You do know, of course, that May of this year marked the fiftieth anniversary of my acting debut. It was the start of a varied and interesting career. . . doing other things.
You see, my father had a client named Bro Herrod, who owned the 13th Street theater, now called the 13th St. Repertory Theatre, on 13th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves.
In spring of 1969, Herrod was putting on a play called The Coiled Spring, a Holocaust opus. There were parts in it for two young boys, and since I had already written mini historical plays to put on in elementary school, Dad I guess volunteered us.
It had a two-week or so limited run. Well, we gave it our all. At one point we were supposed to scream offstage as we were being rounded up and shipped to a camp. One of the actresses who was on stage at that moment asked me not to scream so loud because I was drowning her out.
My father would drive us in from Queens and drive us home. And some nights, we’d be treated to making our triumphant entrance into Sutter’s, which is exactly where Rosemary’s now is at the corner of Greenwich Ave. and West 10th.
Call it the Sardi’s of downtown; at least it might as well have been given how excited we were to
GO OUT AFTER THE SHOW, and stay up late!
In those days, the West Village was the West Village.