I was busy putting together German civilian talent with American GIs who could sing, dance, and play instruments for variety shows that I would MC. I loved the job, and to add to my good feelings, I got a letter from my brother Lenny. He was liberated from his German prison camp and was on his way back home. Believe it or not, I was almost disappointed when I was told my time in Europe was up and I would be going back to the USA.
The journey back to America in April 1946 was a lot faster and safer than the journey to Europe. We were on the Queen Elizabeth, a big and beautiful boat and slightly different from the Sea Owl. By the way, here’s a little history lesson: The Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary were both used as troop transports during the war. Their high speeds allowed them to outrun hazards, principally German U-boats, usually allowing them to travel outside a convoy. During her war service as a troopship, Queen Elizabeth carried more than 750,000 troops, and she also sailed some 500,000 miles. It was seven or eight in the morning when we entered New York Harbor. At the sight of the Statue of Liberty smiling down at us, many a GI broke into tears. I think I was one of them.
I was sent to Fort Dix for a month or two before processing my reentry into civilian life. I did some camp shows with Special Services while there. I exercised my songwriting skills by writing parodies. For instance, instead of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine,” we’d sing, “When we begin to clean the latrine.” And for “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” we rolled up our pants legs and became the Andrews Sisters.
Back together with my brothers on the roof of 111 Lee Avenue in Brooklyn. Irving （far right） and I （far left） are still in uniform, but Bernie （next to me） and Lenny （next to Irving） had been honorably discharged and wear shiny gold lapel buttons sporting a proud eagle, sometimes referred to as “the Ruptured Duck.”
When I was at Fort Dix, I got a phone call from my brother Irving saying that he was going to be there the next week for his own processing and discharge. Wow, my brother Irving! I was told which bus he would be on and when he got off the bus, I spotted him immediately. I grabbed him and we fell to the ground in a heap, rolling around in happiness. Two MPs jumped on me and pulled me off him. It seems that corporals are not allowed to tackle first lieutenants. My brother quickly explained that we were brothers and had not seen each other for a long time. They let me go.
I was discharged—honorably, I might add—in June of 1946. Being a civilian once again was wonderful and terrible. I didn’t have to eat in a mess hall anymore; I could eat Chinese, Italian, or deli anytime I wanted to. But what to wear? In the Army it was easy. You put on the same clothes every day. But I had actually grown about an inch and put on about twenty pounds while I was overseas, so I had to get a whole new wardrobe. My favorite wing-tipped black-and-white shoes were heartbreakingly too small to wear anymore. I had grown up.
The Army didn’t rob me of my youth; but actually, come to think of it, they really gave me quite an education. If you don’t get killed in the Army you can learn a lot. You learn how to stand on your own two feet.
Chapter 4
Television—The Sid Caesar Years
In 1947 I answered an ad in The Show Business Daily, which at the time was a broadsheet newspaper featuring auditions and casting calls for Broadway shows and other theatrical productions in New York City. “Wanted: Production Assistant for Benjamin Kutcher Productions.” His office was on Forty-eighth between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. I knocked on the door and went in. It was a typical down-on-their-heels Broadway producer’s office, replete with shabby furniture and featuring a big half moon window looking down on Forty-eighth Street.
Unfortunately, I’d caught Mr. Kutcher taking down his underwear and socks from a hastily strung clothesline stretched across his office.
He shouted at me, “Don’t you wait for a ‘Come in!’ before you come in?”
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” I said; I was flustered and didn’t know what to do. So I said, “I’ll go out and come in again!”
And I went back out and knocked on the door. He got even by making me wait awhile before he said, “Come in.” I came back in and he pointed to a chair and said, “Sit.”
I didn’t know it then, but this was the birth of The Producers, and Benjamin Kutcher was Max Bialystock.
He said, “Okay, tell me…what did you see when you entered the office the first time? What was I doing?”
I thought quickly. If I said, “Taking down your underwear and your socks from a clothesline” I knew I’d be in trouble. So I said, “Nothing! I saw nothing.”