I'll Figure It Out (a career/life story)
All my life I have been led to the arts, especially music.
Music came to me from my mother's side of the family, popular music. My mother was one of eight sisters, and they all loved show business. They talked about movie stars as if they knew them personally: 'Frank and Lana just broke up,' they'd say. And they loved singing the popular songs like It's Now or Never, Blue Moon, and I'll Walk Alone.
As a little girl I already knew a lot of popular songs. There was one song my aunts—who were all in choirs—always asked me to perform. It was a risqué song. I was only six or eight, and I didn't know what the lyrics meant, but I enjoyed being in the spotlight. To them it was a big joke. To my father, though, it was no joke. He heard me singing that song and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me away.
Music also came to me from my father. It was a big gift he gave to me. A lot of other things too, but primarily music. He was an excellent classical musician. He played the flute and the violin. Every time I go to the symphony and I hear the flute, I feel connected to my father. But though he was strongly attached to music, he couldn't find a way to make a living as a musician, to support a wife and two children. He opened a factory.
I started taking piano lessons when I was in kindergarten. I was taught to play classical music. The problem was I didn't care for it. I preferred popular music. My father was a musical snob. If I wanted to listen to popular songs, on the radio or on a record, I went into my bedroom and locked the door.
As a teenager I looked around and saw that the children who were more affluent could leave the hot, sweaty city and go to camp in the summer. My parents didn't have money to do that for me. So I applied to as a counselor in training, a music counselor. One of the counselors was Leonard Cohen. He always had a guitar and he was always playing the guitar. He liked to come over to my bunk and sing silly songs to me. It was a happy teenage summer with a lot of music. Back in Montreal I would go over to his house and sing. We were very friendly at the time.
Overall I had a very nurturing upbringing. Not just by my immediate family, but by my many aunts and uncles who lived nearby, along with seventeen cousins who I liked and who liked me. But I did the rest myself. Nobody handed me anything. From time to time I'd have a vision, often something that had never crossed my mind, and I'd go for it. I may have never done it before but that didn't stop me. I took the attitude that I could figure it out
That included getting an education. They wanted my brother to be a doctor. From the time he was born, my mother called him "doctor." He was just a little boy and she had him carrying around a doctor's kit. She tried to orchestrate his life and she succeeded. He went to college and medical school. But, me, they didn't even want me to go to college. They were sexist. My mother's horizons had been limited by her mother. My mother, who came from Europe when she was in sixth grade, liked to read. Seeing that, her teacher gave her books to take home. But her mother—my grandmother—took one look at the books and threw them out. But in my own life I was not to be denied.
When I graduated high school, I applied to teachers college. McGill University had just opened one. At the time there was a big shortage of teachers for English-speaking students. In just ten months and a summer I got my teaching certificate. I taught elementary school, grades one, two and three. Immediately I had my own classroom; I was all of seventeen. You might think I found that daunting, but it wasn't. As a child I would sit my dolls on the sofa and pretend to be the teacher. And as the older sister I was used to leadership. Becoming a teacher was an easy transition.
I enjoyed teaching but it was just a means to an end. What I really wanted to do is sing in musicals and act in plays. I was familiar with the theater scene in Montreal. Boys knowing I liked theater offered to take me. I saw some shows multiple times. To get a part in a play, you'd audition. Which meant reading from a script—saying the lines to another actor who was also auditioning. How did I get chosen? I was able to morph into the person I was supposed to be playing, become that character. How did I win parts in musicals? I think it was my singing. I performed in shows like Guys and Dolls, Abie's Irish Rose, Damn Yankees, Bells Are Ringing, Fiddler on The Roof, Kiss Me Kate.
You might think that starting out I was nervous. But I really wasn't. Growing up I was often asked at family gatherings to get up and sing. I was in my element. I knew all the lyrics and I knew all the music. So I was used to performing. I wasn't afraid. I was excited. One of the happiest times was being back waiting for the curtain to open. The orchestra would be playing the overture and I could hardly wait to get on stage.
During the day I taught. At night I'd be in a play or musical or I'd go out on a date, or all of the above. I'd finish teaching at 3:15 p.m., and I would take a nap somewhere.
I dated like crazy. Three eligible men wanted to marry me. It was too much pressure, it was overwhelming. I met my future husband, Erwin Brilliant, who I call Brill, at a hotel in the Catskills called Chester's. It was kind of a cultural mecca. A lot of the staff were medical students and dental students. My girlfriend and I were nineteen and very popular, to say the least. Brill was a dental student in Philadelphia.
I got married at twenty-two, and we moved to Boston. Thanks to Brill, I've been able to pursue a life in the arts my whole life. The financial stability he has provided made it all possible.
I have to do things for my body, not just my mind. But I don't like to work out. I do love to dance, though. I decided to become an aerobics instructor. I took a six-week course and got certified. I got to play the music I liked. It was fun. It was easy. The nearby high school sent students to my aerobic dance class to meet their gym requirement. We had the best time and I'd sign off for them. This was in Boston.
My career in the arts in Boston had a small and inauspicious beginning. My husband had gone to college with a boy named Dave Dick, who played the piano for that chorus. Knowing I was a musician, he asked me if I would substitute for the conductor because she was irresponsible. She wouldn't show up. Eventually I replaced her, and I transformed the chorus. It went from six members to sixty-two.
That's how I was discovered. The mayor and the Commissioner of Elderly Affairs came out to see for themselves this huge chorus of older people. Their visit led to two things.
- When Boston had its big annual parade, they put the senior chorus on a fire engine that had speakers on both sides. When we came by, people hooted and hollered. One piece was Boston Song, which I had written. The parade lasted seven hours, and to my surprise the seniors sang the whole time.
- I was asked to be the city's Artist-In-Residence. In that capacity I put on shows—musicals, plays—all over the city of Boston.
Then I got it into my head to be in TV. It was something I very much wanted to do. But at first I had no idea how to accomplish that.
I looked into the TV shows that were broadcast in Boston, and I noticed there weren't any for seniors. So I proposed a show for that age group. To make my case, I created a book, a thick book, outlining segments that would appeal to seniors—academic things, art things, cooking, you name it. Not only did the book lay out what the shows should be, it also listed the people—celebrities—who would appear in each segment. It even included their contact information. On my own I put that huge book together. I was ready to rock and roll!
I asked the city of Boston to sponsor that show. They said no. They said the city doesn't do TV shows. That avenue was blocked. But, as luck would have it, another avenue opened up right at that time. The NBC affiliate in Boston, WBZ TV, decided to do a show for seniors. I had nothing to do with that, their decision. They called the Department of Elder Affairs and asked, did they have any idea who could do this? The department referred the station to me. I met with the producer of this new show, my huge book in hand. On the spot, he hired me to be associate producer of the show for seniors. I was in! On top of that, he also invited me to be the host of a show called Prime Time at WBZ TV.
Three months later I succeeded the producer, who was leaving the area. At that very time the executive producer approached me about hosting yet another show, For Kids Only. In no time I was both the producer and the host of two TV shows, shown locally.
I really didn't know what I was doing. But I invoked my mantra, I can figure it out, and that's what I did. Actually, doing interviews came naturally. I knew how to talk to people. I was just being honest and sincere with people. And respectful—I never threw curve balls like some talk show hosts did. I just had nice experiences. The only new part was the technical aspect—how many cameras I needed and so on.
One good thing led to another. As the producer, I selected the guests for both shows. A lot of famous people came through Boston, and I cherry-picked—people like President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan, Derek Box—then president of Harvard, Linus Pauling, Carol Channing, Linda Ronstadt, Julia Child, Howard Cosell, Tom Seaver, Joan Rivers, Senator Ed Kennedy, the Prince and Princess of Sweden. I went to school on every guest. I learned so much.
I was very respectful of my guests, and ethical. A lot of journalists knew what the person didn't want to be asked about, and the first thing out of the journalist's mouth was a question on that topic. I would never do that.
Putting on those TV shows—creating each and every one of them—was a dream come true. I am someone who has to create. My very being has to keep creating.
I produced and hosted those two shows for twelve years. Then, out of nowhere, NBC canceled all of the local shows in the United States and in Canada. No warning. All of a sudden, I was out of a job. But soon after I was offered the job of the State Secretary of Elder Affairs in Massachusetts. I decided against it. The person who took the job asked me to serve as his adviser. I accepted on the condition that I could be an independent contractor, not an employee.
During the time I was on TV, a well-known composer from South Africa came to the United States and latched on to me. He wanted me to help him with his music, and for several years I did all the lyrics and also helped him with composing. He used to say that people cheated when they wrote music, and that's what he did to me. When you publish music, the royalties are split three ways. The producer gets 50 percent; the composer, 25 percent; and the lyricist—that was me—25 percent. He gave me nothing. I could have sued him but I chose not to. It was the work I loved. The work—the living experience of it—was always my end goal.
To create something, I don't have to have any knowledge whatsoever. I know I can learn how to do it. And find other people who can help me do it. That's the approach I took when I decided to put together a record album of songs I had written. I had never made an album before but, no problem: I hired very good musicians, and I rented a recording studio in an old building. It was summertime. My family spent the summer in our lovely home in a lovely neighborhood on Cape Cod, and where was I? Back in Boston cooped up in an old building that wasn't air conditioned. But none of that mattered. It was one of the best summers I ever had. My album—Brilliant, Better Late Than Never—got very good reviews, and I won a song-writing award from ASCAP/MAC.
Next came my single biggest undertaking. The only two genres of music that originated in the United States were jazz and the musical, the Broadway musical. Ken Burns had made a film called Jazz, which tells the story of how Jazz evolved as an art form and the exceptional people who created that art form on the spot. I decided that a film needed to be made on the musical, a genre that my whole life I had been steeped in. I said to myself, no one has done it in the last sixty years, and no one is likely to do it in the next 60 years. It's up to me. It came to be called, Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy. It had its premiere in PBS' Great Performances on January 1, 2013.
I knew it would be a mammoth undertaking, but I didn't hesitate for one minute. I had never made a film but that didn't matter. I knew I could figure it out.
If I was going to do this, it had to be the best—the best crew, the best clips, the best director, the best producer—and that meant I had to raise a lot of money. I knew how to generate money for myself. Growing up I earned my own money. I did tutoring, mostly math. I worked in a dress shop. But I never asked anybody for money my whole life. And I hated doing it. The very idea revolted me. But I did my best to learn how to raise money. I picked the brains of fund-raisers. I went to fund-raising events all over the United States. But, of course, fund-raising comes down to approaching people—people with a lot of money.
I knew I needed a drawing card, a high-credibility person in the film industry. My first move was to approach a well-known documentary maker, and that was the executive producer of the American Experience on PBS, Michael Kantor. Lo and behold, he agreed. That was a great feeling. Michael Kantor had a long history with PBS. That was a huge advantage. Right off the bat, PBS agreed to air the film—which gave the project instant credibility. But Michael Kantor wasn't somebody who raised money.
Through a referral Michael Kantor and I met with a very wealthy individual who was reportedly interested in Broadway. A big blustery guy, he right away started yelling at us. Michael was not about to be yelled at, so we headed for the door. As we were about to leave, I turned to him and asked, "What do you need from us to support this film?" He said, "Proof positive that you can get video on the founding people, like George Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein." To him a film on the Broadway musical had to have clips of the major composers and lyricists, and he was right.
Right away I got ahold of an archive expert and in no time, he came up with the videos we needed. I strung them together and showed them to the potential investor. He was delighted and gave us a huge amount of money. He was the anchor donor. PBS chipped in. Most of the money I raised myself.
In its heyday the film was shown all over the world. I still get calls from different groups around the world wanting to air it. It is the story I wanted to tell and it is available forever to everybody.
The film won the prestigious Peabody Award, which was great validation. But for me it wasn't about going for the award.
That project was my dream job. No one had ever done anything on the origins of musicals. I wanted to fill the historical gap. I was proud that the Jews had done it. I felt good about that. The film was about a Jewish legacy, but it was also my legacy, the legacy that I wanted to leave.
That meant a lot but it was the sheer joy of the experience. I remember sitting in a New York penthouse with a big camera crew. Famous composers were there. One of them was playing the piano. I was in heaven, absolute heaven. Something else I really loved and marveled at is that the whole staff went to Broadway musicals on their day off. They loved the genre. The other thing that pleases me is years later there is still a really nice friendly feeling among all of us. It also gave me pleasure to make sure the film was totally accurate. I had it authenticated by NYU experts on Broadway musicals.
I have been lucky. I have accomplished the things I wanted to do with my life. That included finishing college—I graduated summa cum laude from Boston College and later received a Distinguished Alumni Award. It included teaching people stage presence and speaking skills. And it very much included having a family—giving birth to a child was one of the high points of my life.
I've been happy most of my life. I think a lot of that is due to my approach. If there is an issue, I try to find a way around it or over it. If it's something unpleasant, I try to make it a positive experience, harmonious. If there is something I'm not happy about, I try to do something about it. I believe that you have to create your happiness.
I'm going through another phase now. I have to find something new to do that will gladden my heart. But I'm sure I'll figure it out.