\nLEVIN:  Less than a year.\n\nLUX:  Aw…\n\nLEVIN:  Around this December, or something like that.  Almost…\n\nLUX:  And I was going to call him.\n\nLEVIN:  He was 91.  Something like that.\n\nLUX:  Well, he was my teacher.  And I used to study to, singing in Yossele’s house. And, but at that time, he loved that song — Beautiful Love.  But he says, “I can’t sing about love.  I’m a hazzan.”  So I translated it for him.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=632.0,661.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I used to translate then.  Because, starting with Schwartz, I went to the Sholem Aleichem shul, and then the Sholem Aleichem mittel shul, and Camp Boiberik, and I became a Yiddishist.  Then I first learned the language.  You see?\n\nLEVIN:  So Yiddish was not the language of daily discourse in your home?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Your parents didn’t…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=661.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  No, no.  Because my parents came as children.  My mother came here at 12; my father at 13.  And…\n\nLEVIN:  And your parents didn’t — I mean, they weren’t involved with Workmen's Circle or…\n\nLUX:  No, no, no, no.\n\nLEVIN:  That was later, for you.\n\nLUX:  My father was an inventor.\n\nLEVIN:  An inventor?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  So I…\n\nLEVIN:  So who was the Arbeter Ring…\n\nLUX:  No — I was with the Sholem Aleichem branch…\n\nLEVIN:  Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX: …not with the Workmen’s Circle.  But in camp and in mittel shul, I, we were a, a group.  There was Dave, David Opatoshu, and Danny Leivick, Lavickson.\n\nLEVIN:  Is that the poet’s son? Lavick [Leivick] the poet?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=679.0,718.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Right, yes. And Auerbach’s son, Heshe.  And that was my, that was my group.\n\nLEVIN:  Who ran Camp Boiberik?  Was that under the…\n\nLUX:  Laib, Leibush Lehrer.  It was Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLEVIN:  But it was under the aegis of Sholem Aleichem.\n\nLUX: Sholem Aleichem Institute, yes.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And we just, just had a reunion, recently.\n\nLEVIN:  They still exist, don’t they?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Isn’t there?\n\nLUX:  No.  I don’t think…\n\nLEVIN:  Which is the camp where Zalman, still, they still…\n\nLUX:  That, that’s the Circle Lodge.  That’s the Workmen’s Circle.\n\nLEVIN:  Workmen’s Circle.\n\nLUX:  Yes. But Zalman’s mother and aunt were in Camp Boiberik with me.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=718.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I know.  Did they do extracts?  They played me some examples of Gilbert and Sullivan in Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you know that?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Well, when I, I — that’s where I met Trilling.  Ilya [Ilia] Trilling was music director.  And he produced Shulamis.  And they knew I was an actress, so I played Shulamis.  And then, when I came into…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=755.0,776.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The famous, you sang the famous…\n\nLUX: Sure.\n\nLEVIN: …the famous lead song from there, which is…\n\nLUX:  Sure.  (sings) Shabbes Yontif…\u003cinaudible\u003e. Then, in, when I entered — the same year, we entered, we all entered mittel shul, which was at Number One, Union Square, which is still standing there. And the graduating class — we were in the first grade.  And the graduating class was producing Shulamis.  And they didn’t have a Shulamis.  So they took me from the — Josh — you know Josh — he, he’s in with films.  His father played opposite me.  I forget his name.  Josh — what is his name?  He’s made quite a few documentaries.  Well, anyway…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=776.0,830.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Waletzky?\n\nLUX:  Hmmm?\n\nSEROTA:  Waletzky?\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Josh Waletzky.  His father played opposite me in, we were all youngsters together at that time. And meanwhile, my father was my agent.  I played in the, my first production professional when, as a grown-up, was at the Lyric Theater in Brooklyn. Yab, with Yablokoff. And in the middle of the season, I got a call from Michael Sachs, who was the manager of Second Avenue Theater.  That he was producing a big operetta, katerinshtshik. He had asked my father at the beginning of the season, he wanted — because I wasn’t in the union yet — for me to come in, in the chorus. My father says, “What do you mean, chorus?  She’s not a chorus girl.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=830.0,886.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But in the middle of the season, the Lyric broke up.  And Sachs says, “I’m enlarging the chorus for katerinshtshik. Would you like to come in?  In the middle of the week, you’ll play soubretz, you’ll play parts.  And this way, you’ll have the, the protection of the chorus union, you’ll be able to work in the theater.” I said yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, this union — you’re talking about the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX: Hebrew Actors Union.\n\nLEVIN:  You’re talking about the same one that’s down on Seventh Street?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nSEROTA:  The one that Seymour is the president of.\n\nLEVIN:  The one that Seymour is president. Now, the…\n\nLUX:  Seymour and I are the only original people, outside of those that came after the Holocaust, that are here now.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=886.0,922.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX: Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And the chorus was part of the Hebrew Actors Union?\n\nLUX:  Part of, part of the Hebrew Actors Union. Well, at any rate, the prima donna got sick.  It’s like the story of 42nd Street.  And they pushed me on in her role. Fannie Lubritsky — she was one of the, her sister was married to Irving Grossman. Goldie Lubritsky.  And the brother was married to Diana Goldberg.  So the brother-in-law and sister-in-law fell in love.\n\nLEVIN:  Irving and Dinah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=922.0,957.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And left the sister and brother.  But they had another sister, Fannie, who was a prima donna.\n\nLEVIN:  Who was David?  David Lubritsky?\n\nLUX:  Dave, he, he’s not alive anymore.\n\nSEROTA:  I’m sure not, because there was a record that was made…\n\nLUX:  David?\n\nSEROTA: …around 1920.  Of Fannie…\n\nLUX:  Yeah, he, he later married Esta Salzman.\n\nSEROTA:  Oh, Esta.\n\nLUX:  And they called themselves Lubin.  They shortened the name to Lubin.  She had, her son is about a week younger than my twins.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s not related to Harry Lubin?\n\nLUX:  Pardon me?\n\nLEVIN:  They’re not related to Harry Lubin?\n\nLUX:  No. No relation to Harry Lubin, no.\n\nSEROTA:  And Esta was Seymour’s co-star in a few movies.\n\nLUX:  Was she?\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.  In fact, she gets better billing than he does.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=957.0,1000.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  I didn’t know that.  I, I didn’t keep up with all the pictures .Well, at any rate, I played the lead.  I was fifteen-and-a-half years old then.  And Olshanetsky got into the pit afterwards and he looked at — I, sure, I used to stutter a little.  He says, “Who’s th-th-th-that?”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1000.0,1020.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Anyway, when I came into the Second Avenue Theater, I found Trilling was assisting Olshanetsky.  He was assistant conductor.  And he was teaching the chorus.  He taught the girls. That was the best thing I ever did, going into the chorus.  Every girl who wants to be in musical theater should, as a, it was a new world for me — running with the girls, with the coffee.  I didn’t like coffee up till then, but I forced myself, because everybody else was drinking coffee. But anyway, I did so well that I went on the road with them.  In Chicago, I got chicken pox.  At the World’s Fair then, and they had to send me home.  But Olshanetsky invited me up to the President Hotel, then, because of that appearance, where he was musical conductor.\n\nLEVIN:  Where was the President Hotel?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1020.0,1070.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Swan Lake, New York.\n\nLEVIN:  Up at…\n\nLUX:  And my partner there was Danny Kaye.  We worked together for two summers.  In fact, we hung out a lot after that.  But we came back to the city, Danny didn’t have a job.  And my father already arranged for me to appear in the Clinton Theater, on Clinton Street.  And that’s where I worked with Pesach for the first time.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1070.0,1094.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The first time you met him outside…\n\nLUX: That we played together, yes.  I knew him from the Café Royale, from….And Danny used to come to the theater every day and sit and wait for me until we finished.  Because we played what they called vaude — it wasn’t vaudeville.  It was condensed shows, with a picture in between.  So they, we’d do two a day or three a day.  And it was continuous, and you had to go out to eat.  So Danny Kaye used to sit and wait for me. In fact, when I — then, Pesach invited me to go to Argentina as his partner.  And of course, my parents objected very much, but they knew.  Guskin, of the union, told them.  He said, “If you want her to be an actress, she has a wonderful chance.  She’s going to Argentina now.  She’ll become a star.  And she, as an actress, she’ll have to travel all her life.” So, and they agreed.  And we had relatives in Argentina whom I stayed with.\n\nLEVIN:  What year was that?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1094.0,1159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  ’37.  And after eight months, I was supposed to come back to the States.  But Pesach got an engagement in Europe.  And we fell in love.  And I felt that this is my place.  This is my future.  And so, we got married in Uruguay.  And went to Europe.  And played Poland.  ’38, ’39.\nAnd until — we left Poland on the last boat.  Four days before Hitler came in.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1159.0,1196.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In September of ’39.\n\nLUX:  August.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean, but…\n\nLUX:  August 26th, we left Poland.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And thanks to an old acquaintance of my husband, we got out. The consul, the American consul. This is, this is something that’s, I thought it was, I thought it was a gag.  We came up to the American consulate, because I had a friend from, from mittel shul.  Oh, and she died recently.  She was a writer.  Mmmm — my, my memory is going.  She wrote about me in the book, in her book.  She was quite a famous writer.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1196.0,1239.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yiddish writer?\n\nLUX:  She wrote in English and in Yiddish.  She was married to a Yiddish writer, too.  Lucy Dawidowicz.\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, Lucy Davidovich.\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, she was more than a famous writer.  She was a famous historian.\n\nLUX:  Well, Lucy was working at the YIVO in Vilna [Wilno; Vilnius].  And she, she was in the graduating class when I was in first grade.  We knew each other because I had played Shulamis.  So we knew each other from mittel shul. And when we came with our company to Vilna, and my husband was very friendly with, with the, he was at the head of YIVO, his brother.\n\nSEROTA: Weinreich?\n\nLUX:  No.  His brother — my son met Weinreich.  Reyzen’s brother — Zalman Reisen (1887-1940).  Zalman Reisen. Headed YIVO in Vilna.\n\nLEVIN:  In Vilna.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1239.0,1292.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And he also was an editor of a newspaper.  And my husband was very friendly with him. So when we came, we found Lucy was his secretary.  And so, it was at, a yontif, you know.  And so, we wrote to each other all through my working in, in Poland.  Because we traveled all through Poland.  We were in Bialystok and in Krakow and then Trybunalski and all the little — Lodz.\n\nLEVIN:  What were…\n\nLUX:  Operettas.\n\nLEVIN:  You did operettas?\n\nLUX:  Operettas.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you do — when you say operettas, I mean, that was the code word, really, what we would call…\n\nLUX:  Shows that were written, shows that were written by Louis Freiman and Willie Siegel and…\n\nLEVIN: Ellstein.\n\nLUX: …Kalmanovitch, and…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1292.0,1344.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But written in America, mostly?\n\nLUX: Written in America.\n\nLEVIN:  And you were bringing them to Poland?\n\nLUX:  And we brought them Poland.  We brought the American-style operetta to Poland.\n\nLEVIN:  It’s important, you see, because the word “operetta” — it really is more like a, a Broadway show, a musical show.\n\nLUX:  Right.\n\nLEVIN:  It isn’t an operetta, really.\n\nLUX:  Well, there were, there were Viennese operettas, too.  I played (SOUNDS LIKE Sil Manchow Ashev, Princess.\n\nLEVIN:  In Yiddish?\n\nLUX:  In Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  Did you do…\n\nLUX:  I did the Yiddish translation.\n\nLEVIN:  You did it, yeah.  But you also did things like, things that were running on Second Avenue. Things that had been popular here.\n\nLUX: Mostly — yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Mostly…\n\nLUX:  Mostly show…\n\nLEVIN: Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib, come from any of those…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1344.0,1385.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Which, which?\n\nLEVIN:  Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib, for example.\n\nLUX:  Now, when I came into the katerinshtshik, Luba Kadison was singing Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib. Olshanetsky wrote it for Luba, and Luba was no singer.  She recited it, more or less. Now, when we went on the road, I had to sing it on the radio in every show — in every city.  Because we used to go to the Jewish radio stations immediately when we arrived in a new city.\n\nLEVIN:  And again, you were bringing them…\n\nLUX:  I was the first one to sing Ikh hob dikh tsufil lib outside of the theater.\n\nLEVIN:  In America.\n\nLUX: In America.  On the road.\n\nLEVIN: Outside of New York.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1385.0,1424.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Outside of New York, right. And in fact, when Pesach was in Europe before me — he used to go to Europe every year.  Because they used to play in the summertime.  So wintertime, he played in New York, and, and after Pesach, he’d go to Poland.  He was a very big name in Poland. So when Belz was written, he brought it to Poland.  He sang it.  So somebody went and published it without permission and put Pesach’s face on the cover, saying, “written by Pesach Burstein.” well, the trouble he had when he got back!  Because he knew nothing about it.  Those things happened.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1424.0,1466.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I’m curious, if you can recall this.  I mean, how much of the humor — because this was immigrant humor in America, to a large extent.  Or whether it was humor, or whether it was nostalgia, or both.  How much of that…\n\nLUX:  Well, most of the shows were written so that they started in Europe, and everybody went to America.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s right.\n\nLUX:  But we did Hasidic plays, as well.\n\nLEVIN:  But the Hasidic I can understand, but the music — but those weren’t musicals, were they?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1466.0,1491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Musicals.  Of course.\n\nLEVIN:  Give me an example of a…\n\nLUX:  A Hassane Shtetl [A Khasene in Shtetl] was written for my husband.\n\nLEVIN: Here.  Again, though, here, in America.\n\nLUX: Yes.  In, he started it in Toronto, I think.\n\nLEVIN:  But my question has always been…\n\nLUX:  My, my son just played his father’s role in A Hassane in Shtetl in Israel.\n\nLEVIN:  But the shows that took place here…\n\nLUX: Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Where the plot was here, where the plot had to do with the trials and tribulations of immigrants and first-generation, second-generation…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1491.0,1521.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, we…\n\nLEVIN: …Bronx humor, whatever.\n\nLUX: Pesach never bought shows like that, that wouldn’t fit in.\n\nLEVIN: Well, Belz, for example.  Could people — this is nostalgia for Belz.  But people in Belz didn’t…\n\nLUX:  You know, when they opened the Heritage Museum, my son and I were invited to sing.  We sang Belz. The Cardinal spoke first, and then Pataki, and then…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1521.0,1543.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I read about that.\n\nLUX:  Were you there?\n\nLEVIN: No.  But I read about it.\n\nLUX:  And then the, you know, Elie Wiesel, and Koch.  And then, they all sat in the first row, and Mike and I sang Belz.\n\nLEVIN:  I read about that.  But going in 1937, just, or whenever…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1543.0,1557.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/167","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: But they loved to sing operettas about America.  I, for example, played an American girl.  I came out and (sings) Hranga binga hagriese vi nu, benga hagriese vino.  And I would tap. Because my father told me immediately, “If you want to stay in the theater, you’ve got to study singing, and you’ve got to study dancing.  Either be the best or get out.” And I still say, you know, maybe they used to, people used to say to my husband, “Oh, your wife is so…”. I’d say, “Look.  If I didn’t think that I could stand next to Pesach and do just as well, I would sit home and koch lokshen.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1557.0,1595.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/168","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  How’s your lokshen?\n\nLEVIN:  You could do both.\n\nLUX:  I do both.\n\nLEVIN:  I haven’t had a good lokshen in a long time.  I’ll tell you right now.  I had one in Bloom’s in London, and it was a microwave…\n\nLUX: Well, I’m, I’m better in the acting department, I think, than in the cooking department.  But I did okay with, by my family.\n\nLEVIN:  Now all the actresses come with cooks.\n\nLUX:  We traveled, we traveled with, with the children since they were seven years old.  I said, “I don’t leave them anymore.”  We traveled with winter clothes and summer clothes, and children clothes, and, and books, and toys. And in every town we came, whether it was a hotel or whether it was an apartment, when we’d close the door at night, there was no more theater.  It was family. And they went to school — to 14 schools.  They went to school in Argentina, and Uruguay, and Brazil, and in Paris, and in Africa, in Johannesburg, and in Israel. Oh, my daughter is angry with me to this very day.  She said, “I had no childhood.” I says, “I did the best I could.” See, my son is a ham.  He loved it, and he stayed in the theater. He is very, very active. And my daughter is active in a different way. She wrote a book recently called Moses in the Twentieth Century. \n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1595.0,1669.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/169","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So now, anyway, we were stuck there in ’37.  And when you got out, you were fortunate enough to get out.\n\nLUX:  Well, I started to tell you.  I was writing to — Lucy and I were corresponding.  And we came back from a tour.  We were in Krakow and Drohobych and Turkin, and all of these places.  And Novaladomsk.  And we came back to Lodz.  We had a contract to open the following season in Warsaw, at the Scala Theater.  That would be after Yontif of ’39.And so, and I, I had letters from, I wanted to get back to the States.  But people around us said, “Don’t be foolish.  If there’ll be war” — they never believed that they — in Poland that there will be war.  “There’ll be war, it’ll be like in the first war.  There’ll be prosperity in Lodz.” ‘Cause Lodz, at that time, was better off than Warsaw.  Lodz was under the Germans.  I mean, something like — and Warsaw was under the Poles. But I said no.  We got back to Warsaw.  We had our things.  I had a letter from Lucy telling me that she had heard that the American ambassador, American embassy sent letters to American citizens to leave the country.  And they were withheld, the last minute.  So I fooled my husband. I said, “Look.  Lucy wrote me that everybody got letters, and we were on the road, evidently.  We didn’t get any letter.” So we went up to the American Consulate.  And we walked into the Consul. The moment he got our passports, he came out and started to embrace my husband.  “Mr. Burstein!”  I thought it was a joke.  He says, “Don’t you remember me?  Tom Wilson, Philadelphia!” This Tom Wilson had been a law student in Philadelphia, and had a Jewish roommate in college who used to bring him to the Standard Restaurant, which was right opposite the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1669.0,1788.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/170","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: And my husband was at the Arch Street Theater that season.  And Hymie Jacobson used to — all the actors used to come to eat in this Standard Restaurant across the street, and the students came. He with his Jewish friend. And Hymie Jacobson befriended these two boys, and he used to bring them backstage.  And he fell in love with my husband’s whistling. Pesach used to whistle on his fingers.  That was his shtempl — that was his…. And he never forgot him.  And we come up into — he was a, he’s the Consul in Warsaw.  And he says — so, of course, Pesach became very friendly right away.  He says, “Tell me, Tom, will they, you think there’ll be a war?”  He says, “We have a contract.” He says, “Look.”  He says, “You want to listen to me?  Go home. There won’t be a war, you’ll come back at, for the holidays.  If there’ll be a war, you’ll be home, you’ll be safe.” We had been out of the States already three or four years. He says, “On the other hand, if you stay, I can’t guarantee you that there won’t be the, won’t be a war.” At that time, this, this English guy with the umbrella — what was his name?\n\nSEROTA:  Chamberlain?\n\nLEVIN:  Chamberlain.  Neville Chamberlain.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1788.0,1865.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/171","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Came to Warsaw then, and Shmigley Ridge was president of the….  And it, it, it was hot.  I remember I had a letter from my grandfathers saying, “was ist mit dir?”  He says, “Bist du an American girl, everybody wants to come to America, and du liegst dort in Poland?” So we immediately went down to the Gidinya America line.  We had tickets.  ‘Cause I had told him, I remember I told him in Krakow, I said, “Why carry around money?  Let’s buy tickets.”  Steamship tickets.  So we went right down to the Polish American line for reservations. My husband and me. And they said, “You and who else?” Every ship was booked solid.  You couldn’t get on a ship.  Not only in Poland — the same thing was in France; same thing was in….And so — but they said that the Pulsutsky is leaving Tuesday from Tigin.  My husband said, “Oh,” he said, “I made three trips on the Pulsutsky.  I know the captain, I know the chief steward.  I gave two concerts,” he said, “on the ship.” He says, “Well, if you have acquaintance, you should take a chance, go.” We went home, we packed.  Took the boat train to Gidinya and got off the train and walked right into the arms of the chief steward.  And he says, “Panya Burstein, so panta lobish.”And he says, “I want, we have to get home.”  He said, “We have no reservation, we have no cabin.” He says, “Don’t worry.  For you, there’ll be a cabin.” It was luck.  And he also took away our zlotys, gave it back, gave us money back on the ship.  And of course, we got to the boat, went through customs, we had a cabin. And how do you thank him?  We said, “We’re going to do a concert.” Every, there were a lot of people that were traveling to the World’s Fair, then.  The World’s Fair was in New York.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1865.0,1975.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/172","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  ’39.\n\nLUX:  ’39.\n\nLEVIN:  But Chicago was ’37?\n\nSEROTA:  ’33.\n\nLEVIN:  ’33.\n\nSEROTA:  ’33 and ’34.\n\nLUX:  Then I remember there were, there were a lot of people that knew us from a, a lot of Jewish people from all over the — we had been playing all over the country.  And there was, I remember there was the boss of the biggest chocolate company — like Hershey’s, here — Hazzet, it was. He was on board ship. And so, when did we give the concert?  On September 1st. I remember, the captain waited until we finished, and then he went up on stage and announced that Poland had been attacked. A Yom Kippur — it became a Yom Kippur on the ship.  Then we traveled in black-out, they had. And when we got back to the States, I remember it was a Sunday.  The — it was such a fog, it was, in mid, the beginning of August, second week in August.  The East River was clouded.  We couldn’t see.  They told us the Queen Mary was standing on one side of us, and the Île de France was standing on the other side.  Nobody could move, an entire day.  And Bob Hope was on one of those boats. And, interesting — he had his, when — he had his radio program, then.  He sang, (sings) “Thanks, for the memories, some slept on the floor, some in the corridor, but I was more exclusive — I had ‘men’ written on my door.  So thanks…”.That happened right then, when we came home.  And immediately, we had a contract to come back to South America, to open the season in Uruguay, which was something new.  Because you always opened the season in Buenos Aires.  And the troupe came to Uruguay like, on tour. And so, this director brought us to Uruguay, into a theater off the beach. Off the boardwalk. \n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=1975.0,2095.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/173","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Like a summer theater, but very big. And our first — when we arrived, the Graf Spee — the German submarine — was in the bay.  And we come up in the hotel, you — it’s with food.  And the entire cast — not cast — the entire crew of the Graf Spee is sitting there.  All the Germans were there.  I knew all their faces. And we opened the show and a terrible rain and a gale starts, during our first performance.  And it’s packed — there are 1500 people there.  And it began to rain, and such — it was a tin roof.  We had to stop the performance a half hour early and let the audience out. And in the morning, they woke us and told us that a tornado had hit the theater.  Caved in.  If we hadn’t left the theater, everybody would have been killed.  So, we were left without a theater. We played in the Solis — I remember that’s the government, the ballet theater.  And, and a director from Brazil, Libelcik, brought us, with the entire company, to play in Rio and Saõ Paulo.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2095.0,2171.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/174","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: And we traveled with the Conta Grande, an Italian ship, which was full of Italian immigrants that — a lot of Italians in Argentina.  They come to work, and they bring their money back to Italy.  And we got off in Rio. Now, this is 1940.  We get off in Rio, and the boat goes further, toward Italy.  And is sunk.  In the Atlantic.  By the Allies.  ‘Cause it was a, a, an Italian boat.  Now, that was luck. So we, and we came back to Argentina, and we, we played there.  That season, Berta Gersten was there, and Hymie Jacobson came.  He had just been divorced from Miriam.  Miriam met Seymour that same season, playing with Yablokoff, I remember.\nSEROTA:  Miriam went down to South America somewhere around that time.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2171.0,2229.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/175","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: In South America with her first husband, Hymie Jacobson.  Bruce’s uncle. And who else was there that — then?  Jennie Goldstein was in Buenos Aires then.  And she had an apartment.  They all used to come play cards in her house.  And Nellie Casman.  We were all there, that season. We came back.  We came back a week or two weeks before Pearl Harbor.  We opened in Jersey, in Newark, I remember.  There was a Jewish theater in Newark.  And it was, a Sunday morning. We went, after the first performance, we went in to eat with my parents, my uncle.  And we hear the radio, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.  My mother said, “Where’s Pearl Harbor?”  Who knew of a Pearl Harbor then?  We found out later. And so then, there was no more traveling.  Because when we came back then, the ship we came back — we used to go every, back and forth — later on, we went back and forth to, to Argentina.  But they took our passports away when we returned, then. And I reported — they asked if we have anything to report, because we’d been in the area two years, did we see any activities?  I told them a few activities. \n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2229.0,2310.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/176","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: In Brazil, I met several, I saw several people from this submarine, the Graf Spee.  Because they had to, there was a whole a complot in Argentina, in Uruguay, and they all ran away.  I, and I met one of them in Saõ, Saõ Paulo. And then, I told them, we went to — when we finished in Buenos Aires, we went to Chile for concerts.  And I learned that the director in Chile had listed us as Protestants.  Otherwise, we would not have gotten a visa.  And we were very angry with — we would not have gone, had we known.  And I told that to the authorities, when we returned. They took us into a little cabin.  They said, “Whatever you tell us is confidential.  But we know that you, you were in the area for two years, three years.” But there was no more traveling, then.  So we traveled in the United States.  Boston, Philadelphia, Canada — all through the United — Cleveland, Chicago.  Until we opened with Dina Halpern in the Bronx, I remember.  And then, we went into the Hopkinson Theater with a radio drama.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2310.0,2383.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/177","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  When you were in the Bronx, this was a dramatic program?\n\nLUX:  A treatment — yes, it was a, a dramatic show, with music.\n\nSEROTA:  Dina didn’t sing?\n\nLUX:  No, she didn’t sing.  She sang in one of our shows.\n\nSEROTA: Yeah?\n\nLUX: Yeah.  The play was Ver Da Fa Mama.\n\nSEROTA:  I didn’t…\n\nLUX:  She was the mother; I was the daughter. Yeah.\n\nSEROTA:  Who wrote the music?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2383.0,2406.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/178","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, we did one of our — and we played repertoire, too.  We did a show called M’ken lebn nor m’lost nit , where Bei Mir Bist Du Sheyn originated from.  Secunda’s music.  And she played with us in that show.  And she did, she sang a song then, I remember. And then, we got, we went into the Hopkinson Theater with a radio drama called Vel Shildik.  No — first we, we, we went in with a — at that time, the United States was friendly with Russia.  We went in with, before Vel Shildik, we went in the Hopkinson with a play called De Reite Soldat.  Written by Louis Freiman.  Music Moishe Lauch. And there was a role for a young man, a young boy who should — it took place in Russia.  I was a daughter of a, the American ambassador, and fell in love with a Jewish boy.  And it turned out that my mother was really Jewish, and hiding.  She was his aunt.  I….\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2406.0,2471.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/179","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And Florence Weiss played my mother, then.\n\nSEROTA:  How was Florence Weiss?\n\nLUX: Moishe Oysher’s wife.\n\nLEVIN: Moishe Oysher.\n\nSEROTA:  Were they married then?  They were, they were separated already, at that point.\n\nLUX:  They were already separated, yes.\n\nSEROTA:  What kind of performer was she?\n\nLUX:  She was, she was a, she was a nice actress and a nice singer.\n\nSEROTA:  She also was an American.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2471.0,2491.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/180","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  Florence was American.  Was born here. And at the, so, as — getting back to the story — they needed this boy that the father was hiding.  He didn’t want him to become a soldier, a Red Soldier.  And they needed, and the father — I forget his name.  He was a short, little man.  Nice, good actor.  But they needed a son. And there was this boy, who was partnering Nellie Casman — Fyvush Finkel.  And so they decided, they said, “You know, this is going to be very funny, because he’s so tall and the father is so small.” That was his first, really, adult part in the theater — Fyvush.  He was 18, then.  And they engaged him for this.  Then he played with us for three seasons.  Then, he played with us in Ver is shuldig, the radio drama that Freiman used to broadcast.  Charlotte Goldstein was in it, and, and then we, he made the show.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2491.0,2552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/181","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Charlotte Goldstein was married to Menashe Openheim? LUX:  Openheim, right.  She lives in, in Palm Springs, now.\n\nSEROTA:  California?\n\nLUX:  She was just — yeah — she was just in New York.  And she goes to Paris every, every summer. And so we, we played this show, Ver is shuldig, which was very, very popular.  Bruce’s parents played with us, Henrietta Jacobson and Julius Adler.  And Fyvush was in the cast.  And that’s when Bruce was born.  That season. And the following — and, and it, that’s the season I became pregnant with my twins.  And when they were born, we, we were — before the season — ‘cause my twins were born in July.  The following show that we played, the next season was called Ehrlich iz Shverlich. But when, you know, there was a Trio Press that did all the posters and publicity for the theater.  He was a cousin of my husband’s — Louie Markowitz.  And so, he made up an announcement when my twins were born — “Ver is shuldig, my Pesach, Pesach, my, [because they were] twins.”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2552.0,2627.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/182","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Where was your husband from?\n\nLUX:  My husband was born in Warsaw.  But was brought to Russia when he was about six years old.\n\nSEROTA:  But from his billing, you’d think he came from Vilna.\n\nLUX: And Berdyansk.  I’ll tell you why.  Because when he came to America, Tomashefsky brought him as a opposition to Lebedeff.  He wanted the same — he was…\n\nLEVIN:  Lebedeff wasn’t in Tomashefsky’s camp.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2627.0,2653.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/183","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  No.  And so, when he arrived, and they started to, to plan his publicity — in Poland, he was called Pavel.  And in Vilna, in Lithuania, in Kovna, where he played a few seasons, he was Paulus Borstainus. So he says, “What did your mother used to call you?”  ‘Cause he’s — tried to figure out. He says, “My mother used to call me Pesachke.” “Okay.”  He says, “That’s what you’re going to be — Pesachke.  And tell me — where did you play?”  ‘Cause he wanted, Lebedeff was the Litvishe Comicke. And he says, “Well, I played here, there, I played in Vilna.” He says, “That’s it.  You’re going to be the Pesachke Burstein, the Vilna Comicke.” So Pesach said to him, “So, okay.  If that’s what he wants.”  That’s what he remained. He played in Vilna, but he wasn’t actually from Vilna.  He ran away from home, from Berdyansk, at the age of 15, to join an acting company.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2653.0,2711.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/184","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: Berdyansk is in the Ukraine, isn’t it?\n\nLUX:  No. Beldyansk is on the…\n\nLEVIN:  Armenia?\n\nLUX:  …where is it?  On the Green Sea, the Black Sea, there. But the…\n\nSEROTA:  The Black Sea, the Black Sea.\n\nLUX:  The Kaiser, the Czar had his…\n\nSEROTA:  Engel was from there.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.  Huh?\n\nSEROTA:  Engel was from there.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  The Czar had his summer home there.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  It was a ranch…\n\nLEVIN:  No.  The summer home, I’ll tell you in a minute.  It will come to me.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  But it’s, and that’s the general region.\n\nSEROTA:  Didn’t he have a summer home in Yalta?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2711.0,2737.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/185","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  It was on, it was on the sea.  It was on a sea.\n\nLEVIN:  In the Black Sea area.\n\nLUX:  Was it on the Black Sea?\n\nLEVIN:  Something like that.\n\nLUX:  Oh, well, it was a town, it was a city where they grew grapes.  They exported grapes and melons from.  Fish. And he sang in shul. And the, the cantors, the choir director was an actor also.  And he said, “You will make a good actor.  And do you want?” And he, he wanted to be an actor.  He ran after actors that came to town and carried their suitcases and, and when — and he, he joined a circus once.  He was a clown. So he ran away home at night, through the window.  Just like in Sholem Aleichem’s Stars, Wandering Stars. And when they got to the next town — his parents, his father had a factory.  It was ladies’ suits and coats.  In the morning, when they saw he’s missing, they called the police, and they, and the….So they said the, the first city was not too good.  So the director says, “You know what?  Send your father a telegram saying that you’re here, here in this city.  And if he’ll send you 50 rubles, you’ll come home.” The father immediately sent 50 rubles, which landed in the director’s pocket, and the company went further.  And when he said, “I got to send…” he says, “Don’t be silly,” he said.  “You’ll be a big star by the time we come to Warsaw, and we’ll send back, send your father back his money double.” But — oh, that’s the story.  You never read my husband’s book?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2737.0,2840.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/186","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Not yet.\n\nLUX:  I just translated it into English.  It’s at the — oh, what college?  Mandel, Robert Mandel.  Do you know Robert Mandel?  The Syracuse Press.\n\nLEVIN:  They’re publishing it?\n\nLUX:  He told me that he, he loves it very much.  In fact, I did a play in Albany, at the University, about four years ago.  Sarah Blacher Cohen.  Do you know the name?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2840.0,2872.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/187","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah, yeah. \n\nLUX:  Well, Sarah called me now, ‘cause she was going to a convention in Miami.  I did a show there that she wrote.  I have the video of it. And she told me that — I didn’t know she knew Mandel. She says, “Robert Mandel told me that he’s crazy about the book.  He said it needs some work.” I says, “I didn’t go to college.”  My college was the Yiddish theater.  But I could — and the name of it in, it’s (SOUNDS LIKE Sanyon) in Israel.  It was published in Israel.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2872.0,2900.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/188","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In Yiddish?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  I wrote, he accepted it.  In chapters.  It ran for three years in the (SOUNDS LIKE Letz Danays). And then, we had the, they gave a performance for Pesach’s 80th birthday.  The mayor of Tel Aviv and Sanyon.  And all the proceeds went toward publishing the book.  Gesphicht A lebn. Sanyon gave it the name.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2900.0,2923.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/189","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  When was Pesach born?\n\nLUX:  In Warsaw.\n\nSEROTA:  When?\n\nLUX:  Pesach would have been 101 years old now.  A hundred years old.  Pesach was 22 years older than me.  But we were a very good couple.  And we were together for 47 years. And so, now I call the book What a Life.  And I hope it will be published. He told me, he called me — Mandel.  He said that, “My advisors say that there’s too much material out about the topic.  The Yiddish theaters,” he says, “but I love the book,” he says.  “I’m pushing for it.”  Halavei.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2923.0,2971.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/190","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There’s not too much material.  There may be a lot of material, but none of it — it doesn’t matter.  There’s still…\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s still nothing…\n\nLUX:  Oh, his story, his life story is so wonderful.  It is the history of Yiddish theater in Europe during World War I.  What he went through!  He was arrested as a spy, because he spoke Russian, and he spoke Polish.\n\nLEVIN:  You mean, Yiddish theater in World War I was, in Poland could not have…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2971.0,2996.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/191","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, they used to push the wagon, and the…\n\nLEVIN: Had they yet brought the American musical or the operettas to Poland, then? Not yet.\n\nLUX:  They played different, different things, different shows.  They played some that came from America.  For example, he played, they called it De Americana, I think.  Who brought it to Poland?  It was The Girl of the Golden West, the\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=2996.0,3017.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/192","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  The opera?\n\nLUX:  Yes.  The, no — an operetta.  So he played it with Zygmunt Turkow and with — who was then married to…\n\nSEROTA:  Kaminska. Kaminska, no?\n\nLUX: To Ida, yes.  Ida and Sigmund and Pesach went on tour with De Americana.\n\nLEVIN:  Well, in other words, other than, other than Goldfaden, can you think of any operetta or musical in Yiddish that’s from Europe instead of from America?  I mean, that…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3017.0,3052.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/193","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Only the Viennese ones.  For example, Die Csárdásfürstin  Maya Dera — we played them in Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  Not, but that’s translated into Yiddish.  That’s originating in Europe.\n\nLUX:  Right.  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  But, I mean, when we talk about the, the Yiddish operetta, the Yiddish musical theater.   The Yiddish musical theater.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3052.0,3070.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/194","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, the first operettas were written by Goldfaden, actually.\n\nLEVIN:  Goldfaden is one person.  But apart from Goldfaden, can you think any, any operettas that are from Europe, and not from America?  They’re all from America.\n\nLUX:  They borrowed all the material from America.\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\nLUX:  And I…\n\nLEVIN:  The dramatic plays are another story, now.  In Poland, I don’t know if they’re…\n\nLUX:  They used to steal the material.  As soon as you came from America with a show, somebody would be sitting in the theater, rewriting the show.  And Witler would be playing it in two weeks around in a different city.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3070.0,3102.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/195","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How was Witler?\n\nLUX:  Hmmm?\n\nLEVIN:  How was he?  Witler — Ben-zion Witler?\n\nLUX:  Well, my husband never wanted to talk to him.  Because he couldn’t play his own shows in different cities, because Witler would send somebody in. This — what’s his name?  He was in the Habima recently — he did the picture,  Lang is der Weg .\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, uh…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3102.0,3126.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/196","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  He was — Becker.  Israel Becker.  And we came to Israel in ’54.  Somebody brought him over to us in the café and said, Mr. Burstein, I want you to meet Mister….”. He says, “Just a minute.  (SOUNDS LIKE Chazan faleng vorstellen.”) He says, “(SOUNDS LIKE Ich bin der vus chabayich alup kupita A Hassane Shtetl and Fa Koyt Vittel and fa hindes zlotys).” So — and he had his hand out.  My husband wouldn’t give it to him.  He says, “(SOUNDS LIKE Un titta fa san gans fayn a gonif, zuchta?  Kin zain kin fa kofutz mir zaficht ferda chacha gibbim spay dos zlotys)?”\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3126.0,3159.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/197","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  They were both in South America at the same time — Witler and your husband, were in — no?\n\nLUX: No.  Witler came to America afterwards, when the war started.\n\nSEROTA:  But I mean South America.\n\nLUX: Yeah.  He came, he was there once at the same time, yes.  He used to travel around.  He came to the States, then he became a….\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3159.0,3178.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/198","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: And I remember one conversation in the Café Royale.  He had played Michel Michalesko’s play, Der Letster Tants, where the, that song comes from — (sings) Gle dedes camin.  I played that with Michalesko once, incidentally.\n\nSEROTA:  Olshanetsky?\n\nLUX: Yeah.  Somebody got sick, and they brought me to play it.  And I was about 15, 16 then.\n\nSEROTA:  Did you ever play in England?\n\nLUX:  Pardon me?\n\nSEROTA:  Did you ever play in London?\n\nLUX:  In London? Yes.\n\nSEROTA: Yeah?\n\nLUX:  We came to London, we were brought to London several times.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3178.0,3204.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/199","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In London, they did have, but it hasn’t been explored yet, but in London, apparently, there were shows and songs, anyway, written locally.  I couldn’t name you one, but nobody’s done any research.  But I, it started a little bit.\n\nLUX:  I have a friend living there who was in the Jewish theater.  He could be probably tell me, but…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3204.0,3226.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/200","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There were two fellows.  One of them’s still alive; one died.  They lived together…\n\nLUX:  That’s right, that’s right.  That’s my friend.\n\nLEVIN: Mendelovitch?\n\nLUX:  Bernard, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Bernard Mendelovitch.\n\nLUX:  That’s who I’m talking about.\n\nLEVIN:  And what was his partner?  The guy’s dead now.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  He played with (SOUNDS LIKE Isa Vasha). \n\nLEVIN:  He died several years ago.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  I know.  He played with us in Warsaw.  And his mother was our property lady.  She had been an actress also. Rushka.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s another…\n\nLUX:  Ariel — Harry Ariel.\n\nLEVIN:  Harry Ariel, yeah.  And then there was…\n\nLUX:  He played with us as a young…\n\nLEVIN:  Anna something — there’s an Anna.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Her father was an actor.\n\nLEVIN:  There’s still an Anna, in London.\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  I forget her name.\n\nLUX:  I don’t know her.  I know of her.\n\nLEVIN:  Somebody should interview her.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3226.0,3268.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/201","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Her father was, was in Argentina at the same time with us.\n\nLEVIN:  They did, he did, either Mendelovitch and Harry Ariel did a sketch, for example, on Merchant of Venice in English.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Ariel used to write a lot.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And Ariel brought a lot of stuff from, from Poland, too.  ‘Cause he played with us, he played with other companies.  And, and when he, they were in the, the D.P. camps, that’s the material that they used. For example, I, I used to sing a song in one of our shows — The Komediant.  I used to sing (sings) Maidel, da-da-da…  I was told, then I met an actress in London who came, she ran away from the — what do you call it?  I can’t think of the word now.  From Ida Kaminska’s company, from Poland.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3268.0,3323.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/202","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: (INAUDIBLE).\n\nLUX:  She defected.\n\nLEVIN:  What was the company called?\n\nLUX:  Chayele something, I think.  I don’t know.  She’s in Paris now.  And she came and she said, “Oh, they wrote a song for me in the D.P. camps.  (Sings) Kindel, la-la-la, siz a vindel.” And I says, “Who wrote it?”  Ariel.  Because he had worked with us.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3323.0,3342.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/203","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Ida Kaminska’s company in Poland was not a musical group, though, was it?\n\nLUX:  I think she did some musicals, too.\n\nLEVIN:  She did it?\n\nLUX:  She may have.\n\nLEVIN:  Do you know?\n\nSEROTA:  I don’t know.  After all, was it — her brother was a musician, he was a violinist.\nLUX:  Yes.  He played…\n\nSEROTA:  And he composed.\n\nLUX:  But he was, he was the first violinist in the Israeli Symphony.  Yeah, I knew him.  Sure.  What was his first name again?\n\nSEROTA:  Josef.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3342.0,3365.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/204","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Joseph Kaminsky, that’s right. But I have — there are pictures, there’s a picture in Pesach’s book of Ester Ruchel.  He played with Ester Ruchel when he was a young, very young man, in Kovna. The picture of Ester Ruchel, she was gorgeous. \n\nLUX: Big orchestras.\n\nLevin: Let me ask you about\n\nLEVIN:  How big was the orchestra?\n\nLUX:  Big orchestras.\n\nSEROTA:  (INAUDIBLE).\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3365.0,3394.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/205","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Do you know that my husband talks about the Liberty Theater, in Brooklyn?  And they did The Goldene Soldat, with Michel Michalesko. The orchestra rose, the pit rose like in the Paramount Theater.  Oh, there’s a wonderful story in the book about that show.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3394.0,3413.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/206","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  How big?  Roughly, what kind of size are we talking about — the orchestra?\n\nLUX:  Maybe 16 people.  That I remember in the…\n\nLEVIN:  Sixteen, 18.\n\nLUX:  Sixteen, 18 — something like that.\n\nLEVIN:  But not, never, say, had an orchestra of 30 people, let’s say.  Sixteen — that was big, already.\n\nLUX:  With 32 we sang in Alhambra in Paris.\n\nLEVIN:  But in the American Yiddish theater?\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nLEVIN:  Sixteen would be considered big, already.  Am I correct?\n\nLUX:  About 16, 18 people.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3413.0,3439.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/207","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  That’s big.\n\nSEROTA:  And how big would the chorus be, if you had a show with a chorus?\n\nLUX:  You know, Gene Barry was in the chorus…\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  …with Menasha Skulnik?\n\nLEVIN:  I heard — Seymour said that.\n\nLUX:  Yes?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  We used to meet, the youngsters used to meet at the Royale in the afternoon.  Because the older people met at night.\n\nLEVIN:  At the Café Royale.\n\nLUX:  Yeah, the…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3439.0,3457.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/208","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Does anyone have a picture of the inside of the Café Royale?\n\nLEVIN:  Well, there must be.  They did the show — Café Crown.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  They didn’t do it any justice, no.\n\nLEVIN: Terrible show.  But it doesn’t give you the feeling of what the Royale was.\n\nLUX: No.  I have a chapter on it Pesach’s book, about the Café Royale.\n\nLEVIN:  There must be — you’re looking for a picture?  We could use a picture.  If you come across a picture, for our project, an interior picture…\n\nLUX:  I haven’t seen…\n\nSEROTA:  ‘Cause there is a drawing that Hirschfield made, for the publicity of the show.\n\nLEVIN:  I saw that.\n\nSEROTA:  Café Crown.\n\nLEVIN:  I saw that.  But it’s not…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3457.0,3488.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/209","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  It wasn’t, it wasn’t exactly that.\n\nLEVIN:  No.\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nSEROTA: No.  But just in terms of illustration.\n\nLUX:  I used to, that was my dining room.  We lived a block away.\n\nSEROTA:  Jack Craft, I think, was the playwright.\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nSEROTA:  Craft.\n\nLEVIN:  It doesn’t matter.  Look — for that matter, it wouldn’t hurt to have a picture of the inside of the Actors Union, but in the days — remember the days when, on 7th Street, when the Hebrew Actors Union had a café?\n\nLUX:  That’s right.\n\nLEVIN:  It’s, it isn’t there now.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3488.0,3511.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/210","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  We had a restaurant on the first floor.  But in my husband’s days, when he joined the union, there was a café downstairs. And he tells, he, we write about his, when he rehearsed — they called it “rehearsal.”  It was audition.  And the audience sat there, all the actors.  And if — a, buffe comicke would not give another buffe comedian a yes.  He gave him a no. And Pesach was appearing at the Grand Street Theater then, in — you’ve got to read the book.  And in the afternoon, he had a — between shows, there were three shows a day.  He had to come to rehearse, and then he had to run back.  And when he came back in the evening, he found out, he learned that, he had fallen through — he had, they didn’t pass him. And so, this group of young comedians was standing there by the downstairs.  There was a bar.\n\nLEVIN:  Right.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3511.0,3569.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/211","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  And they said, “Nu?  You were a wise guy?  You said you didn’t care.  So, we fixed,” something like that. And he wanted to turn around, and somebody at the bar says to him, “Burstein, come on.  Ignore them.  Come over here, have a schnapps with me.”  It was Paul Muni [Weisenfruend].  It was Muni (INAUDIBLE). Schwartz was, was failed once.  Stella Adler failed.  And Pesach kept me out of the country every time there was rehearsal in the union, so that I shouldn’t rehearse. And say, the ten percent, you paid the union ten percent of your wages.  Supposedly, they were your, your agent.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3569.0,3611.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/212","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Right.\n\nLUX:  But if you were a star, you didn’t — Schwartz didn’t belong to the union, for many years.\n\nLEVIN:  But eventually, he did.\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Then, there was…\n\nLUX:  But if you were a star, you didn’t have to be a union person.\n\nLEVIN:  What about vocal training?  Did you take voice lessons?\n\nLUX:  I took voice.  I think a lot of people did.  But there were some that just had naturally good voices.\n\nLEVIN:  See, we can’t tell from…  From the records, you can’t tell.  Because they’re too old.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3611.0,3640.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/213","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Madam Prager.\n\nLEVIN:  You can’t…\n\nLUX:  Whom are you talking about, for example?\n\nLEVIN:  No, I’m talking about, it was a different kind of, let’s say, a female voice.  It was a different approach to singing, from the later, Broadway show type of singing.\n\nLUX: Yeah.  But in Yiddish theater, if you were a leading lady, you had to be a prima donna.\n\nLEVIN:  Okay.\n\nLUX:  I had a big voice.\n\nLEVIN:  And you sang, would you say you sang operatically?\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Not show-type singing, but operatic-type singing, would you say?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3640.0,3670.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/214","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  They wrote songs like that.\n\nLEVIN:  People like Nellie Casman, for example.\n\nLUX:  Oh, well, she was a different genre completely.\n\nLEVIN:  Who was, who were the best of the, let’s say, if you could pick four or five female singers, sopranos…\n\nSEROTA:  Fanya Rubinoff…\n\nLEVIN:  …tenors?\n\nLUX:  Well, Fanya came from, after the war.\n\nSEROTA:  But she was a singer.  She wasn’t a…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3670.0,3692.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/215","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  But there was Betty Siminoff, who had a tremendous voice.  There was Lucy Levine.  Big voice.\n\nLEVIN:  What about Kadison?\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Kadison was not really a great singer. Kadison?\n\nLUX:  Luba?\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Luba was not a singer.\n\nLEVIN:  But she attempted songs.\n\nLUX:  She spoke a song.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3692.0,3710.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/216","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah. What about — did Sophie Breslau…\n\nLUX:  There was…\n\nSEROTA:  No, no.  She was a Metropolitan Opera singer.\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Sophie Breslau.  She didn’t do any theatrical.\n\nLUX:  Sophie who?  Tucker?\n\nLEVIN:  Breslau.\n\nLUX:  I never heard the name.\n\nSEROTA:  She was a Metropolitan Opera singer, and she sang a couple of Yiddish songs.  But she did some Yiddish.\n\nLUX:  No.  Not in my theater.  She didn’t.  There was Betty Simonov, there was Paula Lubelsk, that came from Poland.  There was — who else was there?\n\nSEROTA:  Fannie Lubritsky?\n\nLUX:  Fannie Lubritsky had a big voice.  And Gertie Bullman had a big voice.\n\nSEROTA:  Bella Meisel?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3710.0,3745.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/217","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Bella Meisel.  Now, you said it.\n\nLEVIN:  All right.  Now, those people — the six names there…\n\nLUX:  Those were the prima donnas.\n\nLEVIN:  Bella Meisel had a very high voice.\n\nLUX:  Yes.  Lucy, Lucy had a higher voice. Lucy…\n\nLEVIN:  There are no complete recordings of these.\n\nLUX:  And Betty Siminoff had the best voice of all.\n\nLEVIN:  All right.\n\nLUX:  But she was squat and not very pretty.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3745.0,3766.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/218","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And today, that wouldn’t matter so much.  But…\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Although it still matters, to some extent.  But, I mean, Helen Traubel…\n\nLUX:  What?  It’s…\n\nLEVIN: …was rejected from the Metropolitan Opera, because she was too big.  But of course, Jessye Norman’s twice her size.\n\nLUX:  Well, that, it’s, it’s a different, a different profession.\n\nSEROTA:  Helen Traubel was not in musical comedy.\n\nLUX:  It’s a different profession.\n\nSEROTA:  Although she was.\n\nLEVIN:  Actually, she wound up her days very sadly, singing at the, at the Drake Hotel, in the cabaret there.  But in any case…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3766.0,3791.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/219","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Those were the, the, the better-known prima donnas.\n\nLEVIN: Oh, yeah.  Is there a recording of Simonoff?\n\nLUX:  There may be.  Seymour may know.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3791.0,3795.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/220","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But I mean, a commercial recording — there was none.\n\nSEROTA: Maybe.\n\nLUX:  No.\n\nSEROTA:  There might be. There might be.  I don’t know.\n\nLUX: No.  She sang with Rumshinsky a lot.  She sang in the, the, big, old…\n\nSEROTA:  Anna Hoffman.\n\nLEVIN:  See, if you go to get…\n\nLUX:  I, I don’t remember her.\n\nLEVIN:  If you…\n\nLUX:  I remember her.  I, I, as a little girl, that…\n\nLEVIN:  But if you go to buy, even 25 years ago, whatever records you could get, of Yiddish theater…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3795.0,3823.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/221","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Well, I have a lot of material at home.  That’s the reason I can do these programs.\n\nLEVIN:  But it’s not going to have those names on it.  It will have Miriam and Seymour.\n\nSEROTA:  Miriam, by the way…\n\nLUX:  Miriam had a gorgeous…\n\nSEROTA:  When Miriam made her debut in Poland…\n\nLUX:  Miriam had a beautiful voice.\n\nSEROTA:  …in The Purim Jester, at that time, she had a beautiful voice.\n\nLUX:  Right.\n\nSEROTA:  Do you know who wrote the music for that movie?  Nicholas Brodszky.  And after he did that movie, he went to Hollywood and wrote Be My Love for Mario Lanza.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3823.0,3847.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/222","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Really?\n\nSEROTA:  But before the war, he was in Poland, and he wrote the music for that show…\n\nLUX:  We were in Poland when she made that movie.\n\nSEROTA:  Her voice was beautiful then.\n\nLEVIN:  What I’m trying to get at is the seriousness of the voices.  And you’re telling me somebody like Simonov was a serious singer.\n\nLUX: Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Could have sung anything else — classical.\n\nLUX: Classic, too, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  We have to find recordings. If there is such a thing.  There probably isn’t such a thing.\n\nLUX:  Who knows?\n\nLEVIN:  ‘Cause it’s very old.  And what about among the men?\n\nLUX:  Who?\n\nLEVIN:  Among the men.\n\nLUX:  Among the men, there was — ah, Willie — wait a minute.\n\nSEROTA:  Schwartz.\n\nLUX: Willie Schwartz.  Willie Schwartz has a fleet of taxis later, in Miami.  He lost his voice.  They said Rumshinsky ruined his voice.  He wrote too high for him.\n\nSEROTA:  Irving Grossman…\n\nLUX:  Irving Grossman.\n\nSEROTA:  …had a very nice voice.\n\nLUX:  Irving Grossman.\n\nLEVIN:  Classical voices.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3847.0,3878.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/223","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Classical.  When they came to the Jewish theater, when they played, sang in the Jewish theater, they had to sing different, really couldn’t sing in a classical style.  They had to sing in an operetta style, like romance.\n\nLEVIN:  (INAUDIBLE) classical style.\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  In other words, if you…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3878.0,3894.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/224","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  There was Willie Schwartz, there was Irving Grossman, there was — who else?\n\nLEVIN:  No, even if…\n\nLUX:  Pesach — my Pesach had a tremendous voice.\n\nSEROTA:  Lebedeff had a beautiful voice.\n\nLUX:  Yeah, Lebedeff.\n\nSEROTA:  Lebedeff.\n\nLUX:  Lebedeff’s voice started with…\n\nLEVIN:  But nobody played Lebedeff, except for Rumania Rumania…\n\nSEROTA: No, no, no.  He had a lot of songs with very — he had a very…\n\nLUX:  Lebedeff has….  I had a record — my son took it away with, when Israel was born.  Lebedeff wrote a song, (sings) Israel, Israel….  And he’s on it.  And Al Jolson is on the other side, with an Israeli song.  I don’t remember.  (Sings)  Sing a song of Israel — something like that.  And my son took it away again.  He helps himself to whatever he wants.  But I had — it was a little, a small record.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3894.0,3933.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/225","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Uh…\n\nLUX:  My son — I just remembered, he took away, he did Barnum! in Holland, in Dutch, for a whole year.  You know, we had a radio show, a TV show in Holland.  The Mike Burstein Show.  They brought Chita Rivera, they brought Ben Vereen, from the States. In fact, Chita was responsible for getting him into Barnum!  She recommended him for Barnum!  And they brought him from Israel.\n\nLEVIN:  Who…\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3933.0,3960.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/226","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, incidently — yeah, my son told me this morning, he’s nominated for an award in Florida.  Carbonell — something like that.  A Carbonell Award, as best actor in a musical for the year.  He did Kurt Weill last season, in From Berlin to Broadway.\n\nSEROTA:  Did you know Leon Gold?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3960.0,3979.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/227","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, Leon Gold!  Ah!  Good for you!  Leon Gold was in katerinshtshik with me.  And he had a big voice.  It — sure, Olshanetsky wrote for him. Then he wrote, he sang this, and then he sang a, a song that Seymour sang afterwards — (sings) Mirele, la, la, la, la la….  You know, that was written for, whom it was written for?\n\nSEROTA:  Jan?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=3979.0,404.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/228","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  You, Mirele from Belz was written for Isa Kremer.\n\nSEROTA:  Yeah, she was in the show very briefly.\n\nLUX:  She was Mirele.  And that’s where Belz comes from.\n\nLEVIN:  But she didn’t sing the song Mirele.  She was…\n\nLUX: No, no.  Leon Gold sang Mirele.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  And then, Leon Gold sang in the katerinshtshik.  He was in love with Luba Kadison, and he sang, oh — (sings) Masha, dein Yiddish…. I have the whole score, because we bought the play, later.  We did it in, in Israel.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=404.0,4034.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/229","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Whose music is that?\n\nLUX: Olshanetsky. Der katerinshtshik.  But we called it, we called it — you can’t use original names in Israel.  They don’t go for that.  We had, we had to call that (SOUNDS LIKE The Fayle Cu Mishpucha), I remember. Well, my whole family played in it — all four of us.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4034.0,4051.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/230","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Why can’t you use the original names?\n\nLUX:  Der katerinshtshik.\n\nLEVIN: No.  Why couldn’t you use that in Israel?\n\nLUX:  I don’t know.  You know, we had, we did a play called (SOUNDS LIKE De Meidna Sneiden).  And…\n\nSEROTA:  That’s Rumshinsky’s?\n\nLEVIN:  Rumshinsky’s, isn’t it?  With the…\n\nLUX: Not that one.  It was something else, and we called it — it was, you have to think of a name to please the audience, in Israel.  Because you had a very simple audience, for a long time.  You had the Rumanians, especially.  They came from the small towns.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4051.0,4074.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/231","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: And they used to come to the box office and say, “What is it?  Vus maydis?  Erenes vus?”  They understand — we had to change. Yeah. When we started The Megile of Itzik Manger — you, you know The, The Megile?\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4074.0,4091.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/232","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  All right.  We started The Megileh.  And my daughter was just get, got, getting married, at that time.  We were all booked in for The Megile. Pesach said, “Kinder, we’re leaving the operettas and the melodramas.  We’re going to play Itzik Manger.” And then, her wedding took place, and we had to take somebody else in, in her place.  But we started it.  And — in Jaffa — in Jaffa, we started it.  And in Hammam, which was a Turkish, Turkish bath, a hundred years ago.  We sat on little stools. The audience that generally came to us, to all our shows, came, and didn’t like it.  They said, “Vus ist dis fura mein?  Vus ist Manger?”  And we thought, we’re closing. Until — the producers were Israelis.  Hebrew people — not, not Jewish-speaking people.  And they said, “Don’t be silly.  Wait.  Wait till we’re, we’re not opening yet.” It took a month till we did the premiere, the opening.  In my life, I will never forget it.  The whole Israeli press was there.  In fact, and there were 60 newspapers, at that time.  And Gamzu, who was chief — his son is now…\n\nLEVIN:  In the Consulate, here?\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4091.0,4168.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/233","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  Well, everybody was afraid of Gamzu.  He was the critic there. After, at the last curtain, hats were flying in the air.  I never saw anything like it in my life.  I never experienced anything like it in my life. And then, The Megile first started.  And the youth, the Hebrew youth, began to come to it.  Because Mike narrated every song beforehand, in Hebrew.  He gave all the narration in Hebrew. And I never — in the Yiddish theater, I never saw two youngsters sitting, keppele to keppele like this, during the love songs.  (SOUNDS LIKE Or fasci de fasci vis estele malke). We played — we never got tired of doing The Megile.  We must have done about a thousand performances.  Then we were brought to Argentina, then to Broadway.  And then to South Africa.  And then, back to Israel, where we renewed it — played it again. And we lost our simple audience.  Our regular Yiddish audience we lost, when we began to play The Megile. Then, my son went into the Hebrew theater, and we did a play by ourselves, my husband and I.  We, we were not successful. First of all, they used to say, they said, “Oh, via duz a Yid?” And Pesach, so he says, “Perel ma gitta mit azi?  In vica gittach mit azi?” And then, the simple audience went to Merry Salyano.  She satisfied them.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4168.0,4260.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/234","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  What happened to her?\n\nLUX:  See?  She’s, lives in Jersey, in Jersey.  She’s raising her children.\n\nLEVIN:  Raising her children?\n\nLUX:  And she doesn’t want to play theater any more.  Mmm?\n\nLEVIN:  Raising her grandchildren, you mean?\n\nLUX:  Oh, I think no.  Her oldest child just got married — he’s laughing.\n\nLEVIN:  But she’s not…\n\nLUX:  I don’t know.  She’s, she should be about 60, something like that.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.  That’s what I would think.  I mean she used to do the annual play.  You know, there was the annual show here.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4260.0,4286.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/235","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  It ran in the fall for a few months.  I forget what the names were.  You know, in the ‘70s, in the, in the ‘80s, for example.\n\nLUX:  No, I don’t.\n\nLEVIN:  With Merry Solyano.\n\nLUX:  Yeah?\n\nLEVIN:  But she doesn’t do anything anymore, does she?\n\nLUX:  Not that I know of.  I think she doesn’t want to.  She grew a little heavier, and…\n\nLEVIN:  What happened to Halpern?  The fellow in the Israel, a Yiddish actor.\n\nLUX:  Oh, he’s…\n\nLEVIN:  A comic.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4286.0,4314.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/236","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  He — yeah.  He played with us his first season, when he came from Rumania.  He played with us when we came in ’62.  He played with us, then.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean, he did…\n\nLUX:  Yankele Halpern.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nLUX:  I understand he just had a heart attack, or something.\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, really?\n\nLEVIN:  He had a kind of a Menashe Skulnik imitation he used to do.  Or was he…\n\nLUX:  Maybe he had a role like that here.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4314.0,4337.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/237","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In those…\n\nLUX:  I have him on recordings with us from Israel.  I have a, I have, really, a lot of stuff.  That’s why I can do programs. And right now, I’m preparing a show on an actress that isn’t even known in this country. Chayele Shiffer.\n\nSEROTA:  She made records in Israel.\n\nLEVIN: (INAUDIBLE).\n\nSEROTA:  She made records on Markovitch.\n\nLUX:  That’s right.  She (INAUDIBLE).\n\nSEROTA:  She was a decent singer.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4337.0,4360.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/238","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Yes.  And her daughter is a concert pianist in Israel.  I’m using one of her, a Chopin composition.\n\nLEVIN:  When you say that you’re preparing shows, now, these shows that you do…\n\nLUX: Yes.  I write out the biography of the person and insert their material.\n\nLEVIN:  Songs?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.  Did the same with Pesach’s life, I did the same with my son’s life, with Bruce, myself.\n\nLEVIN:  Bruce, meaning Bruce…\n\nLUX:  Bruce Adler.  And I did Manger’s life, and when Manger came to Israel…\n\nLEVIN:  Where do you do these shows, for example?\n\nLUX:  For The Forward Hour.  That’s the only place.\n\nLEVIN:  For radio.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4360.0,4395.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/239","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  For radio.\n\nLEVIN:  And they’re still broadcasting them now?\n\nLUX:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Do you ever do them in person?\n\nLUX:  Well, I did a one-woman show, for a number of years.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nLUX:  My memories of the wonderful world of Yiddish theater.  I even have a video of it.  And then, I have a video of the show I did with Sarah Cohen, Sarah Blacher Cohen, in Albany. And then, of course, I have videos of A Hassane Shtetl that I played with my son in Israel.  We played it ten years ago.  Right after Pesach passed away.  Mike went into Pesach’s…. And then we — he’s a very big name in Israel.  But there was no sense in him remaining there.  We didn’t want him to remain there.  He could, he couldn’t go any further than he already went there. He did three Kuni Leml Pictures.  With Kuni Leml, and then he did Kuni Leml in, in Tel Aviv and Kuni Leml in Cairo.  He just did a picture about the Mossad in Israel.  He plays a chief of the Mossad. Anyway, he was on the first Law and Order program that they, that, the first of the season, a couple of weeks ago.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4395.0,4462.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/240","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Did you know Meyer Steinwurtzel?\n\nLUX:  Of course.\n\nSEROTA:  How was he?\n\nLUX:  Wait a minute.  He was a singer.\n\nSEROTA:  Right.\n\nLUX:  On radio.  The names he remembers.\n\nSEROTA:  A tenor.\n\nLUX:  You’re bringing up the whole past.  I’m thinking of the name of this other singer.  His wife was his pianist.  She just died, recently.  She was a member of our club, the Artists’ Club.  You ever been up there?\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4462.0,4488.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/241","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You mean, at the…\n\nLUX:  The Yiddish Artists’ Group?\n\nLEVIN:  …the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance?\n\nLUX:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Sure.\n\nLUX:  Not the Alliance.  The theater upstairs.\n\nLEVIN:  Upstairs.\n\nLUX:  In the club.\n\nLEVIN:  We did a program there.\n\nLUX:  When?\n\nLEVIN:  We did it from there two years ago, three years ago.  With Seymour.  And Zalman.  Collin was up there.\n\nLUX:  They did one also about two years ago.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4488.0,4509.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/242","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And Miriam.  Miriam was there.\n\nLUX:  Before they were in — who was it that did it?\n\nLEVIN: That’s something else.  But we did it…\n\nLUX:  They did — my son and Bruce, together, sang.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s something else.\n\nLUX:  Who did that?  I was there, too.\n\nLEVIN:  A film or a show?\n\nLUX:  A video.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4509.0,4526.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/243","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I don’t know what that would be.\n\nLUX: Oh!  That was the same, my same guys from Israel came in.  That are doing a documentary about our family.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah. Yeah.  No, but this was, we did…\n\nLUX: This Arnon and, Arnon Goldfinger.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.  In fact, Miriam and…\n\nLUX:  And Seymour?\n\nLEVIN:  …and Seymour sang together.  It was probably the last time they ever sang together.  They did Gigi in Yiddish.  You know, that business.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4526.0,4552.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/244","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Tea for Two, they would do, in Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN: Tea for Two in Yiddish.\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN: Yeah.\n\nSEROTA:  Seymour gave me a bunch of programs that he did in the early ‘50s, late ‘40s.  He has a medley from Oklahoma! in Yiddish.\n\nLUX: Sure.\n\nSEROTA:  How Are Things in Gloccamorra?\n\nLUX:  You know, I had a program with Sholem Rosen, Rosen, uh…\n\nLEVIN:  Rubinstein.\n\nLUX: Rubinstein.  My show was called At Home with Lillian Lux.  And I took it because they gave me carte blanche.  We had a theater then — we had the Clinton.  I could do publicity, and I had people on.  It was 15 minutes, but it was at home, in my…The bell would ring, and one announcer was David Opertasher, who was announcer at WEVD then.  And Tober, Chaim Tober was also an announcer. And so, what did I, I used to do?  I used to, had three songs on the program.  Translations from English songs into Yiddish.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4552.0,4605.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/245","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  I mean, I’m not sure I understand…\n\nLUX:  I’m In Love, and…\n\nLEVIN:  I think there are enough good Yiddish songs that…\n\nLUX:  A lot of songs that I did, I used to translate into Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  So you’re still active?\n\nLUX:  Of course!\n\nLEVIN:  We would love to be able to put together some of your memorabilia.  We’ll come over to your home, or Barry, next time, when he’s in New York.  To fill out this program.\n\nLUX:  My home is a museum.\n\nLEVIN:  So we’ll have to come there then, so, and see what you’ve got.\n\nLUX:  I laughed when Dan said today, “Can you bring something?”  I says, “What do you mean, bring?”\n\nLEVIN:  We should probably do something with Michael, as well.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4605.0,4643.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/246","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX: Michael’s on the road.\n\nLEVIN:  Is he?\n\nLUX:  You have to go to, the closest you’ll get him is Boston tomorrow.\n\nLEVIN:  Doesn’t he go to California?  I mean, over the next year, if he’s ever in California.\n\nLUX: Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  Does he ever play Los Angeles?\n\nLUX: Sure.\n\nLEVIN:  So, we can get him over there.\n\nLUX:  We brought the twins in 1964.\n\nLEVIN:  I mean now.  Is he…\n\nLUX:  He is in Los Angeles a lot.  He met his wife down in Los Angeles.  My Tzionele.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4643.0,4668.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/247","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  It’s been wonderful talking with you.  And it’s just the beginning, because we’ll come go over some of the material you have for this project.\n\nLUX:  Okay.\n\nLEVIN:  And it’s been a pleasure.  And I’ll talk to Michael as well.  We’ll keep in touch.  So I want to, I’ve spoken to him before, but not for a long time.\n\nLUX:  You spoke to Mike?\n\nLEVIN: Eight years ago, nine years ago.\n\nLUX:  He was just in Los Angeles recently.  You live in Los Angeles?\n\nLEVIN: No.  But the Foundation is there. But anyway, I want to thank you for today’s been a real pleasure, and a good start.\n\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4668.0,4698.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831/transcript/31882/annotation/248","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LUX:  Oh, we just talked. That’s all.\n","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/39436/file/110831#t=4698.0,4710.66998"}]}]}]}