The Loss of My Legend

Last Friday, August 21, 2020, we saw the passing of another legend – my mom, Natalie Goodman – who, up until recently, was among the last few surviving historians of the Golden Age of Television. With the recent passing of Carl Reiner at the end of June – this leaves Mel Brooks as the Emeritus funny man from Your Show of Shows – the iconic television show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, which my mom worked on from 1950-1954.

My mother, who was then known as Natalie Chapman, worked for five years as the production secretary to the show’s producer, Max Liebman. There, she was in the presence of many iconic writers and performers – including: Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Joe Stein (Fiddler on the Roof), Mel Tolkein, Lucille Kallen, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, and Howard Morris, among others – most of whom, (with the exception of Woody Allen), would become lifelong friends. Carl Reiner introduced my parents to each other. My dad, Hal Goodman, had been one of the newly added writers on The Imogene Coca Show – but got fired after writing a comedic sketch about a cat who gets killed which displeased Imogene – as she had been a major animal lover – so he packed up his Royal manual typewriter and headed back to Los Angeles.

As the story was told to us over the years, Imogene had taken my mom to a psychic who said she would marry someone with the initials “HG” – so my mother put on her spunky and determined Mary Tyler Moore persona (yes, she was from Minneapolis, after all), while her friends packed up her N.Y. apartment as she headed West to pursue this handsome 40-year old bachelor – and took him off the market for good. My dad continued to have a successful career as a comedy writer in variety – notably working for Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, Jackie Gleason, Flip Wilson, and Frank Sinatra – before becoming one of the head monologue writers for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson with his longtime writing partner, Larry Klein. My dad passed away in 1997, at the age of 82.

My mom, who was 99 1⁄2 when she died last week – had an amazingly long and colorful time on earth – one whose creative life was one filled with long devoted friendships, arts and travel, beauty and culture, family and lots of Italian food! She was a meticulous historian of resourcefulness – saving a treasure-trove of everything for posterity in a cool memorabilia kind-of-way – which I’ve found so useful to me now. There were resumes, letters of recommendations, pay-stubs, newspaper clippings, photographs, travel notes, programs from plays, music, and art galleries. I found a little black book of what the production staff was paid in the 1950s for their work – from choreographers, lighting technicians to background performers, etc. all in her very legible handwriting.

She kept detailed receipts for furniture and art she bought in the 1950s – as well as creating an inventory of our house’s entire contents for any future insurance claims in longhand on yellow legal pads – as well as typed lists, compiled and organized from her favorite Selectric typewriter.

She saved the beautiful Christmas ornaments from her childhood, reorganized the cedar closets where everything was folded nicely, and put away in those plastic zippered bags used for pillows and blankets – always accompanied by scented mothball protectors obtained by the Fuller Brush Rep – in those hard-plastic, turquoise hanging hives. She changed her linens every Friday and her 100% cotton sheets were sent out weekly to be cleaned and pressed – meticulously returned in brown paper packages tied up with string.

She kept blueprints for any remodeling job, wallpaper and fabric swatches, jars of nails, screws, and tools. She kept the Irish Linen from her mother’s trousseau – which, come to think of it, I believe there’s still a price tag on it and it’s clearly over 100 years old! She kept lace and monogrammed handkerchiefs with her name or family initials, her mother’s wedding dress (that no one’s current waistline would ever be small enough to fit into now), antique shawls and intricately beaded handbags that would make you salivate – and notes about who they belonged to. If they were valuable, they were duly noted by an exclamation point and an *asterisk! She still has pairs of gorgeous kid leather gloves embroidered with little flowers that were her grandmother’s, which would also make you wish you had a hand small enough to wear them.

Her drawers overflowed with evidence of her life and she didn’t want us to forget even a minute of it. There were multiple handwritten phone books upstairs and downstairs in her beautiful handwriting – stuffed to overflowing and held together by a rubber band – which included a resource for every possible need – window cleaning, wrought-iron gate repair, plumbers, painters, and roofers. There were no Post-Its or Evernote to hide your ripped-note scribbles at that time. The 4×6 photos of family and friends were always displayed throughout the house and in her bedroom – where she would rearrange them when her night-owl tendencies would arise. She cut out articles, saved birth and death certificates, old passports, letters, and fantastic sepia photographs from great and great-great-grandparents, uncles and aunts, genealogy paperwork on anyone she had knowledge of, obituaries of friends, war correspondence, and my dad’s army memorabilia – which is so interesting and valuable to sift through now. I think we even have the D-Day Newspaper from the end of WW11.

I found my grandfather’s apology letter to my grandmother after his indiscretion and his sincere effort to support and make himself available to my mother – even though he was banned from having communication with her until she was eighteen – as stipulated by my great grandparents. Sadly, my grandparent’s marriage fell apart for unknown reasons – and when he fell in love with a non-Jewish woman named Portia who became pregnant, that scandal rocked their Jewish community because of the mores of the

society back in 1924 – and put my grandmother in a sanitarium for a nervous breakdown that lasted the rest of her life. My mom, who was four at the time, was lovingly scooped up and raised by her aunts, uncles, and maternal grandparents. She grew up to be one of the most normal, unscarred people – who was able to stay open to life and love and who was able to emotionally thrive. The very elegant and articulate communication was a rare gem to discover at a time when men did not have to explain themselves or their behavior in the 1920s. I really had some insight into a man I never was able to know. She took me to Chicago to meet him when I was eight years old, but he was in the hospital dying of cancer at that time – but it was important to her that we meet each other. We stayed at my great uncle’s house and I only remember that their housekeeper, Bernice, made the best green beans I had ever tasted. Interesting to note that my grandfather Julian didn’t tell his children he was Jewish – and his children and grandchildren didn’t find out that fact until they were adults – due in no small part to my mother’s interest in connecting with her half-sister and half-brother and their children while updating their family tree. Surprise!!!

The little Lucite boxes in the breakfast room were jam-packed with handwritten recipe classics from lasagna to brisket, soups to casseroles, and Christmas cookies to pies – passed down over the years from her family. Detailed instructions on how to make piecrust from scratch using Crisco, ice-water, flour, and two furiously crossed knives was always available for anyone who didn’t opt to use frozen pre-made piecrusts, as she loved to bake pies. Sometimes apple, but always pumpkin at Thanksgiving. Her lasagna recipe kept me fed through my college years and was a crowd favorite at my many dorm parties. She was also famous for her guacamole.

She always made well-balanced lunches every day – consisting of a sandwich: meatloaf with lettuce and catsup, tuna fish (no mayo on the bread), sliced chicken with butter and lettuce on egg bread or peanut butter and mint-jelly sandwiches were among my personal favorites. There was also a representative from all of the food groups included in their own baggies: black olives, celery & carrots, potato chips, and a piece of fruit (apple/orange or banana). Often I would trade something for a cookie. I was a picky eater and she always indulged me when I would go to friend’s houses so she would bring me special food. I was not the child who was okay with eating Wonder Bread – I didn’t like the smell of mayonnaise, mustard, or grape jelly. And parmesan cheese on spaghetti was a big NO. I was the child who smelled food before I ate it. I ate grilled cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off for breakfast, cinnamon toast and a scrambled egg and sometimes, toast with honey. I would go for months eating the same thing and then, one day – Poof! I didn’t want to eat that anymore and she would dutifully make me something else. I was a PITA. She always made fresh-squeezed orange juice every single day. She occasionally would let us eat Sugar Frosted Flakes or Fruit Loops, but not all the time. I could look forward to eating those cereals if I stayed overnight at my friend Lisa Jaffe’s house. Any situations where I couldn’t explain my odd food needs to my friend’s parents left me in tears.

When my friend Joanie Waldman broke her leg skateboarding, Joanie’s mother would sometimes bring her Swanson TV dinners to school for lunch, which I thought was cool – and I got my mom do the same. I didn’t have to break my leg – although many of my friends tried to do that by jumping off their beds – for the off-chance doing that would get them a legitimate reason to skip school.

She and my dad hosted many dinner parties and she was known for putting place cards down in front of each place setting, dictating who you should sit next to (even if you knew everyone at the table) or thought to make an introduction to someone knew. It made my husband Ken crazy. And, despite audible groans and protests, would white-out and re-xerox the Hagaddah for Passover every year to change out the speaking parts to include any new people who might be attending and to make sure everyone’s speaking assignment was parceled out evenly. Even you were a non-Jewish guest, you still had a part to read. This became a family joke and she ignored our yearly eye-rolls.

And, for the record, let it be noted that my mom, little trailblazer that she was, not only was an early adaptor of recycling but even wore MASKS when we were sick in the 1960s – little white-cotton masks and stood in our doorway to check on us, left food at the base of our bedroom door and stayed away from too much contact as she couldn’t afford to get sick with three kids in the house and a full-time job. Yes, my friends,

masks do save lives. As the Elton John song perfectly sums up, “I’m Still Standing.” I hope Elton doesn’t sue me for use of his words without legal clearance. LOL.

Occasionally, after my mom returned to work, I would wait outside my elementary school for her to pick me up. Notoriously late because she was ALWAYS on the phone for work – I was often left wondering if she remembered she was supposed to pick me up, as there were no cell phones back then or after-school daycare or teachers who had to wait with you until your parents or housekeeper picked you up. The schoolyard would be empty so I would just start to walk home – which was about a half-hour endeavor. She would usually find me at a halfway point and then I’d hop in the car. That was when kids could anticipate having a normal school and household upbringing without school shootings, lockdown traumas, and abductions. However, on hot summer days, she would pick us all up from our respective schools around 2:45pm and drive us to the Santa Monica Pier with a cooler packed with fresh, warm barbequed chicken made by Rosa, watermelon, and lemonade to eat under the boardwalks – schlepping over the hot sand for an early dinner. We loved those days. We had it good.

I should mention that it used to IRK my dad that she would take phone calls during dinner – as well as having the one phone line tied up with four girls living in the house – so he opted to have a second line installed in the living room for his business calls and we were NEVER allowed to use it – (310) 553-4836.

She saved the congratulatory baby notes people sent her when we were born – as well as the many cards they sent to each other on their respective birthdays and anniversaries, our cards to them, and Christmas Cards from friends. All were expertly rubber-banded, labeled, and shelved and she knew where everything was, even to the end of her life – unless, of course, I moved it and I didn’t remember where I put something which was, alas, becoming more frequent.

She noted conversations she would have with lawyers, financial planners, brokers, and repair people so she could refer back to them later if needed. The process of cleaning out her house started years ago when I realized I needed to know where financial things were – and started the arduous process of sifting and sorting through the ubiquitous boxes of EVERYTHING. I discovered my father’s canceled checks from the 1980s and both of my parent’s neat and meticulous style of “saving” paper started to overwhelm me. I’d come over to their house on a Sunday prepared to “have at it” – open a drawer crammed with unknown papers and close it – saying to myself, “Not today” – not having the bandwidth to tackle this archival paper trail that, once unleashed, would NEVER be completed in a few, random, Sunday afternoons. Of course, my mother wanted to see everything before I threw it out – and I had to give her useful things to occupy her while on my kamikaze feng-shui mission – like photographs, she could label and other trips through memory lane, which could keep her occupied for hours.

She did not have weekly hobbies like Ma Jong, poker, bridge, tennis, golf, or bowling and never learned to swim. In fact, in a questionnaire I found she answered that she was “too busy for hobbies.” She also didn’t like to exercise but liked to walk. Put her in New York and she could walk 50 blocks in no time and not break a sweat. She did try Yoga at 88 and kind of enjoyed it. She looked adorable in her yoga clothes and carrying her bright pink yoga mat. She never smoked but did enjoy good wine with a good meal and knew what to inquire about and order from a sophisticated wine list. We were told she went to a Bob Dylan concert with her best friend, Jan Levinson, and fessed up that she tried marijuana in the 1970s. She must have been influenced during her time working with Tommy Smothers because, honestly, I can’t imagine that. Seeing Bob Dylan or smoking pot. Not that she was a goody-two-shoes – it just didn’t seem either would have been of interest to her. She told us if we ever wanted to try pot she would score some and we could try it in the house. I know Tommy knew Cheech and Chong. At least your potential suppliers would be reliable. LOL. I was never into drugs and couldn’t inhale so smoking wasn’t a habit I had to learn to break.

She was extraordinarily ordinary – but, then again, she wasn’t ordinary at all. She was a feminist without being strident. She was feminine without being girly. She was not manipulating, toxic, or belittling. She didn’t have a temper and rarely got mad. She gave you space to be yourself. There was no Jewish guilt laid on your life choices. She was kind. She was happy. And her smile was One in a Million. And, as evidenced here, she never took a bad picture.

She showed up for her life like she showed up for yours. Curious to learn more, and always up for fun. And yes, she allowed our little parrot Hightop to hang out on her head! Her own personal Grandbird! She never left the house without an outfit that matched, red Chanel lipstick, a spare eyebrow pencil, Kleenex, and her silver earrings. NEVER. My sister Diane remembers that she would come downstairs in her bathrobe for breakfast already pre-made up with lipstick, earrings, a roller or two in her hair before she had her first cup of coffee. I put lipstick and eyebrow pencil on her before the mortuary came to get her. It just felt like the right thing to do. Going out in style. But I kept the silver earrings for myself. LOL.

My mother loved to travel, and as mentioned, keeping copious notes about everything from her many trips – guidebooks, museum brochures, tips on special things to do and/or see, great restaurants, the best car & driver service, and who were the special in-tourist guides. She also had to LOOK at the hotel room before she unpacked – in case the view wasn’t right or she didn’t like it. The experience, the ambiance truly mattered to her. And, as you might imagine, this used to annoy my dad because it usually wasn’t just one time. But EVERY time. And, at the end of a meal when the Maitre ‘d might inquire how a meal was enjoyed…she would often present her critique if the Scallops were tough or something else wasn’t right. She was the last one to finish her meal and might send food back if it wasn’t prepared “just so.” She didn’t deliver her dissatisfaction in a whiny, disparaging way to get her meal comped. Just an acute observation from a well-traveled diner.

She could spend hours in a museum – reading every description under every painting. Impressionism painters were her favorites. A great flea market, a Turkish Bizarre, a great garage/estate sale OR a shoe sale…Count Her In. She never left a museum without visiting the gift shop, buying a poster, or some souvenir from the exhibit. She loved all things Italian: food, purses, shoes, sweaters, scarves, and suits. She was classy without the pomp and circumstance and never exuded a “Look at Me” persona. My favorite time of year was going shopping for school clothes in August. I did pick up her love of shoes – Papagallo and Capezio were among my faves.

In 1954, she went to Europe for the first time with her friends, Yip and Edie Harburg. On the day she was in Paris, she made it a point to stop at the Museum where a traveling exhibition of Picasso paintings were on loan from Moscow’s Pushkin Museum. She was heartbroken to discover the museum was closed on that day and persuaded the guard to go into the gift shop and snag two of the exhibition posters. These posters were two of Picasso’s famous paintings from his Blue Period – The Harlequin and his Companion and the painting of Jamie Sabarte – The Glass of Beer. The exhibition was dated June 28, 1954. The posters hung in our dining room for many years and I have always loved them. My birthday is June 28, 1956, so they are very meaningful to me. Her love of art was obviously passed down to me, as Picasso and Modigliani remain two of our favorite painters. They are now gracing my walls and have stood the test of time and remain among my prized possessions.

My mother had an early marriage at 19 – and moved with her first husband, Miles Raskoff, to Berkeley, supporting them while he attended law school. After their 7-year marriage ended, she borrowed $300 from Paul Robeson (the singer/civil rights activist who was blacklisted as one of the Hollywood 10 whom she became friends with from her leftie brat-pack days) and moved to New York to start a new chapter in her life. Although she was not a “card-carrying member of the communist party” – she was a forward thinker who protested injustices and was always involved with politics. Paul, unfortunately, died before she could pay him back. When my husband Ken and I were at the Smithsonian Museum many years ago, we bought a postcard of Paul Robeson and wrote on the back: “Natalie, where’s my $300 dollars?” Love, Paul – and mailed it to her. As luck would have it, her foray into New York became a “Who’s Who” of Show Biz’ best and brightest.

Upon arriving in New York, she became Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy’s secretary working on Finian’s Rainbow from 1946-1948 – as well as subsequently working on Jollyanna (aka Flahooley) with Mitzi Gaynor in 1952 for the LA Civic Light Opera – which, sadly, flopped. Soon after, she landed her dream reading scripts for Arthur Miller – but it was Yip Harburg who urged her to take a production secretarial job on a new live television show format that was hiring – as it was the next new thing that had some potential employment stability – trying to convince her it could be years before Arthur Miller might write another Death of a Salesman. That J.O.B. she stepped into became a milestone pivot that would change the trajectory of her life and, of course, ours too.

From 1950-1954, she worked for the show’s producer, Max Liebman as his production assistant – coordinating all aspects of that 90-minute live television variety show – including music clearance, casting for sketches, and production numbers. From there, she worked on The Imogene Coca Show in N.Y. from 1954-55 as the assistant to the show’s director-producer, Perry Lafferty. When she relocated to Los Angeles to be with my dad, she was hired by CBS in 1955-56 to be a story analyst for Harry Ackerman. Already pregnant with me (they were not spring chickens!), my parents got married in November of 1955 to go legit and begin their family – which, by the standards at the time, were considered to be “old” to become parents.

In addition to myself and my sister Diane, who was born in 1960, we became a blended family when my dad’s sister Ruth (my aunt), died suddenly from an aneurysm at 37 while making dinner – leaving two young daughters, 10 and 7, to come live with us. My cousins, Susan and Lynn, became an integral part of our family and my mother handled all of it with ease and grace, as much as possible. Our house didn’t have enough bedrooms and my cousin Lynn went to a special boarding school in Santa Barbara, but came home during summers and Christmas. My cousin Susan, who I consider my older sister, lived with us full-time. My uncle Fred, who traveled a lot for work was not emotionally up to the task of raising two children alone – and, for reasons unknown, chose not to hire a governess to help raise them. My mom, and my aunt Ruth, had made a “sister-in-law pack” early on that if anything ever happened to either one of them, the other one would step up and co-parent. Because my mom’s own traumatic upbringing as an only child was strongly curated by her aunts, uncles, and grandparent’s who took great care of her, she knew the value of strong family support in a crisis and this caretaking responsibility was extremely important to her. It was an impossibly tragic situation that my mother, up until she died, still doubted her own parenting skills – because she did not have her own mother available to be a role model for her. Miraculously, somehow, we would all agree, she did an amazing job. My cousins Susan and Lynn currently live in Minneapolis where their own father had lots of extended family – and Susan’s two grown daughters, Sari & Elana, are my mom’s sole grandchildren, whom she loved watching grow up so much. My sister Diane and I only gave her grandchildren who were furry or who could fly. A parrot and a rabbit.

In the midst of this family tragedy, my mom re-entered show business as a full-time working mom – after she was asked if she wanted to come back and work on the reunion of Your Show of Shows Revisited in 1968. She was subsequently hired to work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour for CBS – a great job for lefty-liberals and hippies who were up for “making some good trouble.” The venerable cast included Pat Paulson (remember when he tried to run for President?), Leigh French, Sally Struthers, and Lily Tomlin, Glen Campbell and Jennifer Warne. She became Tommy Smothers secretary for ten years (“Mom always liked You Best!” – and yes, we still have hundreds those buttons if you’d like one) and worked on The Return of the Smothers Brothers 90- minute special, The Smothers Brothers Show, Another Nice Mess & Get to Know Your Rabbit (Features), Fitz & Bones (Series), The Last, Last Show 90 minute Special for HBO, Play it Again Sam, the Broadway Tour of I Love My Wife and The Politician (Television Pilot). I would say that during that time she became a devoted, (some would say obsessive), fan of IBM Selectric Typewriters and white-out-strips, as she was always typing something – even if it was correcting our school papers so we could go to bed early to make them look better than they were.

I was once singled out in my high school advanced English class because she had Rumplestilskin-ed my paper called “Shangri-La” in the middle of the night and decided it would look better typed. My teacher, Miss E. Husband, was a spirited Butch lesbian who I’m quite sure was a nun in a former life – and whose middle initial “E” stood for ‘Elizabeth’. She read it to the class and showcased it as “a fine example of sophisticated, college-bound writing”. I received an ‘A’. After that traumatic “public paper outing,” I forever wondered if she suspected it was *doctored*. I did actually write the paper. I think my mom, given her background as an English major in Journalism, tried to clean up the typos, re-shape long sentences, and would tweak a word here and there. She did this for ALL of our papers for years. I’d like to go on the record to say this journalistic mothering style should not be judged by the same standards as having someone sit in and take your S.A.T.’s (I’m not mentioning any names, DJT). To this day, I endeavor to redeem myself by writing my own words as evidenced here – as my mom cannot help me now! My dad continued to use his portable Royal to type his scripts, two-finger style, on onion-skin paper.

Whenever reporters wanted to do retrospective pieces about the Golden Age of Television for magazines like Vanity Fair or N.Y. Times – Carl, Mel Brooks, and my mom were usually interviewed as reliable, sharp-minded historians of things like, “Did Mel Brooks really dangle Sid Caesar out of a window?” and other well-known antics from that famous writer’s room. Her long-term memory was extraordinary.

In the 1960s, aside from her television career, she became very involved with Another Mother for PEACE with founder, Barbara Avedon (co-creator of Cagney & Lacey) – which was an influential California anti-war organization during the Vietnam War era, along with her lifelong Fairfax high school friend, Pauline Buck. Another Mother for PEACE gathered high-profile celebrities like Carl Reiner, Donna Reed, Bess Myerson, and Debbie Reynolds – as well as Joanne Woodward & Paul Newman – who were also quite vocal about getting signatures against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. You may remember the famous Art logo designed by Lorraine Schnieder which read: “WAR is not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Yes, we still have that necklace, too! I was often taken along to their volunteer headquarters on South Beverly Drive and Charleville above the long torn-down Wil Wrights famous Ice Cream Parlor (it may be a Starbucks now) and put to work stuffing envelopes or putting stamps on letters that needed to be mailed. Ah, memories of a postal scenario that safely delivered real mail. Lest I digress…

She and her BFF Pauline were also active in Women For, a women’s political action group founded in the early 1960s by a group of activists who would now be referred to as “nasty women” – as they had supported JFK’s presidential campaign. My mom was also quite involved with a local organization called The Teach Foundation – which raised money for the Belle Dubnoff’s School in Los Angeles – a progressive school for children who suffered from brain damage and had other special learning needs.

She was often the co-chair of a yearly fundraiser fashion show luncheon called Moms and Moppets – which was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The event featured women celebrities and their daughters modeling mother/daughter fashions, as well as chairing other yearly-themed fundraisers. If memory serves me correctly, I do believe Cher & Chastity Bono and Debbie Reynolds & Carrie Fisher might have been among the charity mom’s and daughters who participated.

From 1978-1980, she worked as an account executive with Kathy Aaronson – a dynamo entrepreneur who started Careers for Women – which helped women re-entering the workforce redefine their earning potential selling ad space in magazines and local papers like The Pennysaver. She interviewed and counseled women seeking career changes, helped re-write resumes – helping to match perfect candidates for specialized job placements in Fortune 500 companies where women might not have been initially been considered as viable hires.

After that, she and Pauline opened up the West Coast offices of Ross Associates Speaker’s Bureau – a booking agency for women and men who wanted to be on the Lecture Circuit with their books and keynote speeches in colleges & universities around the country. Their placement focus was on the Arts, Politics, Business and in particular, Women of Achievement – whose conversations and awareness at that time was newly focused on family stress, aging, sexual health, and surviving breast cancer. They were business partners for fourteen years and friends for over sixty until Pauline passed away in 1999. Some of their speakers included: Dr. Susan Forward, Marlo Thomas, Betty Ford, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Dr. Georgina Witkin, Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz, Pat Allen, Mariette Hartley. Carrie Hamilton, Dr. Barbara DeAngelis, Shere Hite, Judith Viorst, Diana Nyad, Sheila Cluff, Ann Jillian, Dr. Sonya Friedman and Carlos Fuentes, Gloria Allred, Isabel Allende, Patty Duke, Shirley Chisholm, Coretta Scott King, and Billie Jean King, among an impressive host of others.

She was always full of energy and adventure. As a teenager, she told me how she climbed the stairs at the Ambassador Hotel to get Frank Sinatra’s Autograph. She also ran into Paul Newman at Tiffany’s and thanked him for his public outrage on the front page of the Los Angeles Times over our country’s role in the nuclear arms race over the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. When he kissed her on the forehead before a stunned crowd of Tiffany’s Christmas Shoppers, heads turned! She loved to shop and quality was always better than buying in quantity – and she was meticulous about her garment bags with sweaters and decorative scarves, beautifully wrapped with tissue paper, resting in drawers with scented sachets. Receiving a new pair of cashmere-lined, size 6 1/2 gloves in Cognac or Hunter Green from Sak’s Fifth Avenue as a Christmas present was always a treat – as well as Saturday shopping outings at Sak’s, Magnin’s, Bullock’s, and Orbach’s.

During the years we were growing up, we did have fulltime help. Our housekeeper, Rosa Scott, became a second mother to us, as well as an integral part of our family while my mom worked. She was from Texas – and if you ever saw the movie, The Help, those black women who had those strong mothering bonds with the kids they took care of was right out of our family dynamics, too. Rosa had been working for one of my mom’s Aunt’s when she came into our lives in the early 1960s. My dad bought her a car so she could help my mom out more. She went to the market, took me to my piano lessons or my sister to the park, picked us up from school, or took us to a friend’s house for a play date. She made dinner every night for us which we usually ate around 6 pm because my mom typically came home from work after 7 pm. She came with us on our beach excursions, loved to sew, and made us beautiful clothes from McCall’s patterns and my grandmother’s ultra-heavy Black Singer sewing machine – Midi and Maxi skirts which I loved – as well as sewing our yearly Halloween costumes – one, in particular, was my ‘Cleopatra’ costume, complete with a black dyed wig, creatively repurposed from a kitchen mop). She helped us dye Easter eggs for our yearly Easter egg hunt, planted a vegetable garden in our backyard where our deceased hamsters were laid to rest and gave us wise counsel when we were upset. My sister Diane was especially close to her. Our den became her bedroom after Susan moved into the downstairs bedroom and she watched adult TV like “Burke’s Law” and “Peyton Place” and “American Bandstand” – often dancing to Chubby Checker’s “Let’s Twist Again.” My parents, who were non- smokers, requested she smoke outside the house as we all had allergies. She had a cute black poodle named Java which she often brought to work who was relegated to stay outside. On Fridays, her “husband” John came to pick her up. We weren’t sure if they were really married or just “shacking up.” My parents didn’t care. Not having children of her own, we were her “real” children and she was apart of our family for over twenty years.

My mom had a rebel side to her and was proud of her leftist-leanings – siding with her liberal/artistic/literary friends – some of whom were accused of being in the Communist party by HUAC. She protested Franco and his fascist regime in Spain – enhancing her love for all things Spanish – Picasso, Goya, Paella, Sangria, and Miro. When my parents took us to Europe, she always loved talking to the locals – finding out about a great restaurant, something off the beaten track. She brought banned items into Moscow in 1977 and met people in parks distributing buttons, vinyl records, jeans, and the like – feeling the injustice that Russian people had to pay more for luxury items so she brought her rebel-self to the people – while we were sure we were going to get caught and sent to Siberia – since my dad was a writer and had been detained at the Finnish/Lenningrad border for forgetting to declare the $300 U.S. dollars in cash he had hidden in his socks, which they discovered when he was searched. While the Tour Bus Driver was anxious to keep the tour on schedule, my mother insisted that the bus was not going to go anywhere without her husband. After an hour passed, he miraculously appeared. They ransacked his suitcase, opened up all of his toiletries and was strip-searched. Welcome to the U.S.S.R.

Other trips/cruises we were treated to included New England and Washington, D.C., New York, England, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland – but they also visited Israel, Italy, Francem and other places on trips with their friends. She and my dad would often go to London at Christmas on a Theatre Trip curated by Barbara Isenberg – a well-known Arts writer for the L.A. Times. After my dad died, she continued to go on trips with her single, widowed, girlfriends through travel programs at UCLA, visiting Berlin, Prague, and Cuba, among others. When she was 83, one of her oldest friends, Ellie Boris, was turning 80. Ellie had been living in Paris since the 1950’s – as she had met and married a Parisian and became an Ex-Pat. Ellie’s daughter decided to throw her mom a surprise 80th birthday – and all of her friends who had been her N.Y. roommates in the 1950s hopped on a plane to surprise her. I got go along as my mom’s chaperone. All of those people in their 80’s looked amazing as we traversed through Paris in a 4-day stroll down memory lane. Ellie was blown away by our surprise appearance.

She loved the theatre, classical music, and ballet – and always made sure we enjoyed those live experiences – taking us to The Hollywood Bowl and The Greek Theatre for summer picnics under the stars. She took me on several occasions to the American Ballet Theatre to see Mikhail Baryshnikov & Gelsey Kirkland perform, a concert in 1994 to see The Three Tenors at Dodger stadium (Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo & Jose Carreras) – with their rendition of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” remaining my all-time favorite aria. She also LOVED Gustavo Dudamel – and I took her to see him conduct for her 90th birthday. I was at a Peruvian restaurant in Hollywood the following year where I spotted him having dinner with his family and friends – and, in an uncharacteristic way for me, went over to his table and interrupted his meal to tell him that she loved him so much – and her only wish for her 90th birthday was to see him perform. He took my hands in his and kissed them in appreciation of the compliment. I was so sorry she wasn’t at the restaurant with me at the time – it would have slightly rivaled the time she was kissed on the forehead by Paul Newman at Tiffany’s. I do not make a habit of going up to celebrities as a rule, but she would have done that if she had been there – so her spirit channeled me out of my comfort zone at that moment. And just in case you were wondering – NO, I did not ask him for his autograph on a napkin.

On a questionnaire I found, she answered the following questions with surprising answers:

Under Professional Philosophy: “Belief that “I can do it!” and “Do it” 95% of the time. Belief in the work ethic – time effort, excellence pays off. I’m only satisfied when I know that I’ve given the project by best shot!”

Under “What Would You Like to do with Your Life in your Fantasy?” she answered: “My real fantasy has always been to produce an important play like Death of a Salesman on Broadway, and travel the world to see it produced in 21 languages.” *Of Note: In a 1983 letter I found addressed to Michael Brandman – who, at the time, was Vice President at Lorimar Productions. In it, she requested to take a meeting with him to discuss the possibility of working with him – as he had made it publically known, (probably through something she read in Daily Variety), his intention to produce legitimate plays and offer them for pay on cable television. She told him she “loved the theatre in all its aspects”, and “views the advent of cable as a way to broaden the audience for live theatre.” She goes on to say that “many people might get to see quality legitimate theatre presentations for the first time in their lives through cable and I would love to be a part of the group that is spreading this gospel!” Who knew she was so ahead of her time? She ends the letter with: “I am a terrific team worker, in case you remember! I look forward to seeing you again, and hopefully, sharing this adventure with you.”  Her 2nd fantasy was to own a business and be her own boss – which is exactly what she ended up doing.

Under “What are you proudest of that you have done?” she answered: “Producing two great daughters. Achieving my fantasy…successfully launching a mid-life career change…Ross Associates Speakers Bureau…at a time when my peers are mostly playing golf, taking cruises, and playing with their grandchildren.”

Under “Special Interests” she put down: Graphic Art Collector, chamber music, anything Italian (cooking restaurants, traveling throughout Italy, fashions, furniture, history, researching exotic places to go). NAILED IT.

She also loved coming to my Art Shows – she was a welcome mascot at the Contemporary Crafts Market. She loved writing up orders, talking to customers and putting cards in bags. She loved seeing everyone’s creativity. She had accompanied me to Sedona, Asheville, and Seattle on several out of town adventures. She was a great traveling companion who never complained, even it was hot and I had to rush around.

She had a large circle of amazing friends and family and always made it a priority to keep connected – whether it was documenting the family tree or keeping the kids of her best friends comforted after their parents passed on. One of these kids is one of my oldest friends – Lisa Freiberger. Our mother’s met in the park when we were two years old. On my mom’s 90th birthday celebration we had people speak and tell stories. One of the letters read to my mom was from Lisa – who remembered that when she would come for sleepovers, my mom would come to tuck us in and I would always ask my mom, “What should I dream about tonight?” My mom always had something creative or poetic to come up with on the fly – creating elaborate scenarios that unfortunately I don’t remember. If I couldn’t settle on a good dream, I would imagine getting a new Barbie Doll outfit or a trip to FAO Schwartz’s toy store in Beverly Hills. Lisa also remembered my mom made very special coffee every day. My mom used a Chemex hourglass coffee vessel whereby she would scoop 6 teaspoons full of good coffee and then add cinnamon, cloves, and the zest of orange peel. People thought it exotic and that was way before there were flavored coffees you could get at Starbucks. Many people saw my mom as unflappable in her calming grace and graciousness and a bit of a unicorn. Honestly, she was so unusual and such an icon to everyone who knew her.

The secret to my mother’s longevity was that there was never any evidence of malice. She was never in a bad mood. It is important to say for the record that she never colored her hair, had plastic surgery, and had all her original teeth! Her skin barely had wrinkles and she never had massages or facials – all without regular exercise. She did have her hair done every Friday and mani/pedi’s and shopping were her form of self- care. She didn’t eat junk food but did love her Hershey bars, a good Root Beer Float, and Ice Cream. She remained curious, sharp, informed and well-read – enjoying the daily L.A. Times and the Sunday N.Y. Times. One of her last communications with me was last Wednesday night after listening to the Biden-Harris Democratic Convention. She was having difficulty speaking so I asked her to write down what she was trying to say. What she wanted to know was, “Did Biden Win?” Well, folks, we won’t have her vote or Carl Reiner’s – but if you loved my mom and Carl Reiner, we hope you’ll vote Blue and “Build Back Better.”

She loved supporting many groups trying to raise money for things: Close to her heart was the American Civil Liberties Union (A.C.L.U.), Planned Parenthood, Women For, Doctors Without Borders, PBS, SOVA, Jewish Family Services, among a host of others.

One of her dearest friends, Ellie Boris, (who I previously mentioned was her roommate in N.Y. ) had this to say for my mom’s 90th Birthday book: “When I think of you, one quality comes to mind…ELEGANT. For me, you have that elegance of quiet humor, a seeming calm in adversity, a gentle compassion for others – not to speak of your personal dress code. Yet, in every situation I’ve known you, I’ve admired you for being the lovely elegant lady you are.”