{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/j96057dh79/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Kressyn, Miriam \u0026 Seymour Rechtzeit"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[],"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/000/111/986/small/KressynRech.jpg?1621871666","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L3924_MA_OH_Kressyn_Rechtzeit2_4X3_MASTER.mp4"]},"duration":4371.904,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/111/986/small/KressynRech.jpg?1621871666","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/111/986/original/L3924_MA_OH_Kressyn_Rechtzeit2_4X3_MASTER.mp4?1619795678","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4371.904,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Miriam Kressyn and Seymour Rechtzeit [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Tell us about early days of radio.  Tell us how you came into radio and...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  How I came into radio?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yeah, tell us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Seymour is right here ‑‑ he can tell you.  Do you know, he actually sold me to radio?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Sold you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=14.0,29.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  You know, sopranos, high sopranos, were never good for radio ‑‑ only crooners.  So whenever they came...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  You’re calling me names ‑‑ a crooner?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, you were just a natural.  So whenever they spoke about singers, I always recommended somebody that did not have a big voice.  And I wasn’t on radio.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=29.0,52.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"One day he comes home and said, “I sold for you radio.”  I said, “You sold me, a singer?”  “No, no,” he said.  “You’re going to talk.  You’re going to write.”  I said, “Write?  I never wrote anything in my life.”  He says, “Yes, you did.  You always translated things for me.  You’ll do it again.”  And, well, P.S. ‑‑ he sold me for the first 13 weeks, and for 13 weeks, I had to read every program for him before it went on the air.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Who was the sponsor at that time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Campbell’s Soup.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=52.0,92.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Oh.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Campbell’s... I had a contract for five years, five times a week, 52 weeks a year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  What was the show?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=92.0,104.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Singing and talking.  But I was writing my shows.  It was never said, written or conceived or whatever by Miriam Kressyn.  Some people thought that Zvee Scooler wrote for me, because they knew that Zvee Scooler....","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=104.0,121.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Well, one day, it was Celia Adler’s evening.  She had published her memoirs, and they gave her a big evening, and they were asked for us to entertain that evening.  So I says, “Well everybody can sing.  Let’s just talk about it.”  So I sit down and wrote something about the Yiddish theatre.  Naturally, something pertaining to the Adler family, to Jacob P. Adler and his dynasty.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=121.0,151.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eMLOTEK:\u003c/strong\u003e But what about all the words?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=151.0,176.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  What, dear?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  All the lyrics that you’ve written?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Well, but I’ve never... I mean, I’ve never claimed anything.  Nobody said it was written by Miriam.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut apropos when I was on for Campbell’s Soup, and you could not do any pre-recorded shows ‑‑ you could not tape anything ‑‑ I had to be on in person five times a week.  Well, Campbell’s Soup was being signed, but it was not delivered as yet.  So we signed for Chicago to do ‑‑ at that time, I did Anna Locasta in Chicago, Seymour and I.  And just when we were about to go to Chicago, Shuleme Rubenstein, who was the director at the time of the radio show, said, “We just signed for Campbell’s Soup.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=176.0,227.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e Fly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=227.0,245.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Fly back and forth.  We commuted two weeks in succession between Chicago and New York.  And there was a hotel right near the radio station, at that time was on 46th Street.  And they had the Century Hotel.  So they took a room for me.  I came in after the show with the Blackhawk, it was an unscheduled flight.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=245.0,269.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eMLOTEK:\u003c/strong\u003e An early jet-setter.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=269.0,289.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  But when I said to him, I had never wrote, he said, “What do you mean you never wrote?  You wrote for me.”  Then Mr. Kielson came to me ‑‑ Mr. Kielson was the agent or the manager, he was the...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  He was the Program Agent.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=289.0,305.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e He was the director.  He said, “You know, Miriam, I mean, I love you.  But I think that your shows are a little too high-falutin’.  And the average listener is a 14-year-old.”  That’s their conception.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=305.0,321.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said, “I don’t know, Mr. Kielson.  I’m an average listener.  I’m an average person.  I just give what I myself am interested in.  Why wouldn’t there be other people listening?”  Well, to make this long story short, I was on for five years.  And they wouldn’t let go of me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=321.0,343.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  On what subjects?  Like what was a typical program?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The subject, whatever came into my mind.  I used to interview people, I used to review books.  And topics of the day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  She did a lot of interviews.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  In Yiddish, of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  In Yiddish ‑‑ everything was in Yiddish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=343.0,359.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Well, sometimes she had to do it English, because she interviewed Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they were...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes, that was a live show, and I did that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And interviewed...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We also did...Davies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Do you have a tape of that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Do you that on tape?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes, we have a...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  They had it.  I don’t know, we do have it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  They took it off of... the 16-inch long-playing things, we have that on a thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=359.0,384.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  They threw it out.  We had a long-running, what-do-you-call-it? soap opera in Yiddish.  It was called My Muter und Ich.  Now, I was Ich.  I was Shirley.  And that went for years and years and years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, that was a very successful thing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That was a very good show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  That was on every day?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Every... that was on every day, a soap opera.  And...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.  Lots of scripts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did it have one theme song?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We have nothing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Did they have a theme song for the soap opera?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure, they must had had a theme.  I think I have it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=384.0,419.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  And it was Abie playing on the organ, right?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But it wasn’t you singing in the theme song?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, no, no.  I think I have some of those...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  He headed his own shows, I had...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Those shows that they did, and I think the theme song is on there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  So what was the origin of the show that you did together?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=419.0,439.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  Let me tell you that when Shulem came to us, we should do a husband and wife show, that was the first thing that he thought of.  I, at that time, said, “We are happily married.  Let’s not spoil it.”  My word of honor.  And we did not do a husband and wife show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes, we did, of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Later on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Later.  Later.  Later.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=439.0,461.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  I mean, we did the television show.  Do you know how the television show came about?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  What television show?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The agent from television came and said, “You know Jewish radio is dying.  I mean, what do you want, nothing?  If you really want a market, you’ll go on television.” So at that time, Channel 13 was very obscure ‑‑ they went to Channel 13, and we were on for four years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Coca-cola.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Coca-cola, we still have the pictures of Coca-cola.  Yeah, that we have.  And Hellman’s Mayonnaise, we were on for four years.  And again, I had to do the writing.  But this time, it was in English.  But the only thing was that I did the English lyrics in Yiddish and the Yiddish lyrics in English, but that was a, but that was very successful, until they sold Channel 13. So how do you get it back?  If radio is dead, how do you get us back?  But I imagined it was a demand that...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  We came back to radio.  But let me... is it all right if I tell ‘em something?  All right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  If you must, go ahead, darling.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=461.0,536.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  We’ve, I started in radio very, very early in radio.  And WEVD, but as a very small station.  And they started ​‑‑ and the Broadway Central, there was a hotel on Broadway, not far from here, the Broadway Central ‑‑ and that’s where the station originated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What year about?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=536.0,559.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Oh, that was in the late... in the ‘30s.  Let’s say in the ‘30s.  But it started in the late ‘20s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Even before them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Late ‘20s, late ‘20s, late ‘20s.  Vladek was the master of ceremonies of The Forward Hour in those days.  And The Forward Hours were a tremendous, successful program, those years, they had some of the biggest stars ‑‑ Paul Muni and Louise Rainer, and all the big stars came on to talk and to sing, of course, at that time ‑‑ Jan Peerce...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Jan Peerce.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=559.0,589.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  ...sang on the program, and I was on the program.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Seymour, describe a typical Forward Hour.  A typical Forward Hour.  Because it’s important that people should know what it was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  A typical Forward Hour...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  They had a big choir.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=589.0,601.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e They had a choir, they had a big orchestra, and all the Yiddish conductors from the shows that they like ‑‑ Olshanetsky, Rumshinsky, and Ellstein, Secunda, and all of them, they conducted.  Each week, there was a different conductor conducting, and they had a big orchestra ‑‑ 16 people at the time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=601.0,621.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And they had a choir, and then they had soloists.  Like Peerce, his name at that time was Pinky Perle, it wasn’t... he wasn’t yet an opera singer.  And oh, a lot of cantors were on.  I was a steady singer to sing certain songs on the Forward Hour.  I was a...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Richard Tucker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And Richard Tucker also many times...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  He used to rehearse in EVD.  He’s the coach at that time, with Garnett.  And I used to sit in his studio at two thirty...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=621.0,651.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  He was the Musical Director on EVD at a certain time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  ...and he used to say, “Am I disturbing you?”  He was disturbing me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  (Inaudible)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Oh, Tucker gave me a concert.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=651.0,663.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, anyway, let me go further to how we came to EVD over here.  And that, EVD grew, that’s one of the top stations in New York.  Everybody listened to EVD, especially Sunday morning, at","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=663.0,679.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Excuse me.  He was the star of the show.  And you know how I tell you?  Lubin was the conductor.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=679.0,717.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Harry Lubin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Harry Lubin started to conduct.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  When they came to renew the Molly Picon show, they wanted to make sure.  I don’t think Molly wanted Seymour again...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I’ll tell ya...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=717.0,729.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  And Lubin said, “If Seymour is not on it, we don’t have a show,” because it was Seymour that they wanted.  Because he first started doing...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I’ll tell you what happened on that show, you know.  This show was a very successful show, but I did English songs in Yiddish, which Miriam did the translations.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=729.0,749.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And there was... at the beginning I did one song ‑‑ Madame La Zonga.  There was a song, Madame La Zonga.  (Sings in Yiddish)  Was a terrific... and it became such a terrific thing, that wherever I went, they used to call me “Madame La Zonga.”  And in the newspapers, they wrote about this, and that’s why it started to build.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Do you remember it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Alexander’s Ragtime Band.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The whole song?  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yes, sing a little more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, just the beginning ‑‑ I don’t even remember it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=749.0,777.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You don’t remember it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Well, we were on for years on that Sunday, for hours.  But then Molly went away and didn’t do the show anymore, and so they asked me to be... to go on here at the 15-minutes shows with the show.  Which I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then, Sholem Rubenstein got an idea ‑‑ “Why don’t you do it with Miriam?”  And we started to do the Maxwell House show with... together.  And it was called Memories of the Theatre, Memories of the Yiddish Theatre...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=777.0,815.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  And it was 44 years we were on for Maxwell House.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And we were on some 40 some-odd years for Maxwell House.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  How did we get to the (inaudible)?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Three times a week, don’t forget.  And Miriam used to write the scripts, and I used to put the music together, and most of the songs that we did was English songs in Yiddish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=815.0,834.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Besides that show that we did, I also did single shows.  I was on eight in the morning as the folk singer.  I was on at nine o’clock as the Melody Box.  I was on at 12 or one o’clock at... and each program, and each program... I did 18 shows a week.  And each program had a different theme.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=834.0,857.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"The first theme that we started was (sings) “Mazel de schin stom elt fayedin...”.  Abe Ellstein wrote that.  He wrote it for a picture, and I adopted it as a theme song.  And I also, for a different show, I had the theme (sings in Yiddish).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That was The Troubadour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Troubadour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That was a folk singer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=857.0,885.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  And then at Saturday night, I used to do the Barbasol programs.  (Sings)  “Barbasol, Barbasol...”  That’s the way we did...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  You did the Melody Box, which was...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  (Inaudible)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Well, that’s a different one.  I also did a program for Ajax.  I also had a special theme on Ajax.  (Sings)  “It’s Ajax, the finer cleanser...”  This was the little theme before, before the commercial.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=885.0,930.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  When he did the Barbasol thing, they wanted us to appear in the mountains.  And we were the last ones to ever appear in the mountains.  We didn’t want to.  Unzinis ungestadden, as they say.  It wasn’t fitting for us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And Barbasol, the Barbasol program was a big success.  Wherever I went, they used to call me the Barbasol man.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=930.0,946.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  And Mr. Kielson said, “Don’t you dare go, because if you go, we lose Barbasol.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And, but when we continued with Maxwell House, and we did, the most important program that we did was Memories of the Theatre.  What’s Memories of the Theatre?  We spoke about all the greats in the theatre.  Of course, the Yiddish theatre we started...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And the near-greats.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=946.0,967.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  And then, of course, we went to the English, too.  Like we spoke about the great composers, like Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Romberg.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We used to review shows on Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And Bernstein and this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Really?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes ‑‑ we used to review shows on Broadway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And then we did the whole show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And they paid for our seeing the shows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  My Fair Lady, we did, and we did all of these shows, we have it.  We still have it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The first show I did was the Lute Song.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=967.0,990.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  You know, My Fair Lady you played for us, for me...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Of course.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  But do you know who was responsible for bringing The Forward Hour Memories of the Yiddish Theatre?  Mr. Mlotek.  Furhman was the manager at that time.  Zvee Scooler used to do his, you know, the grandmeister.  He went on the road with Fiddler on the Roof, and they needed 15 minutes.  And it was your father who spoke with Furhman, and they decided, “Let’s try Miriam and Seymour, because they are doing Memories of the Theatre.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=990.0,1027.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  We did segments.  Fifteen...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Fifteen minutes, that’s all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Ten, 15-minute segments.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  When your father heard the first 15 minutes...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Each Sunday.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  ...he called us up and he kissed us, and it was wonderful.  We went on at that 15-minute program, and we were on ever since for Forward Hour with Memories of the Theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And then, of course, we made a very famous record called Memories of the Theatre, it’s still in existence, you know.  But on that record, on the first record that I made, I used the actual voices of all the stars, like Lebedeff and Zotz...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Regina Plider [?]...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Schwartz, and de Prague [?], and Tomashefsky, and all the greats.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1027.0,1068.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Very rare, very rare footage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That’s right.  That’s right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  I don’t know what to call it in the tape, but it’s...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  It’s a wonderful...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  As a matter of fact, who told us that they just discovered this record, and they played it, and it’s...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1068.0,1083.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Tell us, that sort of brings me to Banner, to the records.  Because I know a lot of the recordings that you did where you also introduce a lot of the wonderful acts.  I remember there’s a Yiddish vaudeville record that you did...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  ...and that you introduced....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Let me tell you...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1083.0,1101.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  They’re all on Banner?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  They’re all on Banner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Seymour, tell us...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Let me tell you how I...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Tell me how you got started.  I mean, I’ve always wanted to know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  On the record?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did it begin ‑‑ the whole story with Banner Records?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1101.0,1111.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  I got a contract from Victor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When, about?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In... Victor?  In the ‘40s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  You’re mistaken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In the late...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The first record that had been made when you were a little boy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Well, that was...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And you made a concert...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yes, that’s important, to tell us about your little boy...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  ...his debut at...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The first record, the first record that I made was for Columbia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Let’s hear about that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I did, Columbia...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How old were you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I was about 12 years old, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Which President was it?  It wasn’t Lincoln.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Coolidge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, no, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  It was Coolidge.  Yeah, it was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1111.0,1149.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e That was much later.  But the recording, I did for the Columbia, a couple of records when I was a child.  But after that, a couple of years later, I got a contract from Victor, and I was with Victor for five, six years, until they stopped making foreign records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, I made some of the most famous songs on Victor ‑‑ the first one to make Bells, I Love You Much Too Much, and Mazel, and all these great songs I started to make for Victor.  When Victor stopped, Columbia took me over, and I was with Columbia, and I made a lot of records with Columbia.  And then Columbia, after a number of years, stopped.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1149.0,1189.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So somebody came to me and says, “What do you need Columbia or Victor?  Let’s organize this... our own company.”  And that’s when I organized Banner Records.  But of course, I didn’t want to record all by myself, so I got everybody ‑‑ whoever had a great name...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1189.0,1208.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Let me stop you for a second.  Banner, it was about ‑‑ by this time, was it still the ‘30s?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, no, no, that was later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Banner, when you organized Banner, it was in the ‘40s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure.  Late ‘40s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That late already?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you did it together with some other people, partners, or yourself, or...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, just one man.  He was a song plugger on... Victor...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That was Rothborough?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, no, no.  Victor Selzman.  A song plugger on Broadway.  He says, “Oh, we gotta do this, and you’re a friend of mine.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1208.0,1240.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So this was a bona fide company?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And he organized the thing, and we made it Banner Records, and became a tremendous success.  And everybody, whoever you want to think of in the Yiddish ‑‑ name people ‑‑ recorded for Banner.  The Barry Sisters at the time, and Moshe Oysher, and Molly, and Lebedeff, and everybody...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1240.0,1263.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Tell me a little bit of how it worked, for instance, with Lebedeff, for instance, okay?  Take the famous Rumania, Rumania recording.  Tell us about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Lebedeff came.  Of course, we signed him to do this, and they did a session, was four sides, a session.  With Lebedeff...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  What do you mean, four sides?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1263.0,1283.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Two records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Oh, two... okay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  It was 75, 75...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  78.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  78 inches at that time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Right.  So we’re talking about like ten minutes, right?  On each side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Right.  So he did, at that time, he was the first one to record Rumania, Rumania for me.  And Abe Ellstein did the orchestra, had some very good men in the orchestra, and especially Dave Tarras with the clarinet, the first real klezmer.  And he did all the breaks, all the records ‑‑ he’s on every record of mine.  And of course, for the other people, too.  Wherever we needed him.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1283.0,1326.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And Lebedeff was a great success and a big success.  And Moshe Oysher.  We had one guy, he did comedy.  Michel Rosenberg, who did Getzel at the Baseball Game, Getzel at the Football Game, Getzel in the Bank.  This was a great series, and was a tremendous success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe used to ship records all over the world.  And...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1326.0,1347.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Menashe Skulnick...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Menashe Skulnick...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Molly Picon...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Molly Picon, they all recorded for me.  And KRESSYN made one record at that time for Banner ‑‑ she made Machatainisteh, which was a tremendous seller.  Very, everybody was wanting Machatainisteh.  In all over ‑‑ Paris, London, South America, they loved all of these things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1347.0,1371.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  The definitive Machatainisteh.\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.  And it was... and this is how Banner was for many, many years...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How many years?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Then I sold it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  When’d you sell it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I sold it, and I’ll tell ya why I sold it.  When they started in with the LPs and the CDs and the UPs.  I had to sell it because it would take hundreds of thousands of dollars to...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Convert.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1371.0,1397.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  To convert from 75s...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  78s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To LPs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You never went to LPs with Banner?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: I didn’t, but when they ‑‑ the guy that bought it started to make LPs, so he called me in, to consult with me at what to do and how to do it.  But we didn’t...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1397.0,1415.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Originally, the LPs weren’t the big LPs.  We made the small LPs at that time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Ten-inch LPs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, the bigger ones weren’t in existence yet.  It was the ten-inch, which I still have in my closets.  But, and then, of course, they went to... and it was... you needed tremendous monies, hundreds of thousands of dollars...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1415.0,1436.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  I pleaded with him, he should buy it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To convert.  At one time, you know, many... London Records wanted to buy me.  And every, a lot of companies wanted to buy it out.  But this guy, Manny Welles in Florida, he bought the company, and he still has it ‑‑ he’s still doing business.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you recorded all in one... did you have your own studio that you recorded. Or you leased a studio, or what?�RECHTZEIT: I leased studios. I recorded in different studios. And I made sure to have good studios, and some of these records are really wonderful.\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK: And you go the orchestra together, or the conductor did?\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: The conductor got the orchestra together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK: Was Ellstein…\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: Ellstein. Sammy Medoff was on some of the records.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN: You know Sammy Medoff was Dick Manning?\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: Olshanetsky was on some of the records, and these were the guys who…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: Did you have a distributor? Did you distribute yourself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: I made sure to have a distributor because that’s the most important thing when you have a record company is to have a distributor. If you haven’t got a distributor, you have nothing. I’ll tell you a story about a distributor. I had wonderful distributors. And, also I made sure I travelled throughout a lot of main cities to organize disc jockeys. At that time, they didn’t have disc jockeys to play all these records, which was very important. And that’s what I did and that was the success of the company. But, uh, what was…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1436.0,1530.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You were going to tell me a story about a distributor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, a distributor.  A guy by the name of Sam Goody, one day comes ‑‑ you heard of Sam Goody?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I heard of him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  He comes to me one day, he said, “Seymour, you gotta,” ‑​‑ he was on Tenth Avenue, had a little store distributing records.  He said, “Seymour, you gotta do me a favor.”  He knew me, and “You gotta do me a favor.”  I says, “What do ya want?”  He says, “You gotta give me some of the line to sell, because I need, because otherwise, I won’t be able, the other records that I have, and I won’t be able to sell the others.  Your line is hot now, and I...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I spoke to my partner at the time, I said, “Listen.  Let’s do him a favor, let’s, let’s.”  And I gave him the line, and he was...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  He became one of the greatest.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1530.0,1579.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e He came, he came, no, not yet ‑‑ wait.  He came and he started to do a business.  And he was just....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA number of years later, when I was out of the business already, a number of years later, Sam looks me up and he says, “RECHTZEIT, you did me a favor once.  Now listen to me.  I have this organization, it’s called the Sam Goody’s Recording, and I’m distributing in all the... with Victor, and I have Victor....”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe used to buy out Victor, lots, not records, he used to buy 100,000 old records from Victor, 100,000 from Columbia, and I tell you, that’s the way he did it, and he did tremendous business.  That’s how he became a....  And he got into trouble a little while after that with the companies, because they saw what he was doing ‑‑ he was underselling them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that, and then, that’s the time he came to me I should be, go into business with him, to be his partner.  So I got news for you ‑‑ I’m a smart guy ‑‑ so I told him, “No, I can’t go in with you as a partner, because I don’t like the business that you do, and I don’t want to get involved with these things.”  So that’s my experience with Sam Goody.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut wherever he saw me, he says, “Ah, remember I begged you?”  He became a millionaire, of course.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1579.0,1664.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You started on something, and then we didn’t finish it, about your first recording.  I want to... you were about 12 years old...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  My first recording was Columbia, and I did (sings) “Mia stetch ki latinu, my galeski ged ven you...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Excuse me.  He made his debut at Cooper Union.  In Cooper Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, yes.  That was the start.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Where Lincoln...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Of that record, that was the start.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Cooper Union, where Lincoln did the thing...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I had a concert, we had a concert in Cooper Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How old were you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  With Yossele Rosenblatt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How old were you?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  How was I?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Eight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, more.  Ten years or so, you know, with short pants.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yeah?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And I had to be put on a chair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  You have pictures of that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1664.0,1707.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Rosenblatt... yeah.  Rosenblatt always used to put me on a chair.  So we had a concert with Rosenblatt, Hazzan Rosenblatt, and Hirschmann, and I.  And who was the piano player?  Abe Ellstein.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarry Ellstein was supposed to come ‑‑ he was the pianist, he used to come.  But at that concert, Abe walks in and he says, “Who is here?  Who’s... I’m going to play for you.”  I said, “Who are you?”  He said, “I’m Abe Ellstein.”  I said, “Where is Harry?”  “Harry is home.  He’s got the mumps.  He can’t come to play.”  So...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  So you said to him, “Let him bring the mumps here.”  He didn’t know what mumps were.  Let them bring it here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1707.0,1746.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  So he played, he played for me, and he played for Hirschmann and he played for Rosenblatt.  And Rosenblatt fell in love with him at that time.  But after that concert...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Instead of taking Rosenfeld, Rosenblatt, they took this little boy...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And did you ever hear his record when he’s a little boy?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  You should hear it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  You didn’t see him, (Unintelligible).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, it’s Tefillinloch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, it’s Tefillinloch.  That’s also...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How old were you then?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  A little boy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That was two, three years later, after that record.  But then Abie, after that, Abie remained my pianist for years...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  For 40 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  ...in radio and concerts and all over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Abe played for him for 40 years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And there was a time that he took a sabbatical from me, and he went to Israel with Rosenblatt at that time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1746.0,1799.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  Or with Molly to Africa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That was another time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  How did you get to Coolidge?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Coolidge?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, that’s a long story.  You want me to tell the whole story?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yeah, sure.  President Coolidge.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  You know, I came here, I came here with my father.  And my mother and my sisters and brothers were left in Europe.  Because they didn’t let too many people at that time already into...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  You needed a visa to come here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1799.0,1827.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e ...into America.  Well anyway, here, when I was here, as a young boy, and appeared in all these places, a very rich man by the name of Sam Sennett was interested in me.  And his friend was Congressman Siegel, Isaac Siegel.  Otherwise, RECHTZEIT Siegel was the head of radio station, NYC, his father, Isaac Siegel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I wanted to bring my mother and sisters and brothers to America, you had to have, you know, a lot of pull at that time.  ‘Cause the quota was coming in ‑‑ it was in 19-, the 1920s.  So Congressman Siegel says, “You know, I’m going to take him to Washington to go before the Immigration Committee and see maybe we can do something to bring.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe took me to Washington, and the Committee, Longworth, at that time, was the Speaker of the House, and there was... he was the Chairman of the... and Hughes was Secretary of State.  He ran for President later on.  But he was the Secretary of State at that time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, I... they made a special thing in Congress Hall at that time.  It wasn’t as big as it is now.  And I sang a couple of songs ‑‑ and you want to know what I sang for them?  I sang...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1827.0,1914.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  Momenu?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  (Sings)  “La dona” ‑‑ I had a big voice ‑‑ “La dona mobile...” that’s what I sang.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  They called him the Yid, the little McCormick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  They called me Little McCormick.  And then I sang, it was a very popular song in those years ‑‑ (sings) “Gee, but I’d give the world to see that old gang of mine.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  As a little boy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I still have the copy.  And I also sang a chorus that my brother once wrote, (sings) “Blanc meir, my momma, fin yenazeit.”  This was, and Congressman Siegel explained the song, the meaning of the song, and it appealed very much to them.  And they gave...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  A compensation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  ...They ordered Secretary Hughes, who was also in the Committee, to send notices to the Council in Warsaw to send my mother and the sisters and then to...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And they put them on a boat...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To Danzig, at that time?  Where was the boat?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Danzig.  Danzig.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Danzig, probably, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To put them on the boat and send them to America.  But through that Committee, when I appeared there…that’s where I got the invitation to come to the White House.  On December 23rd...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1914.0,1990.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  And he has the pictures to show for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To come and sing at a party for President Coolidge.  And that’s how I...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  So you have the invitation ‑‑ it’s printed, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  So that’s how I got to the President.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What’d you sing?  Do you remember what you sang for Coolidge?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The same songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The same songs for Coolidge?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure.  (Sings)  “La dona mobile...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The Little McCormick.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  All right.  What else do you want to know about me?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  I want to go back to KRESSYN, to your, to the...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  To KRESSYN.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  ...to the early part of your career.  I mean, how did it begin?  Tell us how you came here, and how, even before you knew RECHTZEIT.  If there is a before you knew RECHTZEIT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  How I came to America?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah, were you involved in theatre as a child?  I mean...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Tell us about, also tell us about, you know, you had a tremendous career in Europe.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=1990.0,2040.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Oh, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  You know, before you came to America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, I didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  No?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  I never even saw theatre until I came to America.  I was 11 years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  But she was... she became very, very...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  But didn’t you go back to Europe and perform?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  That’s what I’m talking about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  She was a tremendous...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  I was in... I lived in Boston.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In Buenos Aires, she was a tremendous... all over the world, in South Africa...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  You lived in Boston.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  I came, I never lived in New York.  I came right from the boat, I came to Boston.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What part of Europe did you come from?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Bialystock.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Bialystock.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2040.0,2069.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e It was on the borderline ‑‑ I always say it was between Russia and Poland and Germany, and Germany and Russia and Poland, etc., etc., etc.  And I finally came here, and I came directly to Boston, and that’s where I went to school.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI had never seen theatre.  But theatre came to Boston, Yiddish theatre.  And they needed a child actress.  The Forward Hour had an office in Boston with a man called Mr. Arkin.  And Arkin was acquainted with my brothers-in-law ‑‑ they were the philanthropists in Boston ‑‑ if they needed for a Talmud Torah or a school or a church, or whatever, they came to Mr. Berger and Mr. Scheff for donations, and they were very generous, and they gave.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2069.0,2118.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eRECHTZEIT:\u003c/strong\u003e Julius Nathanson.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2118.0,2161.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Julius Nathanson, said, “Who is singing?”  And they said, “Oh, that’s my little di grine kuzine,” meaning their....  So they called me over, and they said, “You sing so beautiful, you should be in the theatre.”  So I said, “Theatre?”  And my brother-in-law said, “We won’t let our little sister go to the theatre.  She wants to be a lawyer, she wants to go to school, she won’t be.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I had an idea.  If you can earn money ‑‑ I must preface this.  I was raised as a communist.  Don’t hold it against me now.  I was raised as a communist, and I said, “I wouldn’t come to America, because America is bourgeois.  And bourgeois is not for me, I won’t go.”  I was old ‑‑ nine, ten, eleven years old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy father won, of course, and we came to America.  So I said, “I will not live on what my sisters and brothers give me in America.  I must work for my own self.”  So this was an idea ‑‑ if I can play in the theatre, I can make $5.00 a performance.  And so I auditioned, and I sang for them, and I was admitted in the chorus, and I was getting $5.00 a performance.  They played nine times a week.  I made $45.00 a week.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd the first thing that I bought was a piano for $250.00, a Chickering.  It wasn’t a second-hand, must have been a tenth-hand, but it was a Chickering.  Then...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2161.0,2257.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  This was in Boston.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  This was all in Boston.  My sister’s house had a joining wall with a settlement, musical settlement.  And naturally, a child at home, I was singing.  And the musical settlement heard me sing.  And they invited me in, whether I would like to take lessons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, “I would like to, but I have no money.”  They said, “Why?  It’s only 50 cents a program, a lesson.”  I said, “Fifty cents I have to take from my brother or my sister, and I will not take any money from them.”  So they said, “You come in and until you start working and earn money, you’ll pay us.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2257.0,2299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"So Atwater Kent Radio was giving auditions on the air.  There were 1500 students that auditioned.  And they brought me in a studio ‑‑ I had never been to a studio, nor had I ever sung for anybody.  And I started singing (inaudible).  I did a kinder Shulamis, a child Shulamis, and I knew the music from Shulamis.  And I didn’t have any music with me, so the... whoever was sitting at the piano had to improvise.  And he must have started in a key of X.  But “nay, nay, nay, nay,” I screamed my head off.  P.S. ‑‑ I won a scholarship for $7,500 to the New England Conservatory of Music.  Not knowing anything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2299.0,2348.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"But I was in Yiddish theatre.  My teacher was called Madame Laurenti.  A Catholic teacher.  And she said ‑‑ I was studying at that time Butterfly ‑‑ and she said, “You are 16.”  By then I was 16 years old.  “You will never get to the Met by 16.  Besides, you’ve never studied in Europe, and they will not admit you.  I have an idea.  Switzerland is playing has the Oper Amer Gare Players, they’re playing The Passion Play.  And you will make an excellent Magdalene.  And then you will have very good critics, and be able to show that you have been criticized in Europe and that you’re a great singer.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI come home and I tell my sisters and brothers that I will appear with the Oper Amer Gare Players in Switzerland.  And they said, “What?  [Yiddish]?  Do you know who they are, the Opera?  They’re playing about Christ!  And besides, if you go to Europe, you’ll never come back again ‑‑ you know they won’t let you in.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2348.0,2422.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"P.S. ‑‑ I forfeited the fourth year of my scholarship, as long as they had Yiddish theatre.  That’s how I remained with Yiddish theatre, instead of making... I don’t know whether I would have made the opera ‑‑ I’m not saying I would have.  Or musical comedy, which I would have perhaps done.  But this is how I remained in the Yiddish theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  So there was enough Yiddish theatre in Boston?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Boston had two Yiddish theatres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Two?  At one time, they had four theatres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  In Boston, four?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Every big city in America had theatres ‑‑ Chicago had three theatres, Boston had...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  With seasons that went throughout the... full seasons?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2422.0,2462.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Yes, seasons, seasons.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  With full seasons, with 39 weeks or 36 weeks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, California had theatres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  This is in the ‘30s?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Wherever you went ‑‑ Toronto had... Montreal had theatres.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  In the summers you went to Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  All over the country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  What years, Seymour?  What years, what the scope of the years?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  From the ‘20s to about ‘35 or so, you know.  And those were the years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Well, even in the ‘40s, when the war broke out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And the Union, and the Union used to supply actors.  Let me tell you about the situation as far as that’s concerned.  We needed actors to go on the road.  So the Union had to make a law that you can’t... once you get into the Union you can’t play for a year or two...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Three years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Three?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Three years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In New York.  Why did they make this law?  So that they should have actors, if they can’t play in New York, they want to play somewhere else, so we could send them on the road.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2462.0,2513.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  That’s how Paul Muni started ‑‑ on the road.  In Yiddish theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That’s why, that’s what we had to do, because otherwise we couldn’t supply all these theatres with actors on the road, because everybody wanted to be in New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  And they all had to be members of the Union in New York?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes.  Yes.  And they had to be members if they went out of town, too.  But in order for the... to have actors on the road, in Chicago, and Philadelphia ‑‑ and Philadelphia had three theatres ‑‑ and all over, so we had to make this law.  And so they said, “Nah, the Union doesn’t let you play in New York.”  But that wasn’t the reason, you see.  People didn’t understand.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2513.0,2553.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  When they finally got a hold of me, I played one season in Boston, they started calling me that I... Jacob Jacobs wanted me for the National Theatre, Hopkinson wanted me for the Brooklyn Theatre, and everybody wanted me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I asked a friend of mine, “What should I do?”  So they told me, “You’re too young for New York.  They’ll say that you’re not mature enough.”  I wasn’t of age.  Lebedeff was going to Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  You were about 17?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2553.0,2585.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  Yes, going on 18.  Lebedeff was going to Chicago.  So they suggested that I should go to Chicago.  They’ll take good care of me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I had to audition, because Lebedeff had never heard me.  So they brought me to the Hebrew Actors’ Union, up on that little platform, and I sang, and he hears and said, “Give her $10.00 more.”  That gave me $85.00 for the first time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd my first debut ‑‑ I wasn’t in the Union at that time as yet, but I played in Chicago with Lebedeff for the first year.  After that was Philadelphia, then first I went to Buenos Aires for the summer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In Philadelphia, it happened to me.  That’s where...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  This is where we met.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  ...we met, and we got married.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And were both young enough, we were both the same age.  As a matter of fact...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  In a show?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, we played together in a show.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2585.0,2636.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  You will never tell anybody?  I am nine months older than he is.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  (Sings in Yiddish, then Miriam joins him)  That’s what we sang.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We played the children in the first act.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How does that go?  I don’t know that song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Nobody knows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I don’t remember it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  (Sings in Yiddish)  Something like that.  We played in the first act.  And in the second act we played ourselves, adults. And we’re in love at that time.  And we fell in love.  And five years later, we were married.  Because...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Five years?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Such a long time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Because in between, I had to go to Europe.  I went to Buenos Aires ‑‑ I was there three times.  I was in Europe every summer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2636.0,2682.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  And when did you make the movie, the Purim Shpeiler?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The Purim Shpeiler?  I made that in the last year in Warsaw, in 1938.  That was the last thing that I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  What was that like?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That was when she went... when they made Molly’s Mameleh and what else?  The Gearmans...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yidl Mitn Fidl...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yidl Mitn Fidl...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That was in the late ‘30s.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah, that was 1937, ‘38.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And ‘38 was your last, your first film?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That was the only film I made in Warsaw.  As a matter of fact, they wanted to make Mitl Effes in Polish, a musical film out of that.  And I said, “I speak Polish.  But it’s so many years that I didn’t speak the language, give me at least a month or two so that I can refresh, you know, and start speaking the language again.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut Goebbels came to Warsaw, and that was the end of everything, because the next day, we tried to get...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Passage.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2682.0,2746.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Passage to America, and I got the last ship, the last boat out.  From Poland.  If not, I would have been interned.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd from there, I went directly to South Africa.  And that’s a trip from Lon-... I had to go to London.  From London we took a ship that took ‑‑ The Windsor Castle ‑‑ that took 24 days to get to South Africa, to Johannesburg.  And in Johannesburg, there was the Schlesinger Brothers, who had the monopoly on thea-, on practically everything that you can think of.  Of chocolate, tobacco, theatre.  And I don’t know what else.  But they owned the theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I didn’t have to pay a nickel for anything ‑‑ everything was pre-paid ‑‑ my hotel, my food, my luggage, everything was pre-paid.  And we started playing, and I played exactly four weeks, when we were sitting and having breakfast, and we listened to the BBC in Johannesburg, that England declared war, and immediately, we ran to the theatre, we locked ourselves in, because immediately the radio announced that all foreigners must leave or be interned.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2746.0,2833.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I couldn’t go back by boat anymore, because the boats had been confiscated for military.  And at that time, they didn’t fly.  So I had to take a train to Capetown, and wait until a freighter will leave for America.  And so I waited and a freighter did come along.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd a freighter, you know, can only take 13, 12 passengers, because if they take 13, they’ve got to have a doctor on ship.  So they took off a pharmacist that was going to America, and I went instead.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2833.0,2869.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I went through Port Said with the, with this schlepshick, as we call it, for 24 days ‑‑ in a blackout.  Because they were carrying contraband ‑‑ rubber and oil.  And if we were caught, it would have been scuttled, like the other boats were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo after 24 days ‑‑ it was a magnificent trip, because it was all Pacific waters, it was warm, it was summer.  Except we had one typhoon, and we survived that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Who were you with?  You weren’t alone?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes, I was.  I was alone, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK: All by yourself?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2869.0,2909.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT: Yes.\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN: I was alone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT: But they had actors. They had a company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN: As a matter of fact, Zelnicker, who was a famous name in London, was that time with us in South Africa. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: And you came to the United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN: I came to the United States, to San Francisco. The boat came to San Francisco. I came into San Francisco, and I came into the hotel, and my telephone rang, and it was the Yiddish Arts Theatre.  Schwartz was sick at that time, and his niece, who played in Sholem Asch’s Tehilim Yid, got an attack of appendicitis.  And the Union called me to take her place.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2909.0,2958.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"I said, “Mr. Guskin,” who was the manager of the Hebrew Actors’ Union at that time, I said, “I have never seen the play.  Nor have I read the book.  How can I go into a play that I’ve not....”  He said, “You’ve got to, or else they’ll close this theatre.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I locked myself into the room with the prompter ‑‑ Friedlander was the prompter at that time ‑‑ and I studied the part.  Fuchs played Schwartz’ part.  Leo Fuchs, who just died, incidentally.  And I played Schwartz’ niece’s part.  And we played together the Tehilim Yid, which was quite a success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd after that, we did, If I Were Rothschild.  That was already a musical, because Schwartz says, “Now that I have you, I can do a musical.”  So we started doing Rothschild, but it wasn’t meant to be, because Schwartz got a heart attack.  We opened on New Year’s Day or Eve, and we closed that week after that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=2958.0,3020.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  Schwartz was going to sing?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Schwartz was in the...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  He had a good voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  until he had a heart attack.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Schwartz had a good voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Schwartz sang very well, yeah.  And as a matter of fact, the theatre closed...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  He has some records singing, you know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We just did Schwartz, as a matter of fact, two weeks ago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  We did it on the Forward Hour, telling the whole story, and your father called and he said, “Hah!  Such a wonderful history!  Such a wonderful time!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  It was New Year’s Eve.  At that time, the Royal Cafe was, you know, the place for actors to come in.  So we were there, and I was sitting in the Royal Cafe, and there was the singing and dancing and blowing, Happy New Year!  Happy New Year!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3020.0,3064.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And there was a writer on the Daily, on the Yiddishen tuk, the day, and he came over.  And I was crying.  The more they were blowing Happy New Year, the more I was crying, because the theatre was closed, and I have no money, what am I going to do?  So this Linder, Mr. Linder came over to me, he says, “Maidel, why are you crying?  If you would hear what Edland and Rorov (?) said about you when they were sitting in the theatre, you would be dancing now.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e(Crying)  “Why don’t you say it in black and white?”  Because we didn’t even have the critics come to the theatre.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3064.0,3100.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So Miriam, you were telling us about how you got started with this production with Lebedeff in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  To play... I was engaged in Chicago, not to be the prima donna, but to be the ingénue.  The ingénue, and you usually has with a comedian, and the prima donna, has... but the prima donna was Anna Toback, who would... Morris Guest, when he played Mekko on Broadway, she was his leading lady.  But this one was years later, and she was engaged as the prima donna there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut after Lebedeff heard me sing, he started doing duets with me, and he started to give me more to do.  Well naturally, there was jealousy, you know.  I mean, who is she?  I mean, after all, she never played theater.  And I am engaged as the....","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3100.0,3147.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And the Lawndale Theatre in Chicago had their own radio show on top of the last floor, where the chorus used to dress.  So on Sundays, we used to broadcast.  And I didn’t have a repertoire.  I didn’t know any Jewish songs.  So I sang from Shulames, because I played a Kinder Shulames.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was at home, it was Sunday morning, and it was snow in Chicago was this high, you know?  And she heard me sing Shulames.  And she came running with her husband, up all those flights, and she was cursing the devil out of me.  “Who is she?  She is a nobody!”  And I didn’t know what was doing until she broke into the studio in the middle of my singing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3147.0,3194.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"And I wasn’t in the Union as yet, so I could have been sent away at any time, because everybody who was in the Union was claiming my part.  There was another one, an actress by the name of Tilla Rabinovich, who was a very fine performer, she was a character actress.  But she claimed my part.  And they said to her, “Can you play a young girl?”  She says, “Az maymous,” if you must.  So he says, “Well, we’ll have to introduce a new genre in the theatre ‑‑ a maymous ‑‑ a must genre.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, a whole season, I wasn’t even unpacked, because I expected that somebody would come to claim my part.  So when I had to leave Chicago, I didn’t even have to pack, because I never unpacked.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3194.0,3245.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  This was a... what year was this?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  1930, 1929, 1930.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Now, and this was of course your first appearance...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  My debut.  My first... I call it legitimate theatre, even though I wasn’t in the Union at that time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Yeah.  But this is your debut in the theatre in America?  I mean, in Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  In Chicago.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  In Chicago.  And with...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  You know, in Boston, I’d played children’s parts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But as an adult part, as it were, this was the first one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Well, at 17, adult.  As a matter of fact, there was an actress, May Simon, who was very fine.  She was a leading woman in Boston.  Incidentally, she couldn’t read Yiddish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The first Yiddish picture that I made was with May Simon, called My Yiddishe Mama.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  She was a very beautiful woman, and a very fine actress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What year was that, the first picture?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, that was... many years ago, when I was...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Must have been before 1929.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3245.0,3299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  And you know, that’s the picture they showed in Israel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  So they have the... we have it now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Huh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s not a... it’s been...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  It’s been played.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  It’s been played.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.  But the picture was of course Yiddish, and I sang, (sings) “My Yiddishe Mama...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Not the same Yiddishe Mama.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Not the same Yiddishe Mama.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Not the popular one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Do you know that they threw inkwells?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In Israel, they showed the picture in Israel...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  When?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I don’t remember the years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  But this is much later.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.  So they wouldn’t accept it.  They threw...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Inkwells.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  They threw things at the screen, they wouldn’t accept it...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Why?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Because it was Yiddish, and they didn’t want to play anything in Yiddish at that time.  That’s when they played My Yiddishe Mama in Israel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3299.0,3347.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  And after they pulled Yiddish, now Yiddish is being given in many schools in...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Well, it’s a totally different story now.  But come back... so this play, what was the show with Lebedeff in Chicago, the first one?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, that’s in Boston.  When May Simon took sick, they took me to play one of the parts.  The comedian played May Simon’s part and I played the comedian.  So they took her clothes, and I was... they had to put the dress up to here, because I didn’t fit the dress.  And I played at this, a Mama vin finif kinder, I came home with five children on this stage, those are the kinds of parts ‑‑ filler-inners, so to speak ‑‑ until I came to Chicago and started playing with Lebedeff and that was the first play...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And what show was that?  Do you remember, with Lebedeff, in Chicago?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3347.0,3397.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  With Lebedeff, yes, Yashke Vats.  Yashke Vats was the first show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Is that... that’s a musical.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Everything.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And who... do you know who wrote that?  Do you remember?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Lesch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yitzhak Lesch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  The music and the words?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, no.  Music was...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Olshanetsky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Olshanetsky.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  That’s a Olshanetsky show.  Did he conduct there?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, I don’t think so, no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No, not conducted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Any remembrance who the conductor was in Chicago?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Originally, Lebedeff played at the New York, too, Yashke Vats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah, in New York.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  But I’m interested in Chicago.  Do you remember anything?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Where did he play, the Lawndale or the Glickman Theatre?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The Lawndale Theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  On the West Side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Incidentally, the Lawndale Theatre was owned by the Capone gang.  And we didn’t know.  But they sponsored the theatre.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3397.0,3445.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Yeah, we used to come there doing, you know, for the... in the summertime, after we got through in the season here, I came there, I played with Goldenberg always, in the Goldenberg, I played...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Don’t you have a story about that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Samuel Goldenberg.  Huh?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Don’t you have a story about that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  About what?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Bugsy Siegel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah.  Well, that’s a different story.  That’s in the mountains.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Yeah, you reminded me, you said Capone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  So, at the Lawndale Theatre, you know, after the show, they always used to send a car and take us to Al Capone’s gambling places...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Later, you know, the Cotton Club.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  On the South Side.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN: South Michigan Avenue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3445.0,3487.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eKRESSYN:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.  I was once taken there.  And Mr. Greenberg was the liaison between the Capones and the other gangs, I don’t know just what gang at that time.  And they found out that I went there.  And they came to take me right away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What are you doing there?  Come home immediately.  We said good for you.  We have to take care of you.”  So that’s... I found out that I was with the wrong people.  But they were so nice to us.  I mean, we didn’t know that....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd it was in Chicago, it was a great success.  We used to play midnight shows in Chicago.  Theatre was a... it was flowering, it was flourishing, it was... it was everything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3487.0,3537.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  They made... they printed music, right?  Like a show like Yashkit Vat, okay?  There’s no real existent score of it, it just exists in...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  No, they just printed certain songs...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Just the songs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Popular songs from...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  The songs that became popular.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  ...from each play, and of course....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Like Lebedeff used to sing, (sings), “My Yiddish Maidel...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  That was in A Night in California.\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  A Night in California.\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  So it was Metro’s... Metro Music in New York was the main publisher.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, he bought all these copyrights, things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  When Lebedeff came to Chicago...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Was there a market for it?  I mean, did it sell?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, did it sell?  That was the greatest market... copies, music copies.  Everybody played, you know, pianos were so popular, and everybody was looking for it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  If you’d walk on Second Avenue on a Sunday or so, everybody’s windows were opened, and all you heard was RECHTZEIT Rechtzeit’s records.  All... on the East Side, that’s all you heard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3537.0,3603.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Nobody made records at that time.  Very few records were...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  If a composer wanted that his song should become popular, they had to write for RECHTZEIT.  Because RECHTZEIT was the only one that popularized it.  He was on radio.  Nobody else was.  That’s how Bells, that’s how Mirale, that’s how...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What were some of the other really successful musicals that you played in, Miriam?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  I?  Oy, who remembers them?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, so many.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  With Menashe Skolnick, we played five years.  (inaudible) and...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How many... go on, I’m sorry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  (Inaudible)  They just... you know, (inaudible) of names.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  How often did a show, how long did a show run?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  A season.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  A typical...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  A season.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  A season.  Forty weeks?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  A successful show ran 35, 40 weeks.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3603.0,3662.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  In the middle of the week, you’d...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And after that, after the 40 weeks, some of the name people used to go into vaudeville.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah, we used to...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The Second Avenue had on the Roof Garden, a beautiful, open-air vaudeville house.  Every summer.  Everybody came.  They would...Ludwig Zotz...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Where was it?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  On the roof.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Second Avenue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In Second Avenue Theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  It was called the Randy Kessler Theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The National Theatre had also... they all had, in the summer, they played vaudeville all over.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Outside?\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yes.  In summer, in the Bronx, and in Brooklyn, they had inside theatre, not outside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  But the Yiddish, a Yiddish musical, whether it was an Olshanetsky or whatever it was, some of the ones you mentioned, could run 30, as much as 35 weeks, nine performances a week.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3662.0,3704.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  No.  Sometime, in the middle of the week, they had repertoire sometime.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Very few.  Very few.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Very few.  But they did play a melodrama sometimes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Let’s make the picture even clearer.  That was only one musical playing.  How many would... how many would go simultaneously in a, in the height of the season?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  On the avenue?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  In different theatres, every theatre had...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Every theatre had a musical.  Except Jenny Goldstein, who was the melodrama theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  So you’re talking about five or six, five or six...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure, yes, yes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Nightly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Schwartz had the (inaudible) theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Absolutely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Lucy German...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  All of ‘em.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  ...the drama, but the others had musicals in one form or another.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3704.0,3742.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  And don’t forget there were theatres in Brooklyn ‑‑ The Lurich Theatre, the Atkinson...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Musicals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  They were all melodramas.  And then the Bronx had the Windsor, they had the McKinley Square...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And vaudeville.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  These became, in the summer, they all became vaudeville houses in the summer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You didn’t appear in vaudeville yourself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yes, we did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  You did?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  After the season...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I appeared in vaudeville...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  After theatre.  I played in Prospect Theatre, played a whole season there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  What kind of thing did you do in vaudeville?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Shulames, for instance.  You know, they used to do parts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Just the songs?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah.  Yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I’ll tell you an incident.  In the Prospect Theatre, I worked in Prospect Theatre, you know, for many, many, couple of years.  And one year, I’m playing Utellis (?), and I, my father gets a call from Rumshinsky.  What’s the matter?  “Listen ‑‑ you gotta come down.  He wants to see you.”  What’s a matter?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I came down with my father, he said, “Listen.”  Ludwig Zotz played a play in the Second Avenue Theatre called The Rabbi’s Melody, The Rebbe’s Meden, which was a sensation.  By the way, that show ran for two years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3742.0,3812.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"KRESSYN:  Two years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  The first year and the second year.  And this was in the second year.  Ludwig Zotz got an offer to go to Broadway to play Putash in Perlmutter.  It was a very famous play on Broadway at that time.  And so he wanted to go, so they didn’t have who to play The Rabbi’s Melody, because the play is a young boy, that he becomes a rabbi.  It’s very funny, and beautiful music in the play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo Rumshinsky says, “I want you to... (Yiddish)  Because just for you.”  So I went there and I played there for about six or seven months The Rabbi’s Melody on Second Avenue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And he was the little boy that it was supposed to be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  And he had that kind of a lisp, didn’t he?  He had that stutter, that...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  He had the lisp, yeah.  But from there, what about Rose that came to the...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, yeah.  After there, I went to uptown to play for Billy Rose, opened a nightclub.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3812.0,3871.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  What nightclub?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Casino de Paris on 54th Street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Most beautiful nightclub you ever saw in your life, this was.  And they had beautiful... all the... Gypsy Rose Lee was a chorus girl at that time.  And they had 16 beauties from the Ziegfield Follies, and 16 men, too.  And I did, I did, when the 16 beauties came on-stage, you know...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Without, without...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Not too much clothes on, I used to sing the theme song for them:  (Sings)  “Ladies, ladies of the evening.”  This was, and then they paraded these girls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd for the boys, I used to sing, (Sings) “Just a gigolo, everywhere I go.”  And they paraded.  This was a tremendous success, these two things.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3871.0,3924.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And that you did in English?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Of course.  And then, I want you to... you know who was on the bill there?  Lou Holtz was the emcee, and Bill Robinson, Eleanor Powell, you know, big na-... Buckham Bubbles, this was the bill on the shows there.  And it was a tremendous success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Walter Winchell was there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, yeah.  Billy Rose always, he couldn’t pronounce my name ‑‑ Reckstein, Reckstein...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Nobody can.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  So he called me, “Kol Nidre, hey Kol Nidre,” he knew a word ‑‑ kol nidre.  “Come here, come here, I gotta talk to you.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  It was the only association with a Hebrew or Jewish word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3924.0,3962.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  I auditioned for him.  What was my audition?  I sang a song.  The agent, Lenetsky was the agent, and he brought me that, and I’d do auditions with the song.  What was the song I sang?  I sang...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  (Sings)  “Without a song...”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  (Sings)  “Without a song...”  “Say, Kol Nidre, come here.”  I said, “What’s a matter?”  “You sang the song very good.  You know who wrote that song?”  I says, “I don’t know who wrote the song.  I just learned it so I can come to audition for you.”  He says, “I wrote that song.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Billy Rose wrote that song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  (Inaudible) that Billy Rose wrote that song.  I didn’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And Walter Winchell was in this theatre...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, yes...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Was in the nightclub...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=3962.0,4011.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  I also had a scene in there, that I do, I played in a fantasy.  And I sing, what did I sing?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the way, the Andrews Sisters, which were unknown at the time, they were also in that show, and they sang, (sings) “I want to be loved with inspiration, I want to be loved, starting tonight.”  Very good.  And all right, that was the Andrews Sisters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I did a song I called “And Like a Dream.”  So I sang a little thing, what was it?  What did I sing at that time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That I don’t know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And Hindu Wassel was a very famous burlesque queen that did beautiful things nearly nude.  And I, when she does these things, I’d put my head down and fall asleep.  So, I put my head down, and in the back, while she’s doing this, these nerate-...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Gyrations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Gyrations.  In the back, they showed all these beauti-, Gladys Glenn, Gypsy Rose Lee, they were all draped in nothings, in the back, beautiful background.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  He was raised on that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  And I’m sleeping.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=4011.0,4090.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Walter Winchell once came in to see this thing.  And he noticed this thing.  So in the column the next day, he wrote...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  That we have, by the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  I have the column from Walter Winchell.  He says, “That Billy Rose, that no-good Billy Rose, that murderer.  You gotta be a murderer to do that to Seymour.  What do you mean he sleeps when all these girls are dancing nude and everything?”  He wrote a column about it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  But you see, in the Yiddish theatre, for someone that has such a beautiful voice but is not six feet tall or anything, how can you make him the lover?  So you have to be the comedians all the time.  That’s the Yiddish theatre.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=4090.0,4133.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MLOTEK:  And that’s really, I mean, that’s the subtext here.  I mean, that’s Seymour’s voice.  Obviously, I mean, you know...his voice transcended the Yiddish theatre.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  June and Holland was a dance team at that time, the most beautiful dance team.  They were in the show.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Now the two of you together were in any musicals together?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  We were practically, in many of the shows.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Sure, lots of shows.  Although we didn’t play together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  No, that’s what I’m talking about ‑‑ I’m talking about playing together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  One show we did ‑‑ Olshanetsky was the composer at that time, and he did (sings in Yiddish), a very beautiful song.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Yeah, he wrote that duet for us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And we were... he was courting me at that time.  We were courting one another.  We had a scene where we’d talk and we’d sing, and we end in a kiss.  The chorus has to open the doors and says, “Milhoden gezain, milhoden gezain,” we saw what you did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOlshanetsky loved us.  We loved him, because everything Olshanetsky wrote, everything, I mean most of the things since Seymour came into the theatre, he said, “Listen, listen.”  He wanted Seymour to listen to it, because he was hoping Seymour would sing it.  So he loved us both.  And as we kissed...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=4133.0,4207.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"RECHTZEIT:  And we’d do that scene, that we’d kiss...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Yeah, and we kissed.  Olshanetsky was supposed to start the music...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  He’s supposed to start the orchestra.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  “Milholden gezain.”  He didn’t start the orchestra.  We had to kiss...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  While we were kissing, he wanted us to kiss long.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  ...and the audience started to laugh and applaud until it started.  These are some of the things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  And you got engaged shortly afterwards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Well...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Oh, yeah.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Then we had a scene in vaudeville.  Vaudeville show, he comes in to court me, and he knocks at the door, and he’s carrying flowers.  Just as he’s opening the door, the cat, the cat walked in!  And there’s nothing funnier, when a cat walks on a stage unexpectedly.  And it brought a tremendous laugh.  And I ad-libbed to him, and I said, “Don’t you know, if a cat’s... (Yiddish).”  That’s an old Jewish (inaudible).  These are some of the things that happened.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen we once played a scene from Yosef Mizina Breda.  Joseph and His Brethren.  And it was such a success ‑‑ he was Joseph, he had a little leotard, whatever he was wearing there.  We had to do it ‑‑ how many shows did we do that?  Sunday?  I don’t know ‑‑ four or five shows.  We had to do that scene over and over and over again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I had one scene ‑‑ Menashe, Menashe Skolnick was the one who did it ‑‑ and we had a scene in a... we sing... what do you call it?... in a... where you have several concubines?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=4207.0,4299.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986/transcript/29296/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:   A brothel.  No, but it’s not...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Not a brothel, no.  With those costumes...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLEVIN:  Oh, a harem.  A harem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Thank you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMLOTEK:  Not a Charem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  Not a Charem, no.  A harem.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRECHTZEIT:  Brothel, dear operator?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKRESSYN:  And he sings and sings, and he has a chorus behind him, and I am one of the chorus there.  And we sing, “Allah, Allah, Allah,” and we walk off this way, Allah, on both sides ‑‑ half of the chorus this way out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOlshanetsky’s wife, Sherry, was a very dear friend of mine.  So she came into one of the shows and she was standing in the wings.  So I was singing, “Allah, Allah,” I remained talking to her.  Everybody was off the stage, and I was still singing, “Allah.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut these things could only be done in vaudeville, you know.  Because the audience thinks that it’s fun.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40322/file/111986#t=4299.0,4371.904"}]}]}]}