A couple of years ago, I sent him a big songbook that has most of the standards in it. I also send a keyboard player to his
house a couple of times a week, so Jack can sing to accompaniment. He really enjoys that.
About eight years ago, I became friends with a man about my brother’s age, Bob Ellis. Bob doesn’t sing, but he is as goodwilled
as any person I’ve ever met. Recently I gave Bob the same songbook that I’d sent my brother. And now Bob, who lives in New
York, and Jack, who lives outside of Pittsburgh, take turns calling each other every day and singing about six songs together
on the phone. In between they share anecdotes, and a great time is had by all.
I’ve produced in the movies, on Broadway and off- Broadway, and in television, but this by far is the most gratifying show
I’ve ever produced.
Singing may not cure all ills, but it certainly moves us in the right direction. If someone in your family or your friends
or maybe even you are down, it might be a good idea to get them singing to lift their spirits. I plan to do it myself.
Since I wrote the above, my friend Bob has passed away. I first met Bob Ellis when he came over to me after a benefit I did
at the YMHA in New York City for the children of Bedford Hills Women’s Correctional Facility in Bedford, New York. He introduced
himself and said he’d like to produce a similar benefit in his area of Armonk, New York. He did.
Bob and I quickly became close friends. I soon learned he had multiple myeloma, an incurable blood disease.
Bob suggested we start a foundation. He wanted me to be the president, because he felt I knew of people in situations not
widely known who needed a hand. We called the foundation Lend a Hand.
Through Jayne Begelson at the New York City Bar, I learned of two teen boys with cystic fibrosis. The average life span of
people with cystic fibrosis is in the thirties, although some people have lived longer. Right now, there is no cure.
The boys were foster children of a couple in Pennsylvania with three children of their own. Bob arranged for the family, Jane
Begelson, her sister, the family social worker, and her husband to join us on a fishing boat he chartered, since we learned
one of the boys loved to fish.
We had a great time. Unfortunately Bob couldn’t join us. He was in the hospital with pneumonia.
Later I arranged for the family to come to my house, and Bob came with one of his sons, a doctor. It was a magnificent day.
There was a famous band in the forties called the Tex Beneke Orchestra. Sometimes when I’d be hosting an event, I would introduce
Bob—who was actually a semiretired real estate man—as Boppin Bob Ellis, formerly with the Tex Beneke Orchestra. Bob would
stand up in the audience and wave. The audience applauded, and after the event some people would come over to him and ask
if he still sang. Bob would say, “I hum a little.”
I started to bring Bob onstage with me. Sometimes when I was talking I’d look at him as though I had no idea who he was or
what he was doing there. He’d just look back at me with a pleasant expression.
In the fall of 2008, I hosted the annual Children’s Cancer & Blood Foundation fund-raiser at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
Bob was to appear with me in a comic routine—no lines yet, but Bob would be playing the Plaza. He died five days before the
event.
Since Bob would often join me at various events, he was at one where a photograph was taken of Eli Wallach, Jack Klugman,
and me. I’m in the middle with my arms around Eli and Jack. Bob is on the side almost as if he’s superimposed on the photograph,
like Woody Allen in
Zelig
. I took the picture of Bob’s face and had a card made that read “WANTED” on the top, Bob’s face under it, and then the charges
against him, “Seen taking funds from a church collection basket and crossing state lines for immoral purposes with a goat,”
and below that, “$$REWARD$$.”
I blew it up to the size of an actual wanted poster, gave it to Bob, and hung another one in my study right where I look at
a wall. It was always fun to see. After Bob died, it took on a new meaning because it read “WANTED” above Bob’s face and was
a constant reminder of how much I miss him. I had to take it down, because I don’t believe it’s helpful for me always to look
at photos of beloved deceased friends,
particularly
if it says “WANTED” above their face.
I see people not as Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, but as those who care about others and those who
don’t. Bob Ellis cared. He was a wonderful role model, he loved to laugh, and he always seemed to be concerned about the other
person, even if he didn’t know you.
Can we still call people saints?
I
recently spent some time with the Nobel Peace Prize–winner Elie Wiesel. He is the foremost chronicler of the Holocaust, having
been in the death camps as a teenager, where he lost his father, mother, and baby sister.
He vividly recounts his experience in his book
Night
. We made plans to meet again, so I felt obligated to read this book. I’m not lacking in imagination, and I’ve never felt
the need to read books on the Holocaust, having come from an Orthodox Jewish family that had to flee Europe because of the
persecution of the Jews.
The book was everything I expected, which means it put me in a kind of dark mood I rarely experience. It is hard to imagine
that you could be taken from your home to be killed for no reason other than you were Jewish, but of course that’s what happened
as much of the world stood idly by. Reading the book forced me to confront something I’ve been avoiding my whole life, the
role of President Roosevelt in all of this.
Here’s what
Newsweek
’s senior editor Jonathan Alter had to say about that in his recent book about President Roose-velt,
The Defining Moment
:
FDR was not entirely negligent. In the face of an isolationist Congress and polls showing that more than 80 percent of the
American public were opposed to easing immigration quotas, he raised the specter of the Nazi threat early, and sponsored international
conferences on refugees. But Roosevelt did not bring the activist spirit of the Hundred Days to rescuing the Jews. It was
never a priority. His 1944 War Refugee Board came years too late. And he made the mistake of listening to military advisors
who said that bombing the rail and communication lines to the Nazi concentration camps in Hungary was impractical.
Jonathan Alter goes on to say: “Although bombing the camps themselves would have killed more prisoners, hitting the railheads—while
unlikely to save many Jews—was worth a try.”
The refugee ship
St. Louis
was turned away from the southern coast of the United States in 1939 under great congressional pressure. FDR thought that
the refugees would be resettled in other countries, but most ended up dying in the Holocaust.
Eighty percent of the American public didn’t want immigrants, even if they were going to be
killed
! I don’t know how much of the public at that time grasped that reality, but the president and Congress?!
Are so many of us inhumane? What other conclusion can you draw? Most of us simply don’t have any serious concern about others
in the world who are being mistreated or even killed
today
! Is this a failure of human nature or of the media to better bring us face-to-face with what none of us want to look at?
Mark Twain said, “Moral Cowardice… is the commanding feature of the make-up of 9,999 men in the 10,000,” and the experience
of much of the world proves him right.
In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Elie Weisel said, “We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.
Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”
That remains true today. When you see inhumanity, speak out!
One of the many things I admire about President (formerly General) Eisenhower is that he made a significant effort to have
as many GIs as possible see the corpses stacked like cords of wood in the concentration camps. It seems like it’s just human
nature that if something isn’t right in front of us, we don’t think about it. I try as hard as I can not to be that kind of
person. I believe I have to try harder.
When my wife and I later had dinner with Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion, I told him about our felony murder rule. I told
him about a boy who was serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for a crime committed when he was home asleep in
his bed, because he had lent his car to his roommate. Elie Wiesel, who has seen every kind of horror, stared at me for a moment,
speechless. He then said, with astonishment, “In America?!”
F
or as long as I can remember I’ve been reading about people who resign from their positions in different professions and say,
“I’m resigning because I want to spend more time with my family.” In most cases none of that is true. They’re not resigning.
They’re being fired and are given the courtesy to allow them to say they’re resigning, and in most cases they really don’t
want to spend more time with their families.
My case is different. As I’ve said, I left the movies years ago because I really
did
want to spend more time with my family. My son had turned six and was going to enter first grade. I didn’t think it would
be the best idea for him to continue to travel with my wife and me all over the country.
Something had to give, so I resigned from the movies so I could spend more time with my family. I began my cable show in the
New York area. I always loved to spend time with my family, but as years went by, my son got active in sports. My wife was
getting book after book published. She was constantly being asked to write books. I’ve written a lot of books that have been
published, but no one ever asked me to write one, so while I wanted to spend more time with my family, my family didn’t really
want to spend more time with me. Oh, they love me, but spend more time with me—I don’t think so.
So the next time I hear some person who’s resigning say he wants to spend more time with his family, someone should ask his
family if they want to spend more time with him. Never assume
anything
.
My wife and son went on a trip recently. They, of course, invited me to join them, but they know me well enough to know I’d
choose to stay home.
While they were away, I did something I’m not allowed to do when they’re here, which is throw an empty water bottle across
the room into a small wicker basket. Even then
,
I only did it in my study, not in the room in which I’m forbidden to do it. Their will is strong.
I thought I could get it in within ten tries. It took me fifteen. Naturally, I thought with practice I’d do better on the
second try, but the second time it took me sixteen tries. The third time I was
sure
I could do it in ten tries, but it took me thirty-five throws to get it in.
I told this story to a friend of mine who was thinking of quitting her pursuit to be a nurse because of… something. She said
that because of that story, which some would say was about failure but I would say was about perseverance, she decided to
continue on her difficult journey to be a nurse.
By the way, when my wife and son got home, I tried it again in my study, and on my fourth try I went from thirty-five attempts
to get the bottle in to twenty.
The lesson? Perseverance is a necessity whatever the goal.
A postscript. About six months later, I tried throwing the bottle in the basket again—in my study, of course. I got it in
on the second try.
I like to listen to music on the radio, and maybe it’s just me, but lately there seem to be more and more songs abut someone
who can’t go on without someone else: “When you came into my life, I knew you’d be my wife. Without you, I can’t go on.” “There’ll
never be another one like you. What am I going to do? I can’t go on.”
Now, it’s nice to be with someone you can’t go on without, but if you actually expect to feel that way most of the time, you
have unrealistic expectations, which lead to broken relationships, divorces, and a lot of other bad stuff.
This is a lyric I heard in a song I was listening to recently: “If you’d stay, I’d subtract twenty years from my life. I’d
fall down on my knees, kiss the ground that you walk on, if only I could hold you again.” Now that’s what you call being attracted
to someone! Even more extreme is this lyric from
Kiss Me, Kate
: “So taunt me and hurt me, Deceive me, desert me, I’m yours till I die…”
Desert me
? I’m yours till I
die
?!
In the movies the young guy and the young girl are cute and charming even when things are tough between them. Try to compete
with that in real life. In real life? The young guy and the young girl couldn’t.
You’re not always going to look up and see an adoring gaze from the other person. You’re just not. You might even catch your
partner in a “I can’t believe I’m sitting here with this person” look. “I can’t go on without you? You are my reason for living?”
It’s an interesting thought. Maybe we can all experience it from time to time, but personally I like this one: “Keep smiling.
Keep shining. Knowing you can always count on me, for sure. That’s what friends are for.”
My wife saw me tell a story on the Johnny Carson show years ago and thought to herself, I’m going to marry him. She had gone
to Dartmouth and had reviewed books and films for the
Times
of London. Elissa is an inveterate viewer of English mysteries. I’m just glad that before she met me, she hadn’t met Alfred
Hitchcock. She got an assignment from
American Film Magazine
to interview me and called. I accepted the invitation. She was totally professional and quite reserved, and yet one hour
into the interview the tape recorder was shut off when I asked, “Who are you?” We discussed getting married within ninety
minutes of meeting. I told my son about how his mother saw me tell a story on the
Tonight Show
and thought to herself, “I’m going to marry him.” My son said, “She just didn’t know you were never going to stop telling
them.” Since so many marriages don’t last, we could all say making a marriage last may be the most daunting challenge. Any
two people who spend a lot of time together will find endless things to disagree about.