Anyway, one Sunday afternoon after we had finished our doodling, Tony Galliani invited me to his home for a Sunday Italian spaghetti and meatballs dinner. Occasionally my mother would make spaghetti for me and my brothers that we thought was okay. It consisted of boiled egg noodles put into a casserole tray then doused with ketchup and baked until it was ready. My mother then cut squares from it and served them to us. It wasn’t bad, but （as I was about to find out） it really wasn’t spaghetti.
Tony’s apartment was redolent with a wonderful aroma of garlic, basil, and oregano. Already things were looking up! His wonderful, welcoming mother served me a great big dish of lightly al dente La Rosa spaghetti and meatballs swimming in a rich sea of tomato sauce and sprinkled with a generous helping of grated Parmesan cheese. What a revelation! It didn’t need anything—I salted it with my own tears of joy.
That night when I got back to our apartment I screamed, “I’ve tasted spaghetti! I know what spaghetti is now, and, Mom, no offense, but you don’t make spaghetti.”
I didn’t want to make a pest of myself, but every once in a while I would beg Tony to invite me to another Sunday afternoon spaghetti and meatballs dinner. Later on in my life, I think one of the reasons I married Anne Bancroft was the fact that her real name was Anne Italiano and, boy, could she make spaghetti.
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As a kid, any time I could put five cents together, I would run across the street to Feingold’s candy store and get an egg cream. What is an egg cream? It is a delicious chocolate drink that is made with neither eggs nor cream. Why was it called an egg cream? I don’t know. For generations, Talmudic scholars have never been able to answer this profound question. Let me describe this nectar of the gods for you: Into what you might know as the typical Coca-Cola glass with the big round bulge at the top, Mr. Feingold would pump about an inch and a half of U-Bet chocolate syrup （if it wasn’t U-Bet, it wasn’t honest-to-God chocolate syrup） and on top of that he would put about an inch of milk （in those days we only had whole milk）， then he’d move it to the soda squirter which had two functions, one was a powerful thin burst of soda, which would mix the chocolate syrup and the milk together, followed by a soft stream of soda, which would bring the heavenly mixture to its frothy top. He stirred it with a long spoon once or twice and then put it on the marble counter with a slight thud. That thud told you everything. It was indeed an egg cream. The trick was to sip it slowly and make it last as long as possible. And at the end, we always pushed the glass back across the counter to Mr. Feingold and said, “There’s still a little chocolate syrup at the bottom, could you give it another spritz?” He’d shake his head and sigh, but he always gave us another spritz. Heaven, pure heaven.
I loved my childhood in Brooklyn. Oftentimes, when I’m interviewed, people ask, “What was the happiest time in your life? Was it making your first movie? Was it winning the Academy Award?”
My answer is always, “Being a little kid in Brooklyn. That is…until age nine.”
They’d say, “So what happened at nine?”
And I’d say, “Homework.” Couldn’t run to the playground right after school, couldn’t meet the guys right after supper for cards and talk, had to do homework. And I realized, uh-oh, the world wanted something back. Homework, what a blight.
One night, I was having a particularly difficult time with my homework. My teacher, Mrs. Khune, wanted us to name at least six signers of the Declaration of Independence. My brother Irving had just come back home after one of his night classes at Brooklyn College. Irving went to Brooklyn College for eight years to become a pharmacist. Simultaneously, he worked eight hours a day at Rosenthal and Slotnicks, in the Garment Center. He felt it was incumbent upon him to be a father figure, and so he helped raise me. He was my inspiration and my guide through life. There was no cursing in my family. If I even said, “bum,” Irving would hit me. That night he heard me moaning and groaning over my homework.
“What’s the matter?” Irving asked.
I said, “My teacher wants me to name at least six signers of the Declaration of Independence, and all I could think of is Washington!”
He laughed. “By the way,” he said, “Washington is not one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.”
Oh! I was crushed, that was my big one. “But there was Jefferson, right? And maybe Franklin?”
“Yes,” he said. “You’re right on those two. Any others?”