Transcript of interview with Arlene Blut by Barbara Tabach, May 28, 2015

AN INTERVIEW WITH ARLENE BLUT An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach The Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader?s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Community Digital Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv Preface Actor, director, friend, mother, producer, wife, and volunteer extraordinaire Arlene Piekoff (now Blut) arrived in Las Vegas in 1971 with two young children and husband, Michael Peikoff, who was opening a surgical practice. Arlene was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota, where she attended a Conservative Jewish temple but had mostly non-Jewish friends. She met Michael at the University of Minnesota, and they married before he began medical school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Arlene and Michael followed his residencies and fellowships to California, Michigan, and Manitoba before they came to Las Vegas Through her brother in law and Ayn Rand?s intellectual heir, Leonard Peikoff, Arlene was exposed to Ayn Rand Objectivism, a philosophy that still influences her political outlook. After her 1975 divorce she began working at the Jockey Club; founded the Meadows Playhouse, Las Vegas?s first professional black box theater; and started Renta Yenta, the valley?s first full-service event planning business. In 1980 she married tax attorney Jerry Blut in a Renta-Yenta-produced, Fiddler-on-the-Roof-themed wedding at Paul Anka's Jubilation Restaurant. In this interview, Arlene discusses her family and important friendships; her relations with and impressions of the disparate Las Vegas Jewish communities; the meaningful ways her Jewish relationships in Duluth, Winnipeg, and Las Vegas intertwine; her theatrical, professional, and philanthropic work; the reasons she and Jerry became active Zionists; and their support for Israeli causes. Her liberal sprinkling of Yiddish terms enriches her speech as it exemplifies her deep cultural attachment to and identification with her Jewish heritage, despite the fact that her wide and diverse circle of friends remains predominantly non-Jewish. v Table of Contents Interview with Arlene Blut May 28, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface?????????????????????????????????..?..vi Recalls early life in Duluth, Minnesota, as daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants; attending a Conservative synagogue but having few Jewish friends; love of theater following the footsteps of paternal aunt and older sister; attending youth group and the University of Minnesota with Bobby Zimmermann (aka Bob Dylan); marrying first husband, medical student Michael Peikoff; and moving to Winnipeg, Manitoba???.??..?????????????????.1-5 Talks about Michael?s parents, daughter Jodi?s birth, move to Saint Boniface, Winnipeg, for Michael?s internship, winning household furnishings on television game shows, and move to Torrance, California, in time to drive through the Watts riots in August 1965; remembers move to Detroit for Michael?s residency and birth of son, Martin, just before the 1967 or 1968 race riots before returning to Winnipeg for one year?.?????????????????..5-9 Recalls moving to Las Vegas in 1971, where father-in-law?s student Aaron Zivot practiced medicine; talks about brother in law, Leonard Peikoff, intellectual heir of author Ayn Rand, and Ayn Rand Objectivism; discusses first visits to Temple Beth Sholom and impressions of people she met there, her divorce, and her entry into Las Vegas theater???????????.10-14 Describes Meadows Theater and relationship with UNLV, work at the Jockey Club, meeting Jerry Blut, hiring Diane Schwartz for the Jockey Club, opening Renta Yenta franchise with Diane and staging Mother?s Day event for Jerry?s mother at Las Vegas Country Club.?.?14-19 Recalls elaborate party produced by Renta Yenta for Parvin and Ted Jacobs, her friendship with Diane Schwartz, and planning her 1980 Fiddler-on-the-Roof themed wedding at Paul Anka's Jubilation????????????????????????.???????.?19-25 Recollects Rabbi Mel Hecht of Temple Ner Tamid solemnizing her marriage, performing in Fiddler on the Roof at the Meadows Theater and Man of La Mancha at UNLV, her friendship with Sandy Mallin, and closing Renta Yenta; describes directing and producing the first Children?s Miracle Network telethons?????????????????????.26-30 Shares more about meeting Sandy Mallin, working as development director for Nevada Institute for Contemporary Art (NICA) at UNLV, and always having mostly non-Jewish friends; explains how Sandy got her involved with the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, which created a circle of Jewish friends; recalls that when she met Jerry he worked for Oscar Goodman, and through Jerry meeting various Las Vegas movers and shakers and ?Jewish goodfellas?...???....?.?..30-36 vi Discusses roles of ?goodfellas? in Las Vegas society, her role in staging fundraisers, the ways Las Vegas developed (and not develop) culturally, her participation on arts boards, and why she quit the Jewish Federation?????.???.?????????????????..36-41 Explains hers and Jerry?s support of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and their former support of Jewish Family Service (for which she was a former president); recalls mentee Josh Abbey and describes how she and Jerry became Zionists in 2001 on a trip to Eastern Europe, and since then have volunteered in Israel annually via Volunteers for Israel (Sar-El)...????????...???????...41-47 Discusses organizing fundraisers for FIDF in Las Vegas, Josh Abbey as Executive Director for Jewish Family Service; expresses gratitude for several awards she has received?????47-50 Index??????????????????????????????????.51-53 vii 1 Today is May 28th, 2015. This is Barbara Tabach. I'm sitting in my office at UNLV Library with Arlene Blut. Arlene, spell your name for us and we'll go from there. B, as in boy, L-U-T; Blut. As I mentioned I like to start with what you know about your family ancestry. How can you get us to United States? What do you know? Not a whole lot. But each of my parents came from Russia; one from Odessa, one from Kiev; I don't remember which was which. I think they said those cities, but I don't believe they lived in those cities. Jews lived in shtetls, unless they were wealthy, outside of those major cities. I have gone back to visit those places. In any case, they came as children. God only knows why they went to Minnesota. It was like from bad to worse, as far as I'm concerned. I know my father came through Texas; I did get that far, Galveston. I assume my mother came through Ellis Island, but I'm not sure. My father's family went to St. Paul. My mother's family went to Duluth; they were in the cattle business. As a child I didn't take that much interest, I just know they were in the cattle business and very rough, strong, loud, argumentative, I remember. My father's family seemed very lovely to me. From St. Paul they all moved to Los Angeles except for my father, who married my mother in St. Paul and went to Duluth. Therefore, I grew up with my mother's family. We visited Los Angeles in the summers. I had an aunt there who had been in the Yiddish theater?she was kind of my idol?and then worked at MGM [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios]. So I do remember visiting that movie studio. In any case, I grew up in Duluth, where I thought everything was freezing cold and that all cities were built on hills. I was one of the few Jewish kids in town although there were three 2 temples and a Jewish community center, which we still don't have here, really. We went to a Conservative synagogue. For holidays we gathered at my mother's uncle and aunt's. I have a great picture of them on Passover, all in the big hats, and they all look like they just got off the boat. My parents spoke Yiddish and Russian to?for some time my grandfather lived with us and they all spoke Yiddish and Russian. I don't remember them even having an accent, which is amazing to me. But, in a way, I never felt different nor did I recognize anti-Semitism until I went back for my fiftieth reunion. But at the time I probably wouldn't have known what was anti-Semitic; it didn't occur to me. I wasn't allowed by my parents to date gentiles; all that sort of old-fashioned thinking. I did all of the things they said not to do anyway?snuck out, dated gentiles, et cetera, et cetera. I wore makeup, oh my God. My group of friends was mostly gentile. I had a few Jewish girlfriends. I did have a Jewish long-term boyfriend. The idea of getting me?I had an older sister, also, who was a magnificent singer and auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera; didn't make it. She was, I think, sixteen. So I kind of followed her, but we were entirely different. In any case, she went to the university in Minneapolis [University of Minnesota Twin Cities] four years before I did, so it was kind of like an only-child thing. I went to Minneapolis in 1958 to attend the university. The object, I think, with my parents was get me a Jewish husband. In fact, when I told my father I was going to be an actress, he said, "Go to Central High School because you can take typing and shorthand." Very smart of him. And I did use it and needed it. Very good thinking. Oh, also?I don't know if this is interesting to you?but Bobby, who is Bobby Dylan now; was Bobby Zimmerman then, and part of our group in Duluth. He grew up in Hibbing and 3 everything he's ever said is a lie. His father owned the Jew store. If you've read those southern books, there was a Jew store in every town. Bobby's father owned it in Hibbing, I think. What's a Jew store for those that don't know? Oh my God, then they didn't read the plays. A Jew store is an everything store. It has hardware, it has clothes, it has kitchen equipment; it's an all-around, whatever-you-need store, usually in a very small town, and the Jew always owns it and they call it the Jew store. At least in the books I've read, which I love. You know the author of Driving Miss Daisy? I can't think of his name. But he also wrote a book called The Jew Store in the South. Read it. [Ed. note: the author is Stella Suberman.] Where am I? So Bobby would come?do you want to hear this part? Yes, go ahead. Yeah, I love this. Because it's kind of a funny. Yes. He would come to the Jewish parties and bang on the piano the whole time of the party. And everybody would yell, "Shut up, Bobby." And he'd be banging and we would yell, "Shut up, Bobby." What did we know? Now, we all go to the University of Minnesota together, my two girlfriends and Bobby and some others. We lived in a dormitory. I lived in a dormitory the first year and got in all kinds of trouble, which is neither here nor there. But then we pledged a sorority so we'd have a place to live. Well, Bobby pledged a fraternity so I guess he'd have a place to live. God, he was so?I mean you can imagine him in a Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu. I was in SDT [Sigma Delta Tau sorority]. He would bring his laundry over to the sorority house because my girlfriend was his cousin and she did his laundry, I think, or let him do his laundry there; I'm not clear on 4 that. He would bang on the piano in the sorority house. Everybody would yell, "Shut up, Bobby." Well, about the second year, or third, Bobby kind of disappeared. And then we heard he was playing and singing in Dinkytown, which was a little university shopping area. The next thing I heard he was in New York living with Joan Baez. And we thought, shut up, Bobby? Where did we go wrong? What did we miss? So, anyway. You weren't listening with the right ears. He was horrible. I mean sometimes he's still horrible. Cute with a baby face and I just saw him on Letterman. He was a disaster; he just looked awful. We've had a reunion. Another guy from Duluth was Krupp?Kemp, Louis Kemp, which is now Louis Kemp Seafood and has done extremely well. His father owned a fish market in Duluth and always kind of smelled, or I'm thinking of a play I was in one time. Well, he turned out to own Louis Kemp Fish, frozen, very, very successful. He had a reunion?I think it was in Malibu?and Bobby came. He was still strange. But we all had a reunion. In any case, I did the right thing and married a Jewish guy who was entering medical school. I think it was more to get out of Duluth and because I had an option to do an internship at Pasadena Playhouse; I had auditioned for that. I was a theater major. Because you always knew you wanted to be in acting? Yes, yes. In those days it was beatniks; we were beatniks. Anyway, because I was that in-between age for women where feminism hadn't started, but it was on the verge, but I wasn't there yet and didn't know if I could take care of myself. I fulfilled my mother's dream and married a Jewish guy from Winnipeg who was entering medical school, who had fabulous, wonderful family, a bazillion of them, and they all came to Duluth for 5 the wedding. That kind of thing was very important to my mother?I married a doctor [Michael Peikoff], from a prestigious family. That's pretty stereotypical, yes. Oh my God. Anyway, so I married him because it would be better for his career if we were married and I was already living in Winnipeg when he entered medical school. Pause. Do you want me to pause? No. Go ahead. I just was getting dry. It's a long story. Do you want all this? I love this, yes. You're great. So I moved there straight from college, twenty-one years old, barely, and he was in medical school. So forget him; didn't see him. I worked for his father [Samuel Peikoff] , who had a medical clinic. I loved this family. I still love this family. At night I apprenticed at Manitoba Theatre Center. A very wonderful director was brought over from Europe. His name was Hirsch, John Hirsch. He went on to Seattle Rep [Seattle Repertory Theatre], I think. In any case, so that was kind of my life, and before I knew it I was pregnant. I was that naive. I won't go into the dirty details. But I was pregnant and working at the clinic, just a child. So I think I stopped working at the clinic and I stopped apprenticing and had a child. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment. And my father-in-law had treated so many patients...He had the whole Ukrainian community. He spoke Ukrainian. They thought he was Ukrainian. He was Russian, also. And so he brought someone from a farm to take care of my daughter and I worked and went back to the theater at night. Was that pretty liberal-minded to do that, to allow you? Could be. I went crazy being in the house. I was still a kid?well, no, I was twenty-two or something. And I knew this was not for me and what was wrong with me. Then I read A 6 Woman's Room. It might be before your time. Oh my God, it changed my life. So I thought, oh, I'm not crazy; I'm okay; I'm the stereotypical change of decade, just not particularly happy. But got through the residency?no, the medical school. Then we had to move to Catholic French called Saint Boniface; that was a city ward of Winnipeg and it was where my father-in-law was chief of staff and Michael, my former husband, was doing internship. I was still sort of acting out, you could say, not in a bad way. But anyway, loved his family; they loved me. My mother-in-law taught me everything I should know about entertaining and elegant things and I got elegant things and they showered me with gifts. I'm going to skip to his first year of?I have stories of Saint Boniface, but I don't think that makes any difference. So now my daughter and Michael and I move to Torrance, California, and it was probably...It was whenever the riot was because wherever we moved the riots started. So we felt responsible. [Ed. note: The Watts riots took place August 11 to 17, 1965.] The Watts riot? The Watts riot. So whatever year that was. I'm so bad at this. We lived in Torrance, which was pretty much a toilet. We lived across the street from Harvey Aluminum, Pussycat a Go-Go, and Hells Angels upstairs who loved Jodi, my daughter. Oh, my. Very colorful. Yeah, they were wonderful. We had a car that only went forward; it had no reverse. Then I think we were gifted a second car because during this time I was taken on as a game show contestant professional. Pause. This is before?what was it, the scandal of Twenty One? It was before that game show scandal. Oh, yeah, the big game show scandal, yes. 7 Right. But this was goofy game shows. It was Hanna?not Hanna-Barbera. Anyway, big name in game shows. They used actors just to give it energy and fun because most people are not that interesting on camera. They may lose energy. You need a lot of energy. What this did for me was an unbelievable training. I could be a different character every time I had another job on one of the game shows. Really? Oh, it was wonderful. I had no idea. My parents could see me in Duluth on television. I won our furniture. I mean I could only win what I honestly won. Oh, okay, so that part was legitimate. No pay. No pay. This is considered an honor to be one of these people called because you had to audition. Now, did you do this under your real name or did you have a pseudonym? I made up names as the characters. I was hired under my name. So you were a character on the game show, but you got to keep your winnings. Well, yeah. That was your payment. But nothing was illegal and I got to act. Wow. It made me really observe people, which you really need to do, and their mannerisms or their walk or how they dressed, et cetera. I was pretty uninhibited at that time in that way. So that was fabulous. 8 What was your favorite game show experience, do you think? I wish I could?I should have kept a diary. So one doesn't jump out? No. You didn't know who the other actors were, but they emerged, the person that you were looking at. The interesting one, I won a sofa and a chair. And I think I won our TV. Can You Top This? Something like?they were goofy. But most [were] national because my parents could see me. Any case, we were there and made some dear friends in our poverty. We were just there a year, but I was driving from?remember Loehmann's?or the other one that started with...Oh. Anyway, one of those discount department stores that were in Beverly Hills. I mean, it was a Friday night and I was driving back to Torrance and my husband?he couldn't have called me. I must have called him from the store. There was no cell phone then. How did I know? He said, "Get home." How did you communicate? Yeah. "There's a riot." I said, "Where?" He said, "Well, in Watts." I said, "I just go through there; I'm going to be fine." Well, I drove back, but over the freeway?I think it was 405?they were shooting like this in this crappy car. So I got home. And the next thing, Michael wanted to finish his residency in Detroit. So we moved to Detroit, to Detroit Receiving Hospital, which is a big downtown general hospital, always, because he was in a surgery residency and that's the best kind of residency. You see all the trauma; you see all the gunshots; all that kind of stuff. So we moved to Detroit. My in-laws had relatives there. We moved to a wonderful neighborhood of young families, a terrific school, a community center, and we bought our first house; I think it was twenty-one thousand dollars, 9 brick house, just great neighbors. Liked it a lot. It was called Nine Mile Road; now it's probably God knows what. And Michael worked at Detroit Receiving. So he worked at Detroit Receiving and before you know it, there's a riot. I used to tell them in Winnipeg, "If you read about a riot, you know we got there safely." Because wherever we went...that was the big riot in Detroit. But it was a tumultuous era of civil rights. Yes. And there was Michael; he wasn't allowed to come home for days and when he did, the police drove him home. Yeah, he would be all bloody and he told obnoxious stories, just awful. So I pretty much was alone. I got pregnant and I wanted to. At this point Jodi was five years old, going to a wonderful school. It was the first school that had Suzuki violin and I had to take, too. Now her daughters are taking it. In any case, it was a great experience there. I worked at the Fisher Theatre when I wasn't pregnant, which was a marvelous theater. Great community. I took classes at some school there and I don't know what; it must have been a community college or something. But I remember the big thing then was, "Will you come to Cuba and help us pick sugar?" I thought, screw you. To meet Castro's quota. It was those years. Wow. Yeah. I thought, are you nuts? Even then. Anyway, we were there for four years. My son was born in Detroit. When his residency was over?and I was alone most of the time. So it was a horrible?surgical residencies, or maybe all residencies, were horrible in those days. It probably was dangerous. There was no sleep. It was disgusting. Anyway, we moved back to Winnipeg, because my husband was still a Canadian, to decide what to do. We were there a year. I could have lived there forever. I just loved it. He 10 hated it. We visited relatives, his relatives in L.A. and they were in Long Beach and in practice in medicine. This was a nightmare to me. I will not be stuck in that suburb. So you're back in Winnipeg and you were talking about? Oh, so we're back in Winnipeg, yeah. Oh, so we visited relatives in L.A. and I did not want to be stuck in a suburb and be the doctor's wife that I was seeing, blah, blah, blah. And then we went to Las Vegas to play and to look around. Well, my father-in-law had a student he had taught medicine. So about year are we at that point? Seventy, about '70. Moved here in '71. So about '70 we came and some of my father-in-law's students were practicing medicine here. [Aaron] Zivot; I don't know if you've heard that name. No. He's a lovely man. He's gone. They were so gracious and so welcoming. There were only eleven general surgeons here. So it was very lucrative. And thought, why not? So we moved here. Went back to Winnipeg, packed it up with the two kids, moved here in '71. What was your former husband's name? Michael Peikoff. He's retired, but he was in practice here. Michael had to go ahead and find just the house. I didn't even pick out the house. Came, '71. There was a doctors' wives club [Clark County Medical Society Auxiliary]. You know how thrilled I was with that. But I joined. So a lot of the doctors in town in that time I'm still very friendly with. I had no connection to the Jewish community. I left out a big chunk about Ayn Rand Objectivism. I don't know if you want me to go there, because it's a whole other aspect to this marriage. So this is part of your philosophy that you're talking about? 11 A little. A little. So you were raised Jewish. Oh, yeah. And my in-laws were Jewish. Michael's brother is Leonard Peikoff. He is the intellectual heir of Ayn Rand; any book published by her, he has written the forward. And he's quite well known in certain circles. He taught in New York. Along the way I had gone to New York and sat at her knee with people like Secretary of the Treasury?Freedman, is that his name? He's still around. The well-known one. Oh, Green? Not Green. Yeah, Greenspan. Yeah, Alan Greenspan, who she? Yeah, okay. Well, anyway, she didn't think a whole lot of him. Some artists that are...It was very heady. I was a kid. It was extremely intimidating. Part of the family were Objectivists and followers of this and part were religious Jews, regular Jews. That was my experience in Winnipeg. It was a little overwhelming and wonderful. So it was very...mind opening? Yes. Never thought, what do I believe? Read something political. But I got very political. Anyway, so my husband and I were not religious, pretty much atheists, which was a problem I felt for the kids. There's not a lot of freedom from religion. It isn't well thought of. I say non-believer now, as an Israeli told me to do. In any case, so I wasn't closely associated with that. I was associated with the university, the theater section, department, and other doctors' wives, not very many Jews, a couple. That's when I was taken to the temple and saw the showgirls that were married to the hotel owners. The temple being Temple Beth Sholom. 12 Temple Beth Sholom on East Oakey [Boulevard]. Two Jewish doctors' wives took me. I loved it. Do you remember who those wives were? Yes. Mention their names. Brenda Strimling and Zivot, Terry Zivot. They're both still around and one husband is. Anyway, so they took me and I just thought it was hysterical and I loved it. Another person I met at the time was Joyce Straus, who has died. I know you know about her. When you say it was hysterical, in what context was it hysterical? Okay, like you never heard it. When I was taken I noticed that Miss Minnesota sang "Hatikvah" [("The Hope"), Israeli national anthem]; that was Marilyn Resnick, married to [Irving] "Ash" Resnick, who was iffy. And she was gorgeous at the time and about six feet tall. I think also Virginia Mallin was there, who was Stan Mallin's second wife. She was stunning. She wasn't a showgirl, but she was stunning. Have you heard that story? No, huh-uh. I don't want it to be on tape. One of the better stories. In any case, I don't know the names of the other women anymore and I don't know if I even did then. And "Star-Spangled Banner." They had a meeting; I don't know what it was about; I can't remember. I just remember being knocked out by those stunning women and there I am this big. Because they didn't look like you? No. ?like the Jewish women you had grown up with. 13 No. You could see the Jewish women, short little ladies, doing their best with their beehives. And then there were the giants. So it was very obvious who was who. The doctors' wives were little us, the little people. Yeah, the little pudgy ones. Anyway, called Winnipeg, reported that; loved it. Along the way my former husband was trying to get a practice started and so I had to entertain, dinner parties of other doctors. I kept those menus, but that's neither here nor there. So we did a lot of entertaining because that was the way he would get referrals. Those may have been Jew and gentile mixed. As I told on the tour, there was never a ghetto. There was never just a Jewish group, gentile. There may have been, but I didn't know about it; I'll put it that way. So I found that really wonderful and really nice because my life had always been like that. I had never been ghettoized?ghettoized? Well, we can use that as a word; I think that's a good use of it. So all the places that you had lived, you never really were isolated because of your ethnicity. No. If anyplace, it would have been Winnipeg because there was so much family. But then we had that part of the family that were Objectivists and were non-participants in any religion or any religious ceremony, which the rest of us did. I went with Michael's parents to temple, et cetera. And because I think I was raised by my parents, I have a lot of Yiddish expressions. When I meet people they always say, "You're from New York," which is, you know, another word for Jew. No, I know, because it's the way I talk. Right. Yes. [Laughing] Now I forgot the word. Synonym. Synonym? Synonym, yeah. For Jew? "From New York?" "Yeah, I'm Jewish. I'm from Duluth." And they crack up. 14 So where am I? Oh, Las Vegas. So it's '71. I wasn't real happy. Michael was working all the time. You're not a psychiatrist, right? I feel like. No. [Laughing] This is so great. I feel like I'm on the couch now. Purely historical. I've got to keep it historical. No. This is part of history; our personal experiences are part of history. So those Jewish doctors who came in '71 and many gentile doctors I am still friendly with. I got the friends and the children in the divorce; Michael got the [Las Vegas] Country Club, is how I put it. I don't think he was real well liked. So I got divorced and I still wasn't highly connected to the Jewish community. A dear friend of mine from the theater department was Joan Snyder. She was married to Jerry Snyder here. She was about my only Jewish friend because she was in the theater and we started the Meadows Theater together that was down the street. Were you here? No. Oh. It was a black box theater before they thought of it here. And we were down on the corner near Tropicana [Avenue] in that little shopping center, tucked in a corner. I think it's still some kind of theater. Haven't gone by it. It makes me sad. It was the Meadows Theater and it was a professional theater. There was not good feelings between the university and us. Somehow they were angry that Joan left; that I left; that we took some instructors. And incredibly enough? So did you just do performances there or did you have classes? Yes, we had classes. We traveled the state so that we could get grants and had children's classes. 15 My daughter was?that's another story. I'll tell you stories because they have nothing to do?well, sort of they do have something to do with that. So she [Joan] was pretty much my only Jewish friend, I think. But at the same time, when I got divorced I started working. I was hired on a straight job at the Jockey Club. And the reason I think I was hired as concierge?I didn't know what the word meant when I was hired as concierge; had no clue?and that was because he realized I knew a lot of people in town. So I knew that whole doctor community. I knew the whole theatrical community. So what year are we talking about now approximately? Seventy-five. I got divorced in '75. So the first five years you're making lots of friends. Yes. And changing your life a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So then I worked at the Jockey Club and I went immediately from concierge to sales. I was membership director. Before I knew it I was membership director. I was dating Jerry Blut. When I was still married, let's say '74, I was invited to play bridge at his house. He was married and that was Beth Blut. We had some similar friends. We did have some Jewish friends. It was Gene and Marlyn Kirschbaum, who are no longer here. He was a vet. And I can't remember how we became friends, but we were, and through her I met some other Jewish people. I went to Jerry's house to play bridge and I remembered thinking?and this is not nice?for a Jewish girl she's very plain. I just remembered thinking that. And then he came in and I thought, ooh, he's kind of cute. Anyway, so I played bridge, but had no intention of ever knowing him or anything like that, but I remember that. 16 I then got divorced. I think he got divorced before I did. I started dating gentiles. At some point the Kirschbaums were friends of his and friends of mine and they told him, "You should take out Arlene Peikoff. She's hot stuff. She dates gentiles." Remember that? "And younger than her." The mentality continues. He says, "I've seen her. I have no interest." I guess I was too theatrical or too something. We had been at the same party at one point. And I had no intention of dating him. To me any Jewish guy I might date was a prince and I had a real chip on my shoulder. Don't do me any favors; I don't need you. I was membership