I knew when we were crossing over the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan because I heard the loud thrumming as the taxi’s tires went over the steel grating. We must have been getting closer to Broadway when I saw the top of the Empire State Building as we passed Thirty-fourth street. （I was just a little disappointed not to see King Kong hanging there.） Soon it was the Chrysler Building on Forty-second Street, I knew it was the Chrysler Building because of the big needle at the top. My heart was racing along with the engine of the cab as we approached the Alvin Theatre on Fifty-second Street. （Later, the Alvin Theatre would be renamed the Neil Simon Theatre—named for one of the most famous and prolific comedy playwrights in Broadway history, who also happened to be one of my co-writers on Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, and a dear friend. More about him later.）
Uncle Joe parked right outside the theater. It was no problem in those days; his friend Al the doorman had reserved the space. I got so excited when I got out of the cab and saw the marquee: ANYTHING GOES BY COLE PORTER. STARRING ETHEL MERMAN, WITH WILLIAM GAXTON AND VICTOR MOORE. Wow.
When we finally got to our seats all the way up in the last row of the second balcony I got a little dizzy from the height. I should have known that free seats weren’t fifth row on the aisle. The houselights dimmed and from the orchestra pit came the strains of the overture, a mélange of all the famous Cole Porter hits from the show. One great song after another, not only “I Get a Kick Out of You” but also “You’d Be So Easy to Love,” “You’re the Top,” “It’s De-Lovely,” “All Through the Night,” and, of course, the show’s wonderful title song, “Anything Goes.”
In those days the cast didn’t depend on microphones like Broadway shows do today. When Ethel Merman belted out “You’re the Top” even though Uncle Joe and I were two miles away in the cheap seats, it was thrilling but maybe a little too loud. What a voice! They said she could hold a note longer than the Chase National Bank. I thought she was the greatest thing since chocolate milk. I had goosebumps.
Anything Goes was falling-down funny. When the final curtain fell, I leapt to my feet and cheered my nine-year-old head off clapping my hands till they stung. Way up there at the top of the second balcony, I figured that I was as close to heaven as I’d ever get.
On the way home, still buzzing with the excitement from the show, I made up my mind, and from the floor of the taxi I announced, “Uncle Joe, I am not going to go to work in the Garment Center like everyone else in our neighborhood.” I knew I had bigger fish to fry. I said, “I am going into show business and nothing will stop me!” And, strangely enough, nothing did.
I fell in love forever with Broadway musical comedy that afternoon and also began a lifetime of admiration for the music and lyrics of Cole Porter, who, together with Irving Berlin, is still one of my all-time favorite songwriters. Years later, when I discovered to my amazement that Cole Porter wasn’t Jewish, I was taken aback for a moment but then quickly forgave him. I remember thinking while lying awake in bed that night after seeing “Anything Goes” that when I grew up I would like to be a Broadway writer. Not only creating the characters and the stories, but maybe also writing the songs. Being a Broadway songwriter, I decided, would be even better than playing shortstop for the Brooklyn Dodgers, which up until then had been my most fantastic dream.
As a family, we were not very religious and did not keep kosher. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite sandwiches was ham and cheese. However, my grandmother, who for a time lived in the same building, was very observant. Thank god for the long hallways in those old railroad apartments. It gave us at least two minutes to clear the kitchen of non-kosher food before my grandmother could get there. She was a pretty good ice box detective, so my mother hid things like ham in a little tray behind the ice.
I grew up in Williamsburg in the 1930s, during the time of the Great Depression. There was just enough money in the majority of households for the basic necessities: rent, food, clothing, etc. When Hanukkah or Christmas came around, kids didn’t get a lot of expensive toys. And even though we were Jewish, we enjoyed the Christmas tradition of hanging up our stockings. Four different-sized stockings were hung up on the bookshelf, which we made believe was the fireplace. And every Christmas morning we were surprised and happy that when we reached into our stockings we found the same wonderful Christmas gift: a box of chocolate snaps. I tried to make mine last for a week, but I always failed. In the magazines we saw pictures of wonderful Christmas toys like beautiful shiny red scooters, but they were way out of reach.