Up Till Now: The Autobiography

beautiful. Strike! Strike!
    I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. No understanding of political philosophy. I was acting, that’s all. Giving life and emotion to words written on paper. The red-baiting movement started several years later, just as I was beginning my career in America. I was terrified that someone would ask me about my work for the Communist party.
    At West Hill High School I was never a very good student, more because of a lack of interest than a lack of ability. In school, those things about the world that would one day intrigue and delight and fascinate me didn’t even interest me. I wanted to act and play football, that was it. I barely graduated from high school and yet was accepted to the McGill University School of Commerce. The business school. I was admitted under a Jewish quota that existed at that time. With my grades they must have been marking on a very large curve. My family believed I was at McGill to learn how to bring modern economic practices into my father’s clothing business, so I could turn it into the hugely successful corporation we all knew was just the completion of my college education away. But I knew I was there to perform in their shows.
    I spent considerably more time in the drama department than going to class. I got by, I always managed to get by, but more important, I wrote and produced and appeared in several campus productions. I was also working part-time as a radio announcer at the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Here, remember these words: “Stay tuned for our next exciting program.” That was me.
    Growing up, I wanted to be like the kids who lived in Westmont, the moneyed part of the city. I wanted to be like the upper-class English kids who drove their MGs to college. I remember when I was five or six years old I found a five-dollar bill. That was all the money in the world to a child, but I wanted to share it with my only friend—so I tore it in half.
    I understood the importance of money—but acting was more important. I knew I would never make as much money acting as my fatherearned in the schmatta business, but I didn’t care. I suspect every actor has a financial goal when they begin. Mine was a hundred dollars a week. I thought, if I could earn a hundred dollars a week as an actor I will be a very happy man. Leonard, whose father was a barber, wanted to earn ten thousand dollars a year, but Leonard always had extravagant dreams.
    Telling this to my father was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. My father’s dream was that we would work together one day. As a teenager I would go with him on sales calls. We’d put on our best suits and drive to these small French villages outside Montreal. He had friends in every village—this is my old friend Jake, my old friend Pierre, my old friend Robert—people he had sold to for years. To each of these men he would proudly introduce me, “This is my son,” and they would comment on how tall I was, how much I looked like him. It was the salesman’s dance. I was being brought into the family business.
    I didn’t know how I could tell him. One afternoon, during my third year in college, for some reason we were in my bedroom and he asked me casually if I’d thought about my future. Just as casually I told him I wanted to be an actor. And his heart just plummeted.
    He sat down on my bed as the enormity of that hit him. He didn’t understand the theater. Acting wasn’t a job for a man. Actors were bums. For him, it was like being a minstrel. The chances of succeeding, of having any kind of meaningful life were very, very slim. I knew he was devastated, but the only thing he said to me was, “Well, you do what you want to do. There’s always a place for you here. I don’t have the money to support you, but I’ll help you the best I can.” The only thing he asked of me was that I not become a “hanger-on.” By that he meant being dependent on other people, on unemployment insurance, a man who couldn’t earn his own keep.
    How brave he was to put aside his dreams so I might pursue my own. And how it must have hurt him. He was a man rooted deeply in the reality of a paycheck; the life of an artist was inconceivable to him. But rather than trying to talk me out of it, or offering advice, he gave me freedom.
    And he always kept that place for me. Just in case.
    I graduated from McGill University with my degree in commerce and I immediately put that degree to work. Mrs. Ruth