arts & entertainment
n Unexpected Life
Lee Grant's whirlwind ride through American theater, film —
and 12 years on the blacklist.
Curt Schleier
Special to the Jewish News
"I had a fear of being Jewish. But later,
it became a strength." - Lee Grant
L
ee Grant is on the phone to talk
about her new memoir, I Said Yes
to Everything (Blue Rider Press).
But first we play Jewish geography.
It turns out I grew up on the same
Bronx, N.Y., street where her father (the
director of the Young Men's and Young
Women's Hebrew Association of the
Bronx) lived — though, I hasten to add, I
lived there many years after he did.
"That is so funny" says Grant, and
laughs. It's nice to hear her laugh because,
based on the book, I wasn't sure what to
expect. Most people just know Lee Grant
from her performances in everything
from Shampoo (Oscar for Best Supporting
Actress) to Peyton Place (Emmy for Best
Supporting Actress), which have won her
awards and accolades.
That makes it easy to forget she was
among a number of blacklisted notables
Cold War politics kept from working.
Now 87 (but looking much younger),
Grant, born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal, the
only child of upper-middle-class Jewish
immigrants, essentially lost a dozen prime
years of her career — from roughly her
mid-20s to her mid-30s.
But that's all in the past; she's gone on to
a successful career not only as an actress
but as a director as well (she won the
Directors Guild Award for the 1986 Oscar-
winning documentary Down and Out in
America, co-produced by her second hus-
band, of almost 50 years, award-winning
Italian American producer Joseph Feury,
whom she married in the mid-'60s after
they met working on a play).
I wondered what prompted Grant to
write the memoir now.
"I wrote it because I've had a loss of
memory of names from the HUAC thing"
she says.
Ah, yes, the HUAC thing. Blacklisted
for refusing to name her first husband,
Arnold Manoff, as a member of the
Communist Party, Grant was encour-
aged to meet unofficially with House
Un-American Activities Committee law-
yers, after which, presumably, she would
be removed from the blacklist.
Grant flew from New York to
Washington and was sharply grilled.
Under pressure, Grant mentioned two
women's names. Not communists. Just
ladies she'd gone shopping with. It was
only afterward that she realized her mis-
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August 14 • 2014
take. Nothing happened to them — and
she was not removed from the blacklist
— but the event left a psychological scar.
(Ironically, unlike Manoff, Grant never
was a Communist Party member, but
"there was no way to disassociate your-
self" she says. She and Manoff divorced in
1960, and he died five years later.)
"I have a problem introducing one per-
son to another, and I was afraid it affected
other [aspects of my memory]. So I just
decided I'd have to write it all down" she
explains.
What's interesting about I Said Yes
to Everything is that while it isn't one
of those typical tell-all biographies —
although it tells a lot — it isn't a white-
wash either.
I asked Grant if while writing this
warts-and-all memoir, she realized how
much of herself she was revealing.
"I was writing it for myself" she notes.
"If I wasn't going to be honest with myself
at this point in my life, what was the
point? It was self-therapy, and it worked
for me. That's why I did it, day after day,
longhand for four years. I was my own
twin facing myself"
Grant's career had taken off after an
extremely well-received performance in
Detective Story — she was the "surprise
discovery" of the 1950 Broadway season.
But thanks to the blacklist, things began
to head south. For a dozen years — from
1952 to 1964 — she could not find mean-
ingful film work. Often, when she did get
a job, it was short-lived.
For example, she landed a role on the
movie cameras.
"I think I'd developed
a lack of trust in myself.
I think I'd crossed a psy-
chological border where I
was just at a loss. I wasn't
able to place where I was.
I couldn't pull myself out
of it"
Even in the mid-1990s,
after the Oscar and Emmy,
when she was in the midst
of a successful second
Lee Grant (with Warren Beatty) in her Oscar-winning
career as a director, some of
role in Shampoo
Grant's actions bordered on
hazardous. Working on an
HBO documentary, When
TV soap Search for Tomorrow. But the
Women Kill, she snuck cocaine into a
prison.
network canned her after a supermarket
owner from Syracuse, N.Y., told the spon-
"I needed it" she says. "I was exhausted.
sor's ad agency he would put up a special
And that's part of what you're talking
display asking shoppers if they wanted to
about being my own worst enemy. I wasn't
"brush their teeth with a product from a
governing myself. I also had a thyroid con-
company that employs Communists"
dition that saps your energy:'
Ironically, although the blacklist had
Grant wasn't a bat mitzvah; she had what
a devastating effect on her career and
"they called a confirmation ceremony"
psyche, Grant manages to put a positive
when she was 12, but she admits she wasn't
spin on the experience.
sure "why my father sent me [to Hebrew
"One forgets that the blacklist com-
school]. I wasn't a shining example"
munity was made up of some of the most
Part of the reason may have been the
stylish and brilliant people in the world.
rampant anti-Semitism she faced as a
So it was a continuing education for me
child. She grew up in a neighborhood
and a delight to form friendships with
with a convent. Local nuns, she claimed,
Zero and Kate Mostel and Ring [Lardner,
encouraged young kids to throw nails at
her and her friends, calling them "Christ
Jr.] and his wife. I loved being with them.
I felt blessed in many ways because these
killers:'
are the kinds of people I wanted to be
Once, on a transatlantic crossing with
with, and they became close friends:'
her mother, she inquired about some hair
Blessed or not, the emotional damage
ribbons another young girl was wearing.
remained. Grant also began forgetting
"Jews don't wear [hair ribbons];' the girl
lines in a play (her only source of income
told her.
after being blacklisted), blaming it on "the
"I had a fear of being Jewish" Grant
most huge psychological blow of my life"
admits. "But later, it became a strength"
the HUAC meeting.
Grant sent both of her daughters — the
"I couldn't say names after that. My
actress Dinah Manoff and Belinda Feury,
constant fear was that I would hurt some-
the Thai-American girl she adopted with
one else. I don't know. Maybe it mani-
her second husband — to Hebrew day
fested itself in forgetting lines. I was also
school.
taking sleeping pills; it was the last week
"It was such a warm and encircling
of the show, and I was under a lot of pres-
place to be for Dinah, a comforting place
sure"
to go to. When I brought Belinda there, it
Grant lost confidence in herself. When
was a very embracing place:'
she finally returned to the big screen in
And, yes, "both Dinah and Belinda
the '70s, she also forgot lines in front of
speak Hebrew better than I do:'
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