marriages, in a walk-up on Third Avenue in Yorkville. In 1951, when
Detective Story
the film was released, I wasnominated for my first Academy Award. I won Best Actress at the Cannes International Film Festival that year, and I could work nowhere in film or television. I was twenty-four years old.
I would stay blacklisted for twelve years.
• • •
M y mother saved their lives financially when she found the ad for the nursery school in East Rockaway. They moved to East Rockaway. My mother ran the school, as she and Fremo had run the Haskell Nursery School at my grandmother’s when I was a little girl. And she loved it. All those little girls to fuss over and entertain. Pop Abe would descend the steps of the house from their living space and serve the many adoring boys and girls fresh orange juice. They were both loved and respected—for my father, respect was everything.
• • •
A rnie was a mystery to me; I was a mystery to him. Neither of us knew anything about the other’s childhood, youth, schooling, work, how the other was raised, what their parents did. No facts. During our relationship I met his younger sister and her husband one summer. She was warm, vivacious. I didn’t know till years later she spent the rest of her life in and out of mental institutions.
He did tell me that as a boy on the way to school he carried a chain to arm himself against the kids in his neighborhood, in the playgrounds. Nothing, nothing about his mother. His father. I never met them.
When Arnie’s father died, he sat in the backseat of the limo far away from me, against the window. Not sad. Grim, bitter. Never a word. His profile said,
Do not ask. Don’t talk.
His mother was never asked to our house; she never met his children to my knowledge. She was admitted to a hospital once, for apelvic complaint, and I saw her on a gurney, but never met her. She was an unadorned, gray-haired older lady; the sheet covering her on the way to the operation slipped aside, and I was struck by the vibrant triangle of thick black hair covering her sex.
• • •
I didn’t know if Arnie was attracted or repulsed by me, or both.
I think he was attracted by the prospect of me as fresh clay, open to being remodeled into his vision of who I should be. His Galatea. My talent was interesting to him, but that was the one area he was denied entry; that was mine alone.
His displeasure, anger, and confusion seemed to come from his inability to change me enough. And a total lack of curiosity as to what and who had formed me. My mother, of course, my Aunt Fremo. I was an uneducated high school graduate. Inspired by literature, art, and theater, reckless and passionate, unaware of boundaries or danger. Spoiled, my heart in the right place, indulged, utterly ignorant of money, housework, cooking, laundry, with an overwhelming passion for acting, and a passion for passion. Uneducated and inadequate in everything else practical, in life.
And as I was to find out in the coming years, I had my father’s sense of justice, too. And my grandfather’s, Lyov Haskelovich, Zionist, radical, martyr, whose blood ran through my veins. But I had to grow up first.
• • •
D arren McGavin had hit it big with a TV series. He and Melanie moved to Park Avenue. I walked from our floor-through on Third to their building on Park. Melanie was thrilled and excited, showing me everything. Park Avenue at that time was indeed a big deal. Only very rich people lived there, celebrated in story and song. But theapartment itself seemed an exact replica of the beloved one above the Chinese restaurant, with one addition: the maid’s room. Except there wasn’t an actual room for the maid, so inventive Melanie had turned the wide closet facing the front door into a kind of railroad berth. Levered doors opened onto a narrow built-in bed on a board. It had a small shelf with its own electric light. But it was still a clothes closet in
Detective Story
the film was released, I wasnominated for my first Academy Award. I won Best Actress at the Cannes International Film Festival that year, and I could work nowhere in film or television. I was twenty-four years old.
I would stay blacklisted for twelve years.
• • •
M y mother saved their lives financially when she found the ad for the nursery school in East Rockaway. They moved to East Rockaway. My mother ran the school, as she and Fremo had run the Haskell Nursery School at my grandmother’s when I was a little girl. And she loved it. All those little girls to fuss over and entertain. Pop Abe would descend the steps of the house from their living space and serve the many adoring boys and girls fresh orange juice. They were both loved and respected—for my father, respect was everything.
• • •
A rnie was a mystery to me; I was a mystery to him. Neither of us knew anything about the other’s childhood, youth, schooling, work, how the other was raised, what their parents did. No facts. During our relationship I met his younger sister and her husband one summer. She was warm, vivacious. I didn’t know till years later she spent the rest of her life in and out of mental institutions.
He did tell me that as a boy on the way to school he carried a chain to arm himself against the kids in his neighborhood, in the playgrounds. Nothing, nothing about his mother. His father. I never met them.
When Arnie’s father died, he sat in the backseat of the limo far away from me, against the window. Not sad. Grim, bitter. Never a word. His profile said,
Do not ask. Don’t talk.
His mother was never asked to our house; she never met his children to my knowledge. She was admitted to a hospital once, for apelvic complaint, and I saw her on a gurney, but never met her. She was an unadorned, gray-haired older lady; the sheet covering her on the way to the operation slipped aside, and I was struck by the vibrant triangle of thick black hair covering her sex.
• • •
I didn’t know if Arnie was attracted or repulsed by me, or both.
I think he was attracted by the prospect of me as fresh clay, open to being remodeled into his vision of who I should be. His Galatea. My talent was interesting to him, but that was the one area he was denied entry; that was mine alone.
His displeasure, anger, and confusion seemed to come from his inability to change me enough. And a total lack of curiosity as to what and who had formed me. My mother, of course, my Aunt Fremo. I was an uneducated high school graduate. Inspired by literature, art, and theater, reckless and passionate, unaware of boundaries or danger. Spoiled, my heart in the right place, indulged, utterly ignorant of money, housework, cooking, laundry, with an overwhelming passion for acting, and a passion for passion. Uneducated and inadequate in everything else practical, in life.
And as I was to find out in the coming years, I had my father’s sense of justice, too. And my grandfather’s, Lyov Haskelovich, Zionist, radical, martyr, whose blood ran through my veins. But I had to grow up first.
• • •
D arren McGavin had hit it big with a TV series. He and Melanie moved to Park Avenue. I walked from our floor-through on Third to their building on Park. Melanie was thrilled and excited, showing me everything. Park Avenue at that time was indeed a big deal. Only very rich people lived there, celebrated in story and song. But theapartment itself seemed an exact replica of the beloved one above the Chinese restaurant, with one addition: the maid’s room. Except there wasn’t an actual room for the maid, so inventive Melanie had turned the wide closet facing the front door into a kind of railroad berth. Levered doors opened onto a narrow built-in bed on a board. It had a small shelf with its own electric light. But it was still a clothes closet in
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