The Good Life (3 page)

I was born on August 3, 1926, at St. John’s Hospital in Long Island City. I was the first person in my family to be born in a hospital.

By 1927, my father’s health had deteriorated to the point where it was impossible for him to do any physical labor whatsoever. Because my family wasn’t quick to visit doctors, no one knew what he was actually suffering from. They simply assumed that the rheumatic fever he had as a child had resurfaced and was causing his present condition. My parents sold the store and looked for an affordable place to live in the neighborhood. They found an apartment in a four-story apartment house on Van Alst Avenue and Clark Street. It was a typical four-room railroad flat: the rooms were lined up in a straight row, like train cars, and you had to go through one room to get to the next. We were on the second floor of the building, above a candy store.

We had a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a living room that was all the way in the back. The front door opened directly
into a kitchen approximately fifteen feet square—which was pretty large for those days. The first thing you’d see when you came in was a big, black, ornate coal-burning stove. It dominated the whole room. In addition to being used for cooking, that stove was the only source of heat for the whole apartment, since there was no such thing as central heating in those days. When we first moved in, we didn’t even have hot water. The kitchen was the main hub of activity, and the kitchen table, to the left of the stove, was where the family ate meals, played their favorite card games, and socialized.

Right off the kitchen there was an anteroom that had a small tub where we bathed and also did the dishes. The toilet was in a little room to the left with its own separate door, and this was the only private room in that small apartment.

From the kitchen you walked directly into my mom and dad’s bedroom, then into my sister’s bedroom, which she would eventually share with my grandmother Maria, and in the very back of the apartment was the small living room, where for most of our early childhood my brother and I slept on a pull-out couch. There were also a couple of sofa chairs and an antique buffet that held all our dishes. On very rare occasions my parents would set up a table in the living room, where we kids ate when guests came for dinner. Even though the kitchen stove was large, it never adequately heated the very last rooms. I remember so clearly many a cold winter night trying to get to sleep in that chilly living room. Eventually my dad was able to put a potbelly stove in the living room for extra heat and my brother and I were thrilled: warmth is a wonderful thing.

It became harder and harder for my dad to leave the apartment. My mother had to find work in order to support the family. She eventually found a job as a seamstress in the garment district. The El train took her from Ditmars Boulevard
into downtown Manhattan, where she worked all day long and then came home at night to take care of us. But her work was never done. In those days seamstresses brought piecework home from the factory to earn extra money. Mom brought dresses home every night, and for as long as my father was able to lift a finger, he helped her do the alterations on a sewing machine they had set up in a corner of the kitchen. In the morning she took the finished work back to the factory. This routine was repeated every day of my early childhood.

My father was a very poetic, sensitive man, full of love and warmth, and I vividly remember being cradled in his giant arms until I fell asleep. Even to this day, when I think of my father, I see the “huge” man of my earliest memories. His arms were strong and his hands were big and his eyes were deep, dark, and soulful. When I looked into those eyes, I felt there wasn’t a problem in the world that he couldn’t solve.

My father inspired my love for music. He derived tremendous pleasure from singing to anyone who would listen, just like he did when he was a child. He had a beautiful voice. He used to sit on the front stoop of our house and sing a
cappella
to my brother and me, in the gentle, sensitive voice I can still hear. He loved Italian folk songs and he used to sing one song written in the twenties called “My Mom,” which has always had a very special meaning for my brother and me.

My father was fascinated by the whole idea of show business, and when I was three years old, he took us to see one of the first talking pictures,
The Singing Fool
, in which the vaudeville star Al Jolson sang “Sonny Boy.” In a way, you could say that Jolson was my earliest influence as a singer. I was so excited by what I saw that I spent hours listening to Jolson
and Eddie Cantor on the radio. In fact, I staged my first public performance shortly after seeing that movie. At one of our family gatherings, I went into my aunt’s bedroom and got her makeup. I covered my face with some white powder in an earnest attempt to imitate Jolson. Of course, Jolson covered himself in blackface, but, hey, I was only three, and I was making the best of what I had to work with. Then I leaped into the living room and announced to the adults, who were staring at me in amazement, “Me Sonny Boy!” The whole family roared with laughter. I loved that attention, and I guess that’s when I was bitten by the showbiz bug.

My father also loved art and literature. When we were old enough, he’d read to us from great classics, like
Of Human Bondage
by Somerset Maugham. The characters in these books helped us develop an appreciation for all the different kinds of people around us. My father was a real humanist. Astoria had quite a diverse population, and we learned at an early age to respect people for who they are, and not to judge them by the color of their skin or the way they looked. He had great regard for courageous individuals like Mahatma Gandhi and Paul Robeson, and he passed this on to his children.

He also loved to watch the sky. He told me that there were a lot of lessons to be learned by studying nature. I remember one starry night, when we were outside looking up into the vast darkness, he pointed to a star that seemed to me to be incredibly close to the moon. I was afraid that the star would crash into the man in the moon. My father explained to me that the moon and the stars were millions of miles apart. He pointed out that things aren’t always what they seem and that I should always learn the facts before jumping to conclusions. I’ve never forgotten that bit of advice.

One summer night my father took me by the hand and we walked along the East River. We looked into the northern sky.
All of a sudden it lit up like a Christmas tree. There was an eerie glow, a multitude of pastel colors and designs. He told me that I was seeing a natural light show called
aurora borealis
, but I couldn’t believe my eyes. He knew that there were certain times when, if the weather conditions were just right, you could actually see the northern lights right there in Astoria, Queens. Of course, today the city is so lit up by electricity that you can barely see the stars.

That moment made such an impression on me that shortly afterward I had a dream that I was walking through glorious mountains hand in hand with my father. The valley was ablaze with all those different colors. I was mesmerized. I couldn’t believe the size of the mountains and the peaceful beauty of it all. I’m convinced that dream inspired me to become a painter. It still inspires me today.

My father also had deep compassion for human suffering, which he instilled in his children. His sensitivity made his shoulder a very popular one to cry on, and he eventually became, in a sense, a psychologist for the whole family. Everybody came to him with their problems, and he’d try his best to come up with solutions. He sat my relatives down and gave them practical advice, and everyone respected him for that. Friends and relatives also knew that they could count on him for a helping hand when they were down on their luck. He always brought people into our house who needed a place to stay and he never expected anything in return.

My mom once told me about the time someone broke into our grocery store. The guy was drunk, and in his clumsy attempt to rob the store he made such a racket that my dad went downstairs to see what was going on. When he turned on the lights, he found the guy out cold, sprawled over some egg crates. He called the police, but when they arrived, they told my father that if he pressed charges they’d have to lock
the guy up. My father looked the would-be thief straight in the eyes and said, “Do you have a job?” And the guy said, “No.” My father replied, “Well, you have one now if you want it. How would you like to work for me?” He gave him a job right on the spot. You can’t beat that kind of thoughtfulness. It wasn’t charity; it was an example of the kind of human spirit that kept people going. After all, we were all in the same boat.

Italian tradition dictates that family is the most important thing in life and that Sunday is the most important day of the week, so every Sunday our entire family gathered at my grandparents’ house. They cooked all morning, and as soon as we arrived at noon, we’d sit down at the dinner table. There were so many different courses: antipasto, soup, and spaghetti—al
dente
, of course—with tomato sauce. Then we had meat or fish with vegetables, and to top it all off, desserts that seemed to go on forever. Sometimes we had picnics in Astoria Park. All the relatives were there, and after dinner the uncles took out their guitars and mandolins. The grown-ups made a circle around us and played their instruments while Mary emceed, Johnny sang, and I rounded out the entertainment by being a comedian. We had so much fun, I couldn’t wait for the next Sunday get-together.

By the time the Great Depression started at the end of 1929, my father’s health had gone from bad to worse. He had developed some sort of phobia that was never really properly diagnosed. One Easter Sunday at a very crowded Mass, Dad passed out. After that episode his condition became severe. It got to the point where he couldn’t ride the subway or go anywhere where there was going to be a crowd. He just couldn’t handle it. On top of all this, the stress of his inability to support
the family, and of having to sit home and watch how hard my mom had to work to make ends meet, affected him badly. He started having trouble with his heart, which was already severely weakened by his childhood rheumatic fever. The doctors told him that it wasn’t safe for him even to climb three steps. Eventually he couldn’t even leave the house. He hated being confined, and that made his mental condition and his heart condition even worse.

My father’s mother, Maria Benedetto, came to live with us so she could take care of us kids while my mom was at work. She was a wonderful lady and loved her grandchildren dearly. She was very religious and was never without her rosary beads, and her ever-present crucifix hung on the wall above her bed. I remember her praying to her favorite saint every morning. Since she couldn’t speak any English, she prayed in Italian, and this ritual was very mysterious to me; I used to love to watch her and try to figure out just what she was praying about. My mother later told me that she had been asking for a quick and painless death when her time came. And wouldn’t you know it, she fell ill on a Friday afternoon and that Sunday she died quietly in her sleep, just as she had prayed for.