Red Sea Pedestrians

2002-10-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

Courtney's Father Responds:

Hank Harrison found out about our article about Courtney's ancestry and took exception to several of the statements in the article about him. We invited Mr. Harrison to respond to the article as he wished. We wrote what we did based on published sources. We felt it appropriate to give Mr. Harrison a forum to respond to these widely published stories about him and his character.

Without further ado, here is his letter:

Dear Red Sea Pedestrian and all concerned:

Recently my daughter, Courtney Love, has sent out a number of letters and e-mail's accusing me of anti-Semitism. Thank you deeply for allowing me a chance to present the other side of the picture.
My name is Hank Harrison. I am an author and publisher living in Sacramento California. I own houses in Brittany and in Ireland. My wife runs Riverglade Farm, an equestrian center near Sacramento. For a while, back in 1970-1973 I helped manage the Grateful dead, but throughout that ordeal I never lost track of my true vocation ... my love for publishing and writing. I have subsequently written and published several books.
My daughter has accused me of anti-Semitism, which I thought at first would be of no harm since every body who knows me knows I am anything but prejudiced against anyone. I have dozes of friends and acquaintances in every walk of life, African - American, Mexican, and Jewish. Last summer my wife and I were honored to attend a Bot mitzvah for one of her students, Hannah Sptize. Her Temple, Beth Israel, in Sacramento, was fire bombed three years ago by skin heads and we were appalled. The city rallied around the Temple and it has now been rebuilt.
Last summer, when the rumors against me first started, I coincidentally attended the holocaust exhibit at the archives in Los Angeles and spent time studying in the library there in regard to research I was doing on the Aryan Brotherhood which is very strong here in the Sacramento area. I am also fascinated by Hitler's bogus and psychotic mysticism and Alistair Crowley's diseased fanaticism, but I do not practice this junk.
For many years I have admired the works of Marc Chagall and rode on horseback several miles in the snow near Ossning, New York to visit the Chagall stained glass windows in the ecumenical chapel on the Rockerfeller estate. I collect art and have several Chagall's including lithos of his murals in the Paris Opera dome ceiling. I knew all along that Chagall was a Jew, so what?
I love Bob Dylan's music. I study Kaballah, especially the mystic work of the middle ages in France and how this culture influenced the Tarot and the Holy Grail. I believe the Seder cup and the Holy Grail are symbolic of the same religious understanding... a deep insight into the cauldron of the cosmos, the unnamable names of God. Tetragrammaton, etc.

I am a Buddhist by choice. I was raised as a Christian but have never been anti-Semitic. One of my closest friends (and a true sponsor) is the famed physicist Jack Sarfatti who can be reached at Sarfatti@well.com. Moreover, Allen Cohen, the noted poet and publisher, is a close friend of mine. Anyone can ask Allen or Jack about me. If you were to say I was anti-Semitic they would laugh in your face.

Now I ask you would anyone who was anti-Semitic know or care about any of these things?

Furthermore, I have never had a problem with alcohol. I did not give my daughter LSD, nor did I make LSD. I did not give my daughter drugs of any kind. I have past two polygraph examinations about this. I took LSD 4 times and found it effective in my strategy toward psychiatric healing. I believe in the legalization of marijuana for curative purposes. I rescued more than 1000 people from bad LSD trips and was the founder of the LSD Rescue project in 1966, a crisis hot line still in use today.

Thanks again
Shalom

Hank Harrison

2002-09-17T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Absolutely Final Word on Courtney Love---Well, Maybe.

On the main Jewhoo site we relate the tale of Courtney Love's strange background and her somewhat wacko comments about being Jewish. We related the "Courtney says she is Jewish" story about a year or so ago. Recently, we read the autobiography of Paula Fox, Courtney's natural maternal grandmother. It helped fill in the gaps in the "Courtney is Jewish" or "Is she Jewish" story.

Well, singer and actress Courtney Love may have one of the most bizarre family backgrounds ever--- even when one considers how often American families are multiethnic and dysfunctional. It would be a semi-miracle if she was normal. As it is, the fact that she is a success---albeit something of a media hustling and Kurt Cobain reflected success---is quite a credit to her. We won't go through it quite blow by blow----but we finally pieced her family tree together---almost. Not sure if Courtney has pieced it all together, either.

Well, here is the odd family tree of Courtney Love. On her father's side she is not Jewish at all. Her father is Hank Harrison, a minor rock journalist who hung out with the Grateful Dead, and made acid (LSD) for them. Courtney describes him as an alcoholic who was a nasty anti-Semite to boot. He lost a custody battle for her (Courtney was 5) when several people testified in court that he had fed her acid when she was in his care. What a piece of crud.

Her mother is Linda Carroll, a therapist. Carroll has had a bunch of last names in her lifetime but we wont go into all of them. She had one child (Courtney) with Harrison. Two kids with a second Mexican American husband. A natural child with a third husband---and she adopted a mentally disabled child with this husband. That's all we tracked. That's enough.

Courtney's living situation shifted constantly when she was a child---from San Francisco, to a run-down hippie commune, to New Zealand, to living with her mother and stepfather(s) to being farmed out to another couple because she was such a 'handful'. (Courtney, as you will see, is the third generation of women in her family to be "farmed out").

Linda was given up for adoption by Paula Fox, Courtney's maternal grandmother. Paula Fox is a famous and best-selling children's author. Linda's adoptive parents were an Italian American couple who raised her as a Catholic. This couple were partial heirs to the Bausch and Lomb optical fortune and Linda inherited some of that money. But it does not appear to be a huge amount of money.

Linda Carroll tracked down Paula Fox about 15 years ago. She did not know who her natural parents were before that time. Linda says that her paternal grandfather was a Viennese Jewish psychoanalyst. It seems like Linda's natural father was "just plain" Jewish---that's what Courtney seems to say on her site---this assumption is also ratified by a comment in Paula Fox's recent 2001 autobiography, "Beyond Finery".

Paula Fox does not name the father of her out of wedlock child (Linda Carroll) in her book. Paula Fox says she gave up baby Linda for adoption because she (Fox) was 21 and unmarried. However she tried to get Linda back a week after putting the infant Linda up for adoption. The doctor lied to her and told her the law would not allow this (it would, even then). She then asked that the child be given to a Jewish couple---the doctor lied to her again and told her he would. (Linda's adopted family was Catholic, as noted above).

Given Paula's small ties to being Jewish, as explained below, her request that Linda be given to a Jewish couple only makes sense if Linda's natural father was Jewish.

So where did Paula come from? Well, Paula was the child of Paul Fox, a minor screenwriter, and a Cuban American Catholic woman. Paula's parents 'farmed" out her to a Congregational minister to raise---although they both saw her now and again and Paula knew who her biological parents and grandparents were. Paula Fox spent time with her natural parents' extended families.

It is not explictly stated in Fox's book---but it seems clear Paula Fox's father was "half Jewish". Paul Fox's grandfather was a German Jewish salesman. Paul Fox's father was 'probably' 'just plain' Jewish. Paul Fox's mother was an American WASP by the name of Mary Finch. Mary Finch's sister also married a Jewish man. This Jewish man was the father of the famous actor Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (born Ullman). So, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was Paula Fox's father's first cousin and Courtney Love is distantly related to Douglas Fairbanks and his descendants. (But she is related to Fairbanks through his mother's Gentile relatives---not through Fairbank's Jewish relatives.)

Paula Fox didn't like her father that much --in that he pretty much abandoned her and he not support her financially to any real degree. But he seems to have had a good heart, despite being irresponsible. Plus he didn't drive her crazy like Fox's mother drove Paula crazy. Paula's natural mother was a 'monster' who Paula really hated. She was selfish, bigoted, and put Paula out to be raised by others. Paula mentions that her mother was a nasty anti-Semite---who got more anti-Semitic as the years went on. A prejudice shared by her mother's brother.

Fox, sad to say, related in an interview that she is on friendly terms with all of Linda's children except Courtney. She likes them a great deal. However, Courtney, she said, reminds her of her own mother and she doesn't like her---she said so in almost so many words. Wow! Way harsh!

So, here's the scorecard: Linda Carroll is 5/8 Jewish biologically. Her father is Jewish and her mother (Paula Fox) is one quarter Jewish. Courtney is a touch over one quarter Jewish. Sorry, Courtney, you are not Jewish by traditional Jewish religious law because your maternal grandmother, Paula Fox, was not born of a Jewish mother. However, in your case---please call yourself Jewish---if only to piss off Hank Harrison, the ghost of your maternal Cuban great grandmother, and the ghost of the doctor who lied about Linda being placed for adoption with a Jewish family. It sort of pleases us to know that the most famous member of this family refers to herself as a 'banzai Jew'.

That's it.
PS Courtney seems to think (see Jewhoo entry) that Jewish men are not sleeping with her because "she's Jewish." We already discounted this notion on her main entry---attributing their reluctance---if in fact this is true at all--to Courtney's craziness. However, in the year since we posted the entry on Courntey----several brave Jewish men have come forth and said they would sleep with Courtney out of the goodness of their hearts---if it means that much to Courtney, they said, they would sacrifice themselves. And they say open hearted charity is hard to find nowadays!

2002-09-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Update September 13:

We are reliably informed that Eddie Fisher's mother, see June 24 posted interview below, passed away about five years ago. Eddie's daughter, Carrie, now hosts an interview program on the Oxygen cable network. Ms. Fisher was recently profiled on another cable network and the news about her and Eddie is not good. She essentially begged him not to write and have published his 2nd "tell all" autobiography---it included some material on her mother that Carrie considered private and hurtful. Eddie Fisher went ahead despite his daughter's wishes. She stated that she cut all ties to him after he went ahead with the book and has had no contact with him.

2002-06-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well, again I was late with new material. But I hope the following piece interests you.

Freddie Prinze: What We Think People Will Think

I am old enough to remember Freddie Prinze, Sr.’s quick rise to relative stardom and tragic death. Freddie was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York in 1954. He made his first “Tonight Show” appearance at age 18 and was a big hit. He was one of the very few stand-up comedians that Johnny Carson invited to sit down on the couch and talk to him during the comedian’s first appearance on Tonight. Johnny almost never granted this ‘honor’ until a stand-up comedian had appeared on the show several times.

In 1973, the situation comedy, “Chico and the Man” premiered on NBC. It was a big hit. However, in 1977, Freddie Prinze, Sr. took his life. He was suffering from depression and drug addiction. Freddie’s son, Freddie Prinze, Jr., is now an important actor. This fact has probably helped keep the memory of Freddie, Sr. “alive”. (Henceforth in this piece—Freddie refers to Freddie Prinze, SENIOR---not his son).

Freddie Prinze referred to himself as a Hungarican comedian on stage (Hungarian and Puerto Rican). He said his father was Hungarian. I cannot recall that Freddie ever referred to himself as Jewish in an on-stage performance. However, in a biography “co-authored” by his mother—it says his father was a Hungarian Jew. Freddie’s mother is Puerto Rican and, like most Puerto Ricans, she is Catholic. Freddie, in fact, attended a Catholic grade school. I gather that Freddie told all sorts of people in the comedy business that his father was a Hungarian Jew.

Well, it is my strong belief that Freddie’s father was not a Hungarian Jew. In fact, he was a German soldier who fought for Germany during WWII. No, I don’t have any information that his father did anything awful. Many—perhaps most ordinary German soldiers did nothing during WWII that could be construed as a war crime.

But why did Freddie Prinze lie and say that his father was Jewish? The answer, I believe, exposes a truly pathetic failure to understand the mindset of people who are persecuted. My purpose is not really to “out” Freddie’s father or to call Freddie Prinze a liar. It is to make a point about we underestimate people.

Why do I say what I do? Well, a bunch of things came together. First, after Freddie’s death I was somewhat surprised that his father was called Jewish in articles. Freddie always called him a ‘Hungarican’ in his comedic routines and during his brief chats with Johnny Carson and other talk show hosts. Most people with a Jewish father---who grew up in New York---just say they are “half Jewish”. Is Jewirican less funny than Hungarician? Something didn’t seem right—but I didn’t dwell on it.

Then, not long after I began editing the site, I got a credible letter from a man who identified himself as a college professor in the Los Angeles area. He said he worked in a store as a young man. This was around 1974. A security guard at the store and my correspondent got into a conversation one day. The guard showed him identification with the name Karl Pruetzel on it. The professor said that even then he knew that Pruetzel was Freddie Prinze, Sr.’s real last name. The guard said that he was Freddie’s father and that he had served in the German army during WWII. He said that Freddie was afraid that it would hurt his career when he went into comedy if anyone found out about his father’s German army service. Especially since there are so many Jews in “the comedy business”. Freddie decided to tell people his father was a Hungarian Jew and the rest of the family went along with the story. This correspondent said he could not be sure that the guy who was claiming to be Freddie’s father was not lying. But Pruetzel is a rare last name and the guy had very genuine looking identification with this name. Moreover, my correspondent said that there was just something that made him think this guy was credible. As he put it, “Why not just claim to be Freddie’s father—if that is how one gets one’s ‘kicks’?” Why add this weird detail about German army service if it was not true?

The letter made me think. But how would I confirm the facts? Well, the answer is I have not completely confirmed them yet---but I have come as close as I can with limited resources. I checked a very good Freddie Prinze, Sr. web site. Amazingly, they posted a facsimile copy of Freddie’s death certificate on the site. The information on a death certificate is almost always supplied by the family. His father’s place of birth is listed as Germany. Not Hungary. Germany.

Now, many Hungarian Jews moved to Germany before WWI and during the 1920s. But almost all Jews born in Germany—regardless of where their parents were born—would refer to themselves as German Jews or Germans. Not as Hungarians. Again, Freddie’s father was born in Germany according to the death certificate. Why would his son refer to him as a Hungarian? If Freddie’s father was German Jewish---with Hungarian parents---why not just refer to him as Jewish? Something wasn’t right.

I also noticed Freddie’s father’s name: Karl Frederick Pruetzel. Freddie, Sr.’s name was Frederick Pruetzel. Rarely do Jews from Northern or Eastern Europe give their children the same name as themselves. Even Jews who intermarry usually avoid this. It is an old Jewish custom that is still honored much more often than it is ignored.

Well, late last year I got a credible letter from a woman who was happy to give me her name, address, etc. She said she was Jewish and she saw my entry on the site on Freddie, Sr. and my indication in the entry that I was unsure whether Freddie’s father was Jewish. She said she knew Freddie from the time they were both children until a couple of years before he died.

She told me she was sure that his father was not Jewish. Freddie told her that his father was an ethnic German. Freddie told her that his father’s family had historically lived outside Germany—but was German. Before WWII, there were millions of ethnic Germans outside Germany in other parts of Europe. There were large minorities of ethnic Germans in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and even the old Soviet Union. Most of these ethnic Germans ‘returned’ to Germany following either WWI or WWII.

I checked—Pruetzel is a name virtually never found among Jews. It is found among ethnic Germans.

Freddie’s friend knew nothing about his father’s army service. His father, she told me, was around much less than Freddie’s mother. But she told me his father did speak with a distinct German accent. She said the WWII ‘army story’ made some sense. It did not lessen her opinion of Freddie. She said she loved Freddie as a friend. But she could not bear to see him kill himself on drugs and broke off their friendship a couple of years before his death. She described Freddie as a warm, loving person. She added that she was surprised to hear that Freddie’s father was referred to as Jewish in source after source. In all the years she knew Freddie---he never even hinted at such a thing

.I can just imagine this 17 year old kid—Freddie Prinze-- with a “Germanic” last name. His father fought in Hitler’s army and he is about to enter the comedy business. What does he think about or do?

Yes, no doubt if Freddie walked into NY comedy clubs and announced that his father fought in the Nazi army— in just this way--- it would not have gone over big. But if he had simply said—if asked—that his father was a German-American--- I doubt that any American Jew would have batted an eyelash. I have virtually never met an American Jew who does not make a huge distinction between Americans of German descent and German nationals. I mean let’s get real here---500.000 Jewish Americans served in WWII in the armed services under German Americans named General Dwight Eisenhower and Admiral Chester Nimitz.

I just have to think in a moment of weakness---or what he thought was inspiration---Freddie Sr. took what could be a minus and turned it into a mild 'career plus'---he took his “Germanic” name and said it was—in effect—a Jewish name. Instead of what he perceived as a handicap---that Jews in the comedy business would discriminate against him because his father was German---maybe Freddie thought he would get a leg up by claiming to be “half Jewish”.

Well, as for the last thought---forget it. Even when Freddie came up the Jewish comic thing was fairly tired and it had lost its novelty. Freddie’s strength was being a Puerto Rican comedian. That was a novelty back then and really helped advance his career.

But I think what Freddie didn’t know is this--- Jews, like most historically oppressed people, are far more forgiving of their oppressors than their oppressors will ever realize. They know what it is like to be singled out for hate simply because of any accident of birth. Hence, even if it came out that Freddie’s father served in the German army---almost all Jews that I know would say—well, that’s his father---its not his fault. The same way that blacks in the South have voted for the sons of segregationist politicians or the great grandchildren of slave owners. Or the way that South African blacks have forgiven—in a remarkable way-- most of their white oppressors.

I am not saying that Freddie Prinze, Sr. was a bigot . Everything I know about him makes me think he was not. But he adopted the mindset of the bigot when he hid his origins. The haters of the world have to fantasize that the object of their hate—the people they hate---hate them as much. It justifies and gives life to the way they de-humanize other people. To hate—to demonize a whole group of people takes a certain type of mind—and part of that mind says that “this group is out to get me” and “they have to be hating me as much as I hate them.”

Sure, it happens that some individual members of an oppressed minority will hate all the members of a majority group after facing particularly brutal oppression. But, this is the exception and it is surprisingly rare event. More often the oppressed minority is just floored by the idea--put forth by their oppressors--that they sit around among themselves hating and figuring out ways to get back at their oppressors. They simply want to be treated equally and with respect.

Freddie Prinze misjudged America and American Jews when he hid his origins. All he had to say was his father was German and that would have been the end of the matter. Who really cares in America if someone’s father is a German or German American?

Freddie obviously did not have to lie. No one before me has ever investigated his background—checked his story. I was able to drive a hole into the story about his father’s origins without leaving my computer. The story fell into my lap, more or less, so I am relating it. But during Freddie’s life and for twenty five years thereafter---source after source simply repeated the Hungarian Jewish story. If Freddie had said his father was German---that’s all reporters would have printed. And hardly a Jew in America or in the "comedy business" would have cared.

Even if it came out that his father served in the German army---I doubt anyone, Jewish or not, would have cared very much. Most would not have cared at all. What does that have to do with Freddie? Nothing really. The sad thing is that Freddie thought Jewish people would care and hold it against him. I don’t. Freddie’s lifelong Jewish friend did not. We cannot choose our parents. What we can do is act well in our own life. And we can take each person as he or she comes.

We will be happy to retract or otherwise modify this story if anyone knows of anything in error in it and is willing to provide verifiable evidence supporting their contention of error. Likewise, if anyone has any verifiable information supporting the main factual contentions of this story—i.e., about Freddie’s father—please contact us at editor@Jewhoo.com

2002-06-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

Note to our visitors who actually found this site on May 25: circumstances beyond my control forced me to not add to this site until June 2, 2002. I hope to be more regular in the future. As promised, below is Fred Bernstein's interview with Kate Stupp, the mother of singer Eddie Fisher. As noted on the Jewhoo site, Fred Bernstein did these interviews when he worked as a journalist for People magazine in the 1980s. This interview was done in the early 1980s, not long after singer Paul Simon's wedding to Carrie Fisher. (The marriage lasted only a very short time).

Probably half of our visitors are not familiar with Eddie Fisher. Well, here is a capsule biography from Hollywood.com. (This site features great capsule biographies of thousands of performers and I highly recommend it).

Biography
A boyishly handsome band, nightclub and hotel singer, Eddie Fisher was discovered by Eddie Cantor in 1949 and went on to become an idol of bobbysoxers and a recording personality of the 1950s. A pre-rock and roll crooner, Fisher performed his many hit songs including "Oh, My Papa" and "Wish You Were Here" on his two TV variety shows, the 15-minute "Coke Time With Eddie Fisher" (NBC, 1953-57) and the hour-long variety show, "The Eddie Fisher Show" (NBC, 1957-59). Fisher and first wife Debbie Reynolds personified wholesome young newlyweds in the fan magazines of the 50s and in the film "Bundle of Joy" (1956), until he won tabloid notoriety by divorcing her to wed the recently widowed Elizabeth Taylor in 1959. A Las Vegas headliner in the 1960s and 70s, Fisher chronicled his self-destructive bouts with gambling and drugs in his 1981 autobiography "Eddie: My Life, My Loves". Father of actor-author Carrie Fisher by Debbie Reynolds and actor Joely Fisher (a regular on ABC-TV's "Ellen") and singer Tricia Leigh Fisher by third wife Connie Stevens.

A list of Eddie's acting credits are found on the Hollywood.com site.

Hollywood.com does not mention that Eddie Fisher wrote a second autobiograpy in 2000 called, Been There, Done That. Eddie's marriages to famous actresses and his successful children have created an interest in him that would not otherwise exist given his career success in the last thirty five or so years. Therefore, he could write two "commercially viable" autobiographies. Fisher is still active as a nightclub performer.

Finally, while it is reasonably clear from the interview, we will note that none of Eddie's three famous wives were Jewish. However, Elizabeth Taylor converted to Judaism after marrying Eddie. Eddie says in his second autobiography that he did not ask Taylor to convert and her decision to convert came as a surprise to him and it was something she did on her own. The impression one gets from Eddie's book is that she told him she was going to convert; he said, "fine", and that was that. One could speculate that her conversion was a tribute in some sense to her previous husband, producer Mike Todd, and that her marriage to Eddie gave her plausible excuse to convert. She wanted to convert when she married Todd, who was Jewish. Todd didn't care and told her to wait and think about it. Well, Todd died in an air crash in 1958, leaving a pregnant Elizabeth behind. Taylor biographies describe Todd and Richard Burton as the great loves of Taylor's life. Todd was a brilliant producer and a "man's man" type who captivated Taylor with his "I don't care who you" are attitude. Eddie Fisher, who was a friend of Todd's, comforted the grieving widow and the rest is showibiz history.

Well, without further ado, here is the interview. (Note: We have been unable to find out if Eddie mother is still with us).

KATE STUPP---EDDIE FISHER’S MOTHER

“HE WAS A GOOD, FINE BOY. THE BEST. HE JUST HAD A LITTLE BAD LUCK ALONG THE WAY--ABOUT GETTING INTO THE WRONG MARRIAGES.”

Eddie Fisher's mother cries a lot these days.

She cried the last time she heard Eddie sing "My Yiddishe Mama," because, "When he sings it, I know he's singing it for me."

She cried while watching Eddie record his last album. "The men in the studio kept saying, 'What's wrong?' And I said, 'Nothing. These are tears of joy. He hasn't made a recording in fifteen years.'"

She cried when she read Eddie's autobiography, My Life, My Loves. "I could only read a couple of pages a night," she recalls, "because I cried so much."

Those weren't tears of joy. Eddie's book chronicles perhaps the most pathetic fall from glory in the history of entertainment. In the fifties, he was the preeminent popular singer in the world; just over a decade later, he was virtually unknown except as the butt of humiliating jokes. Along the road to ignominy, Eddie Fisher was divorced four times (from Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Connie Stevens, and Terry Richard, a twenty-two-year-old Miss Louisiana whom he married at forty-eight), he gambled his way into bankruptcy, and he spent twenty years as an amphetamine addict. He carried around suitcases full of hypodermics, and he injected himself before every show.

"Whatever happened to him, she did to him," says Kate. The "she" is Elizabeth Taylor. Kate is serving me her homemade pound cake ("I don't buy, I bake") in the living room of her North Philadelphia apartment. And she is breaking her promise to herself not to talk about Eddie's exes.

"She made him suffer so much--such a good boy."

Perhaps she is talking because she knows that, thirty-five years after he became a star, Eddie Fisher is still remembered as the man Elizabeth Taylor dumped for Richard Burton. Or perhaps she simply needs to get something off her chest.

"It isn't what she did," declares Kate, now eighty-two. "It's how she did it. The others were all different.

"When Elizabeth Taylor meets a man, she takes him and squeezes the life out of him and then she throws away the pulp.

"When he married her, he was sincere. He really loved her. But I don't think Elizabeth Taylor knows what love is.

"How many has she had now? Eight? Believe me, it won't be the last one. I can't stand her.

"Of course, she still didn't go back--she's still Jewish. That's a wonderful side of her.

"I'll tell you who the divorce really hurt. Elizabeth's mother. She took it so bad when they broke up. She loved Eddie. He was an ideal husband for her daughter. I think she's a sick girl.

"Of course, I didn't know anything. My Eddie never talked to me about it. He doesn't tell me because he doesn't like me to worry about anything. He's such a darling, my Sonny Boy.

"I always call him Sonny Boy, like in the Jolson song. Even in front of the President, that's what I called him.

"I think there's times when everyone's unhappy. But when I see my Sonny Boy, he's always happy.

"When he introduced me to each wife, I liked her as a person. The only thing I asked, with each one, is if they loved each other.

"Of course, I have opinions about all of them, but it isn't my place to talk. They were all nice to me. They all calIed me Mama.

"With Debbie Reynolds, I felt very bad. I thought this was going to be a good life.

"When I met her, I said, 'Debbie, my child, I love you. I want you to be happy with my Eddie. Let me tell you something and I won t bother you again. Give a little, take a little, and you'll always be happy.'

"Of course, it didn't work out. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors.

"I'm not a prying mother. I didn't ask the children if they were having difficulties. I could never do that--not with any of my seven children.

"Eddie never cried on my shoulder. He was no weakling, my Eddie. He could have been concealing things--but believe me, he never said an unkind word about his wives.

"But he's still close with the kids. His children are so nice, and they're so close with their daddy.

"I saw Carrie at her wedding [to singer Paul Simon]. There were a lot of famous people there--I can't tell one from another. But I wanted to see Debbie and Eddie's children--Carrie and Todd.

"Of course, I'd seen Carrie as Princess Leia--it was great. It was the second movie. The first one, Eddie didn't like. He said, 'You don't have to go; she'll do another.'

"She's so cute, and so nice. At the wedding, she put her hands on my face, and she said, 'Is this what I've been missing all these years?' And Paul [now Carrie's ex] is such a nice young man. But show business is a very hard life." Kate is showing me pictures of the wedding, sent to her by Maxine Reynolds, Debbie's mother.

"He has two little girls with Connie; they come to his shows. He's crazy about them. He loves the children.

"My Eddie and Connie are still very good friends. She's very nice. I guess they found some reason to divorce.

"He always married big names, but it didn't end good.

"He was a good, fine boy. The best. He just had a little bad luck along the way--about getting into the wrong marriages.

"That part was bad, but thank God he came out of it all right.

"He always says he's the black sheep of the family. He's not. He's a wonderful Sonny Boy."

One of these days, when there is time, I hope to meet someone to whom I can show the wonderful things I have discovered and see her starry-eyed with the same kind of excitement I feel I think she'll probably be a home girl rather than one from show business. Most of all I want her to have Mom's kind of
common sense.

Eddie Fisher in The Amencan Weekly, 1953

Before he met Debbie, or Elizabeth, or Connie, or Terry, there was only one woman in Eddie Fisher's life. He had begun crooning a string of twenty-two hit songs--songs like "Oh! My Papa" and "Lady of Spain"--that would earn him more than $1 million a year. There were crowds whenever he appeared in public. Rona Barrett, then a teenager named Rona Burstein, was the president of Eddie's fan club. "We controlled more than a million girls," she said. "I thought he was God's gift, and so did all the others."

But even gifts from God need to have mothers. So Eddie, who was still single, kept Kate, who was divorced from Joseph Fisher, at his side. The newspapers showed her fixing Eddie's tie backstage, helping him pack before he went on tour, enjoying the house he bought for her in Philadelphia. And the captions dictated by RCA Victor publicists--elevated Kate to the level of folk heroine. They were the perfect American couple: Eddie and his devoted Yiddishe Mama.

The best thing that ever happened to me was my mother. Even when my six brothers and sisters were wearing second-hand clothes, she never told me to stop singing and get a job. “Singing is what you're made for, Sonny Boy," she said. "Keep it up, and you'll get there."

Eddie Fisher in The American Weekly

The daughter of a penniless immigrant tailor, Kate Minicker had married young -- badly. "It was a hard life with Mr. Fisher," she says. "He was a good man, but there were problems."

Kate is too polite to talk about those problems, but in his book Eddie recalls, "My father took his anger and frustration out on my mother, shouting at her, insulting, ridiculing, and humiliating her. He never beat her physically. The way he beat her mentally was worse. He was a tyrant who treated my mother like a slave."

Eddie adds, "I wanted my mother to fight back, and because she never did, I thought she was weak. Now I realize she was the strongest of us all."

Maybe she couldn't fight back; Kate was too busy trying to raise seven kids in shacks with bedbugs and rats and no hot water--and packing up the whole household and moving when she couldn't pay the rent. An itinerant luggage repairman, Joseph Fisher was reduced by the Depression to hawking rotten vegetables--and part of what little he earned, he lost playing the numbers.

Some of the time, we were on relief, and Mom would stay up all night to unravel the things the welfare agencies gave us and knit new clothes.

Eddie Fisher in The Amencan Weekly

College was out of the question for Kate's children. But Eddie had another meal ticket: "When he opened his mouth, you couldn't believe what came out of it," says Kate, "and from such a little boy."

By the time he was eleven, Eddie was singing at the family's synagogue in South Philly. When the cantor got sick, his mother recalls, "they put him on a box and he did the whole service. I cried and cried.

"But then the cantor came to the house, and he said, 'Don't let him become a cantor; you don't get anywhere.' If he hadn't said that," Kate intones, "Eddie would be a cantor."

Instead, he began winning one amateur contest after another, and soon he was singing regularly on a children's radio program.

His mother used to give him four pieces of cardboard every morning. They were to cover the holes in his shoes. One set was for the morning and the other set was a change for the afternoon.... He used to walk the four miles, back and forth, to the station.

The New York Post, 1953

Finally, Kate, desperately worried that Eddie would ruin his voice without proper instruction, barged into the office of a renowned vocal coach. She convinced him to see Eddie for free. "He said, 'Young man, are you willing to give up baseball and playing in the snow? Because you'll have to if you want to sing.' And Eddie said, 'Yes, yes.'

"Show business was a tough nut to crack, but that's what Eddie wanted. I really didn't think he would make it," Kate says. But she never told him that during the three years he spent scouring New York for work. He didn't find it.

Eventually, I went home feeling all washed up. I just hung around the house. Mom would keep saying, 'Why don't you call up Mr. Blackstone [a promoter],' and I'd say, 'No, Mom, I've had it.' One day she told me, 'You're young, Eddie. Discouragement is a disease. You're young.' I went back to New York.

Eddie Fisher in the Daily Mirror, 1955

Eventually, Milton Blackstone got Eddie a job headlining at the Riviera Club, in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Kate, who was preparing for one of her daughters' weddings, nonetheless raced to the theater to be with him.

Just before the show Mom came into my dressing room and for once in her life she was more nervous than I was. But she gave me a bright smile. 'You've done it before, and you can do it again,' she said.

The lights went out except for the spots and I felt the music stirring inside me. Mom had always told me, 'You can do anything when you have the will for it.'

Her life was the proof. I remember her on her knees washing the stones that paved our little backyard so we kids could have a clean place to play....

Eddie Fisher in The American Weekly

Kate's pavement-scrubbing days were over. In 1949, Eddie Cantor heard her son sing at Grossinger's and predicted, "Within one year, this man will be a star." Says Kate, "I can still see him saying those words."

Within a year, Eddie was a star. And Kate had another reason to be happy. According to Eddie, she had always told her husband, "I am going to divorce you as soon as the children are older," and she kept her promise. Then she married Joseph's best friend, Max Stupp, whom she calls "an angel from heaven. We had a perfect life together."

Eddie lavished presents on his mother, but he saw her less and less. Indeed, his memoirs make it sound as though he saw her only at his weddings. Eddie wrote, "Ties to my family began to disintegrate about the same time everything else was falling apart." Eventually, he even stopped sending his mother money. "There came a time," he wrote solemnly, "when my generosity had to be reserved for my pusher."

Sonny Boy is what Mom and Dad have called me for as long as I can remember. Maybe that sounds corny, but none of us will ever change.

Eddie Fisher in The New York Post, 1953

By the early sixties, Sonny Boy had changed. Kate was at Philadelphia's Latin Casino when Eddie--after waiting for a drug delivery backstage--came on two hours late, to a terrifying chorus of boos and hisses. Soon he was reduced to playing small clubs overseas to earn money for narcotics.

Kate's luck ran out, too . After sixteen years of marriage, Max Stupp died. Then her daughter Nettie, who was left retarded by a childhood injury and had always been Kate's closest companion, succumbed to cancer. Eddie remembers, "I thought that would kill her, but she survived. Mom always survives."

She moved in with another of her daughters. But after a year Kate announced, "I want to go back where I belong."

Now she lives with Dora Schaeffer, who used to be her next-door neighbor, in a twobedroom apartment.

"Any of my kids would gladly take me in. But I don't want to interfere," says Kate.

"My Eddie wanted to build me a home in California, but I said, 'No, I want to stay here.' I said, 'Sonny Boy, let me stay here where I started.'

"He did everything for his mommy. They all did.

"An interviewer said to me, 'What's it like having a star for a child?' And I said, 'Which one? I have seven stare.' every one's a star in his own right.

"I raised seven children in real hardship, but I raised fine children. The way they turned out, every one a beauty! I have eighteen grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren--the oldest one is fifteen. They call me Bubbe.

"I'm rich. I'm so rich. My bedroom is all pictures. They're beautiful, and they're as good as they are beautiful.

"You feel they're around. To an old mother, that keeps her going. I have a phone in this room, and a phone in the bedroom--and they keep ringing all the time. I just spoke to Eddie. He calls me every other day.

"My mother always said, 'To make good bread, you've got to have good dough.' You've got to have something to work with.

"Nowadays, you've also got to be very lucky. I wouldn't know what to do to raise my children in this time. They start adult lives so young--by the time they come of age, they're tired of their lives. Years ago, it had to be really bad before they got divorced. Not now.

"My children went to Hebrew school--you can't make them go now.

"But each generation is different--you've got to go along with it. I have eighteen grandchildren, and when their parents tell them what to do, I never say a word.

"I come in contact with a lot of mothers who interfere in their children's lives. My friends, they'll say, 'My daughter went away, and she didn't take me.' I could disown them as friends when they start complaining about their children. That's not the way I do it. If my daughter says she's going away, I say, 'Have a wonderful time.' That's their life. Is that being a bad child?

"My friends say, 'You're a lucky mother. But you deserve it.' "

Kate's doctor doesn't let her fly. "But whenever Eddie performs in New York or Atlantic City--anyplace I can go by limousine," she says, "I go. And every song he does is great. Now I'm talking like a mother--like a mother should."

The high point of the show? When Eddie sings "My Yiddishe Mama." Kate, who always sits in the front row, cries, just as she cries when she listens to the song on a cassette that she keeps at her bedside. She plays it almost every night.

"I just want a little more time with my children," Kate says, playing the song for me. "I'm so proud of them, every one of them.

“I know I am being greedy. But God should give me just a little bit more time.”

2002-05-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well, what is this site? This is my rather wry name for the temporary Jewhoo Editor's site. The handful of us at Jewhoo are deciding about what plan to pursue to re-make the main site to make it more user friendly. Meanwhile, your fearless editor did not want to mess around with HTML, or server nonsense, or other people, when he wanted to communicate with our many loyal visitors.

As you might have noticed, we haven't posted much in the way of new articles in recent months. I am understating the case. We have not posted any new articles since last fall. I hope to use this site to get articles and other items of interest to our visitors on a weekly or even daily basis. I will also publish letters to the editor and the like. I hope to have something new here at least every other day.

This site is a low tech way for me to easily enhance "your Jewhoo experience". There won't be any fancy graphics or other such "bon bons". However, I do hope to entertain and inform you.

I only recently discovered "blooget" and decided to plunge ahead without a great master plan. I have not quite planned out exactly what I will post. Therefore, bear with me as I sort of establish the parameters of this site and how much time I have to devote to it. I do plan to provide stuff of interest at least several times a week. I will see how it goes and I hope that I can provide a lot of new material without getting in over my head in deep water. Well, we are back to the title of this site--so I will close this "opening" message.

If you have questions, please write me at editor@jewhoo.com

Nate
Jewhoo Editor

P.S. Two things: First, don't bookmark this page! It does our finances more good if you first come to this site from Jewhoo. If you must bookmark it, remember to reload the page. You may have a "cached" version stored in your browser memory and you may not see the latest stuff.

Second, this site is organized chronologically. This means my opening message will be below 'stuff' I subsequently post. Therefore I will re-post this message every day for a few weeks before beginning the day's 'new stuff". I will do this until most people are "oriented" to the new site. In other words, don't get into a tizzy if you read this message more than once.

Tomorrow, we will start off with a strange one that has been sitting in my bin for a while. An interview, done in the mid-1980s, with singer Eddie Fisher's mother. Okay, its not exactly today's news---but it is entertaining and has some nice juicy bits about Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher, Paul Simon, and others.

Keep your feet dry and we will see you real soon.