Mother Once Removed: A Memoir (Unabridged‪)‬

Growing up in Greenwich Village in the 1940s, the shy and introverted only-child of a glamorous, eccentric divorcée, was a lifelong challenge and ironically the catalyst that propelled me to go on the professional stage.

“When I was five years old, I awoke, one night, from a bad dream and wandered down the long dark hall of our Charles Street apartment to the living room. As my eyes adjusted to the bright light, I could see my mother stretched out on an afghan-covered couch, posing for an artist. She was nude. Even at five I did not want a nude mommy. I wanted a mommy who wore an apron (at the very least) and was there when you came home from school. My mother was among the original single working parents. For a diffident child it was hard to be the daughter of such a flamboyant mother, growing up in the Greenwich Village of the 1940s. It was, I believe, one of the reasons that I chose to go on the stage. I suppose you could make an argument for the fact that I became what I became, because she was who she was.

“Because of my years spent in the theatre, I was able to get my mother into the Actors Home in Englewood, NJ. But her personality almost got her kicked out. “She was the only person in the history of the Actors Home,” said the institution’s director, “who got applause when she left the dining room.”