Rutanya Alda

Today’s guest is film actress Rutanya Alda. Her journey began far from here, in refugee camps, while her dad was locked away in a Soviet Gulag. Eventually, she and her mother crossed an ocean to America, where a different kind of hardship awaited, but ultimately due to her drive and talent she created a life for herself that no one could have imagined. This is her story. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hi, I am Robin Lane and this is How We Luck. Today's guest is film actress Rutania Alder. Her journey began far from here in refugee camps while her father was locked away in a Soviet gulag. Eventually, she and her mother crossed an ocean to America, where a different kind of hardship awaited. But ultimately, due to her drive and her talent, she created a life for herself that no one could have imagined from the start. And this is the story we are here to share. Welcome, Rotanya.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Oh, thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

So before we talk of the many award-winning film successes that have led to your extraordinary career, let's go back to the beginning when you and your family were displaced from your native country.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Okay. Yes, well, it was a uh it was a time of war. I was born into a time of war, and uh it was uh it was like my father said, you lose total control over your life because you you're you're just not in control anymore. So uh at the end of the war, uh my mother decided there was a lot going on and a lot of people were leaving for Sweden because it was a safe country to go to. And so uh my mother and my grandmother managed to get a passage on a big fishing boat, because that's what they used to go to Stockholm. So we got our uh our belongings and the boat was full, pretty full, and we put our little suitcases on, stacked them up, and uh I sat on one of them, and my brother sat on the other one, and uh things were going smoothly until the boat was torpedoed.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

They they torpedoed boats in those days, uh toward the end of the war or ending the war, the refugee boats were torpedoed. Now, luckily for us, we didn't sink, we just listed, and uh so uh everybody was holding on, and then a big uh big ship came by and uh saved us all, us all and uh and the luggage. So, but the boat wasn't going to Stockholm, it was going to uh the war was just ending. It was in May, so the war was just ending. So all of us were to go to the refugee camps in uh in Germany. There were their refugee camps. There were four zones: the British zone, American zone, French zone, and the Soviet zone. And you didn't know which zone you were going to go to until you landed. Well, the most valued zone, the most preferred zone was the uh American zone. So somehow we got sent to the American zone. And uh and like I said in my in my film, we were welcomed by by potholes, holes in the street, crumbled buildings, bombed-out buildings. And uh that was that was just how it was. Most of Germany was just uh destroyed. So uh we were sent to find uh room in a bombed-out building that was still had floors and stuff. So uh that's sort of where we landed. And where was your dad? My father was in the Red Army. He had been uh uh he had been taken. He was doing his grandfather, my grandfather, his father was a farmer, major farmer, so they did trades, uh they were close, they lived close to the Soviet border, so they did farm farming deals there. So my father was there doing a farming deal of selling the produce when the Red Army arrived, and of course, you were asked to volunteer because the alternative was if you didn't volunteer, you were shot. So my father said, okay, I'll volunteer. That's how he wound up in the Red Army. Now we we kept track in the Red Army. In fact, he came one time when he was uh when he was at the Germans had captured their brigade, and he was lined up in front of a firing squad. And uh he he thought, well, this is how he life his life ends. It ends uh uh anonymously here, he's gonna be a heap of uh ashes there, or his body would be. And um by a miracle, and I I do call it a miracle, my father was a very religious man, and uh in fact, he was uh a minister. And uh uh so he just said, oh uh he just said his prayer and was prepared to go when a bomb, some bomb from some army, I don't know where, but a bomb fell in right then as they were getting ready to shoot them. He and two other gentlemen, two other soldiers, and the bomb killed all the Germans and left the three of them alive. So when he was um he he said, I I looked for my cap. I wouldn't look, I didn't want to leave without my cap. So the two other soldiers ran away and he was in there looking for his cap. He finally found his cap. And that's when he realized he wasn't that far from where our little cabin that we were in in the in the rural part. And so he made his way home to the cabin, and uh that's the last time I saw him. He spent that night and the next day, and then he had to go back because if he was meant, if he was declared a deserter, then he would be shot getting back, and the family would be in trouble. It was uh a time of you didn't know what happened. So uh that's the last time I saw him, and when he held me before he left, he said, I love you, remember my face. So that's the last words I heard from him, and then oh sorry, so getting back to the refugee camps, we So that was that you remember that so clearly? I remember very clearly, and I I remembered his face through all those years, and uh so we didn't know what happened to him after that. We we had no idea. So he was uh he was just I knew in my heart that he was not dead, but there was no proof. So the reconciliation was 26 years later.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Oh my goodness. So let's go back to how you got out of there. How how long were you were you in what I don't understand refugee camps, you know. I except for what I've seen in the movie. So how long did you stay there and how did you get out?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I stayed there until I was eight and a half. And uh my film talks about that experience, but it's told from a child's point of view, because that's how I remember it and that's how I saw it. It was a very, it was a very uh brutal time because the army, the American army, and I'm sure the other zones experienced the same thing, they were not prepared for 12 million refugees. They were just not prepared. And um so the first couple of years were years of starvation, lack of food, lack of housing, because the the building we were in uh collapsed, and then we were sent to another building that had no heat, and um it was a time of intense struggle for everybody. And uh how a family survived was mainly because of my grandmother. She had uh skills like uh farmer skills, she had she knew the mushrooms, she knew where to go to do the mushrooms, and she was very savvy on the black market, how to trade things, one thing for another. And so, because of her, we we got through the the really rough two or three years before before the army got more organized and was able to uh deal with the all the people. So that's how um that's how the early years went. And uh we we were there for eight and a half years.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

It's quite a childhood.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yes, I know it was. It was not the ordinary way to grow up, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And so how did you get out of there and get to the states?

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Well, first of all, we had applied to get to America, but because my mother and my grandmother and two children were considered uh not not uh acceptable because in those years you had to come with a skill and you had to be sponsored by someone and be able to be employed right away. There were no welfare benefits, you were not allowed any welfare benefits, you had to find a job and go to work. Uh, so my my mother met this man who was a photographer, a very skilled photographer, and so they got married, so then we became a design. So your father was declared dead? Yes, my mother hadn't heard anything from him, so she went and had him declared dead, so she could remarry. And she did. And because we had a man now that was the head of the household, we were accepted by America and uh and sponsored by uh by a group, and then the Presbyterian Church actually sponsored us out of Willamette, Illinois. And so they found him a job. You had to come with uh you were not allowed to come in unless you had a job already. So they found him a job in Fligkstaff, Arizona, in a photoshop that needed somebody with his skills that could develop pictures and take pictures and mostly develop pictures. It was a very busy place because of Flight Staff at that time was a big tourist uh area with uh the Indian population and powwows and different gatherings. So there were a lot of tourists that came in. So the little that little photoshop had a lot of business.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

What was it like for you when you got here?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

It was well, we were poor again. We were when I lived in the camps, everybody was poor. So you didn't you didn't notice that you were poor. But when I got to America and in the uh in the school, at school, I only had one dress. And so I wore the same dress for a week and then washed it on the weekends. And uh so all the girls were snickering and making fun of me uh about having the one dress. It was very, I was very upset. And then I got some local donations. Some ladies brought me some like three or four more dresses, and I was so excited. So I wore the one of the dresses, and the next day, and a girl comes running up to me and said, That's my dress. That's oh no, that's the dress I used to wear.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

And so that is the height of humiliation.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Thank you, thank you for that, because it was. I was just I hid my head, I did not look at anybody for weeks. Yes, because I and I was afraid to wear the next dresses because I thought, well, is somebody else gonna say that's my dress? And uh so I remember it being uh very hard. So when I was 12 years old at the time, you could do this, there was no child labor law, at least not in Arizona. I got a full-time job at a motel. And so I was I I was working and I had some money, and so I would save up and uh what were you doing there? I was I started out in behind the jewelry counter. They had lots of beautiful uh uh Indian jewelry, and I would I would sell it. And then later on, when I was about 15, the manager saw that I had skills, people skills. And so she hired me to be the desk clerk, uh, the evening dress clerk from 11 to 3 o'clock in the afternoon to 11 o'clock. I did I couldn't get there till four o'clock, but she said that was okay. Four to eleven, I would work behind the desk checking people in. Uh, and I continued that job until I graduated from college.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

You're kidding.

unknown 14:34

Goodness.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Because otherwise, uh my mother didn't give us any money. We're we had to, we had, they were working nights and uh, you know, they I hardly saw them actually, uh, except on maybe Sundays when they just wanted to rest. So uh I had to provide for myself. I had to uh pay my own uh school books, I had to do my own dental care, I had to do all of these things that uh as a 15-year-old person until I was 19 working, I had to work uh and uh and buy my do my own things, buy my own little car eventually, because it was miles and miles. I used to walk miles and miles, so when I got my little car, uh I I would drive, it was so much easier. At that time, you could get a license at 15 in Arizona. So at 15 I I had my little car.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well, you you were certainly used to hardship.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Thank you. Yeah, it was uh looking back, it it affected me in ways I never knew until I got older.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

We'll get we'll get to that, okay. So your first great love was what, your grandmother?

SPEAKER_00 15:55

My first love was my father and then my grandmother. Your father. Because I I I I had such love for my father and then for my grandmother, because she became my mother, really, honestly. She just uh did her best. How do you mean how do you mean she became your mother? Well, she was the one that took care of me as best she could, and uh she was the one that uh that went out and got got the food, and then she was the one that that gave me hugs, and uh uh it but again it was a very hard time because a lot of times, like for example, one time during the cherry season, she went out, uh she got three empty pillowcases to go and collect cherries because we would we would go to the black market and sell them. We would sell some to the G.I. Joe's, and then we would keep one bag and she would do the preserves. But she was gone like a lot of times, like for the cherries, she was gone like three days, and I got so my mother was gone. So I was in that uh I got really scared that she wouldn't come back, but she came back and I was so happy. She she would have never left me, but my mother was a different person. She had she was still young, and all her her youth was was being taken away from her. So she did her best. I think what happened is looking back, because when she would go for two or three days, she would come back with a lot of food, like sweets and cakes and cigarettes that she could trade. So I think she was like one of those ladies of the evening. Your mom was a lady of the evening, but I thought she was married. Well, um before she got married to my stepfather during the early days, she went uh Oh, you mean in you mean in the refugee camp? In the refugee camps. Not no, I'm talking this happened in the refugee camps.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah, in a refugee camp, I would have been a lady of the evening too.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

Yeah. So it's um I never she never talked about it because I thought she would think I was a terri she was a terrible person, but that's what she had to do to survive. To survive.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're and what was your stepfather like?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Well, he didn't like us. He tolerated us. So in the early days, I there was a lot of inappropriate touching going on. And uh it really uh affected me the rest of my life because Did you want to talk about that? Uh I was just a kid. Well, he would never he would put me on his shoulders and rub me back and forth, you know, like waiting for some kind of, you know, that I would feel something that like an orgasm or something. And and then when he when we were in America, then my mother went away for a year, and my brother was sent to live with my aunt for a year in uh Minnesota, and so I was alone with my stepfather, and he did a lot of inappropriate touching, and although he there was no penetration, he didn't rate me, but it was I was like trembling in my bed when he came around. I would just tremble and tremble.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Oh my god. I mean, I cannot imagine the things you've endured. And you went on to such a successful career, it's remarkable.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Well, my movies were my only escape. I would uh I would go Saturdays and to the dub, I would go Saturdays at 11 a.m. and not come out till 11 p.m. So I'd see the same movie over and over again. And so You're kidding. In fact, that helped me learn English. I learned English through through seeing these movies, but that was when you could do it. That's when nobody cooked you out. So I made a little peanut butter sandwich and got some water and went to the balcony of the Orpheum Theater, which is still there, by the way. I when I drove through Flagstaff, I wanted to see if the Orpheum Theater was still there and it was still there. It kind of gave me a sense of comfort that it was still there. But that was my that was my movies were my savior, and I loved stories, and I would I would read stories and I would act them out in my mind, and sometimes I would I would read them out loud, and I would became that character when I read those stories out loud to myself. It was like, and then of course there was the radio, the radio, Mr. Keene, uh the who knows what shadows lurk in the shadow knows. Then there was a Lux Radio Theater and uh on radio, so and then there was the Lone Ranger. So I would come home uh when I came, when I first in the first years in America, I would listen to the radio, and the radio made such an impression on me because you would see these images in your mind. You know, you would you would be I would be there rather. I should do first person. I would be there and I would vicariously go through all those experiences, and Lux Radio Theater presents what. A new story, a new drama story every now.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Excuse me for interrupting you, but you know, a lot of kids do that. They they listen to stories. Now it's television and they identify with it. But how did that turn into an acting career?

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Well, I saw my first movie when I was in the refugee camps. When I I was sent away for a summer because I had really bad uh lung issues because our refugee camp was across the street from a major locomotive hub which spewed coal dust, you know, every every lot of coal stuff. And I got affected by that coals in my lungs. So they sent me away for a summer in the mountains where the sick kids were. So I was one of the sick kids. And um, I'm sorry, I lost track of what you asked me.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

How did it turn into, you know, the identification with the characters in on the radio, how did that turn into a movie career? I mean acting.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Thank you. Uh thank you reminding me. I saw my first movie there. Uh and I my life just it was the turning point when I knew I wanted to be an actress. I was only like seven and a half years old. And I was so mesmerized by this by the But this is when you were in a refugee camp. Yeah, this is this is in the sick kids refu sick kids camp in the mountains, where they every every month or so, every couple of months, they would get an American movie. And they this was a movie with Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard, uh, which I recognized later when I saw it. It was a Western. And I can't remember the name of it. I should remember it, but they would it was a cowboy and Indian movie, and I thought there's this is like things I had never seen before.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Cowboys and Indians and villagers and fighting back and death of this little girl, which I identified with so I I understand that, and that is what makes kids and people go to the movies, but how did it turn into an actual career for you? I mean, people identify with characters in the movies so they wouldn't go to see them, but you went one step further, and given the hardships of your background, it's quite astounding. So, how did that happen that you became an actress?

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Well, I knew then and there I wanted to be part of the I wanted to be part of the story. I wanted to be in the story. So I just never lost track of that need. And when I was in when I was in high school, I signed up for every play that they well, they only did like three, four plays a year, but I signed up and I got little parts in the plays, and I thought, oh, this is heaven. I I can I can be part of the another story, and I didn't have to be part of me. I it was me, but I was in a story. And then in college, when I in I did plays to I asked my manager if I could have those weeks, a couple of weeks off, and because I was such considered such a valued employee that he would he would let me have uh those weeks off to do theater, which is like two plays a year, basically. So then I I expanded my my repertoire, and then I it's funny because I said I have to go to New York. I have to New York, go to New York and study with the best people. I have to become the best purse actor that I can be. And when I when I told the regional manager of the Ramadi Inn, his name was Mr. Falkenstein, I still remember his look. He said, We're gonna, we're such a wonderful employee. We want to give you, we want you to come down to the uh major hub hub, whatever the major office, and we're gonna train you, and we're gonna give you your own motel, and you'll you'll be part of the the whole system. And I said to him, Mr. Falkenstein, I'm going to New York. I'm gonna be an actress. He the look on his face was priceless. What do you want to do that for when you're gonna have a great job and this great job opportunities and we love you? What do you want? I said, Well, I'm going, thank you very much for your offer. But when did you come to New York? At what age?

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Uh uh at 20. Uh-huh. And what did you do when you got there?

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Well, I got I had one Samsonite suitcase, used one that I bought or somebody gave me, I forget. And so I got off the bus and landed in what is now the Port Authority. I didn't know it was just a big bus place. And I and I uh I checked my luggage into one of those coin things that you put in. And it was early in the morning, it was not that early, it was like 10 o'clock in the morning. And I got a New York Times and I sat down at this coffee shop and I opened the Times to where apartments for rent. And I had had a map, kind of a map of New York beforehand, and I I knew that the numbers at like 42nd Street and the numbers went uptown. So I was looking for, I saw one that was a really awful, and that just kept going uptown. And then about it was late, it was late in the evening, it was at seven o'clock. I was at this brownstone at 123 West 85th Street, and the landlord came and looked at me and I said, I'm here for the apartment that you have advertised in the in the New York Times. He said, he looked at me, kind of didn't know, and he said, Well, where are you from? And I said, I'm I'm from Arizona. And he said, Oh, I love Barry Goldwater. He said, The apartment is yours. And I thought, God bless Barry Goldwater, who I had met. I had checked into my to the Ramadian. I had met him on several occasions. And what did you pay for that apartment? Uh the apartment was $100 a month. And that apartment today would be what, $4,000? It was a huge room with a separate kitchen and a bathroom. Separate bathroom. For those that don't know New York, that happens to be a wonderful neighborhood. It's a at that time it was a rough neighborhood. Uh New York Times did a whole article on what the worst street in New York was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

But I remember I lived up next there. It's a great what they called rough back then was not rough today.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Oh, it's a beautiful neighborhood. And that was a beautiful apartment in a brownstone, just a large, large, large room. And uh what did you do next? Well, I had, I thought to myself, I gave him the hundred dollars. I only had $200 to my name, so half of this was gone. And then I I joined an acting class right away, pretty much. And uh that took like another $25 of my money, so I was left with $75. So there was an actress in that in my my uh my school that needed an apartment. And I said, Oh, wonderful, I've got an apartment, but it would there's enough room for three beds. We could and then a friend of mine introduced me to a ballet dancer, Julie, who was dancing with the balance sheet.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

So there were three girls in one room, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Because then we only paid $33 each, and we were both like short of money, and so that was the perfect amount of rent for us. And how how did you survive?

SPEAKER_01 30:10

How did you earn a living?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Uh, I had to go and did these uh when you got these part-time jobs, when you had these part-time agencies, and I would do a uh uh day or two here and a day or two there.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Oh, you mean temporary work?

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Temporary work, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Right, right. And when did you get your first acting job and what was it?

SPEAKER_00 30:33

My first acting job was in a uh summer stalk at the uh Berkshire Playhouse, which is very well known. I got a job as an apprenti I was considered apprentice, but I got to do one play there, and uh I had a major role in that play, and uh and that really was inspiring. So the next summer I went and I was a member of the Yarmouth uh repertory company in Yarmouth, uh, Cape Cod. And then I got to do maybe out of the six plays they did, I did roles in five of them. So that was when I when I was really it was a professional.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Obviously, you were very talented.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

And people spotted that quickly.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yeah, I think so. I I think so. And then I continued studying. I was always studying. Uh I was studying with uh all the major teachers, Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg. And the and the first film that you did? The first film that I that I had a role in, that a major part in was the early Brian De Palma film called Greetings. And my scene was with Bobby De Niro. And it's a it's a very funny scene. It's a 12-minute scene, uh, and it was just uh terrific. I loved working with Brian because he liked people that did improv, and I was really good at improv. So, and that followed that was followed. So you played opposite Robert De Niro? Yes. It's a very funny, it's a strip scene. He's a guy that once it gets me to come up to his apartment and strip.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

So you did a strip scene.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah, we didn't go all the way, we just went to underwear, and then it then the camera went. And did what did that lead to? That led to Brian DeParma's second film called High Mom, which has a scene in it called the Bee Black Baby scene. It's about a 15-minute scene, and Richard Schickle of Life magazine wrote wrote it up as this scene. He wrote that whole scene up, and uh it was a very powerful scene, and I had a really good part in it. Do you want to tell our listeners what Brian De Palma is well known for? Well, he's well known for all the basic horror, the Alfred Hitchcock type horror movies uh that uh are he did major, major, major films uh for many years that were very successful, earned a lot of money. Uh the one with uh gosh, Michael Cain and Angie Dickinson, I can't remember the name of it, but I'm I'm just blocking.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

It's okay or listening to Google it.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

Yeah, but uh I had Brian had me in to do record voiceover on Angie Dickinson's taxi orgasm and taxi scene, and he had me and he had me do the elevator scream. In fact, he he wanted a one-minute scream, and I said, Brian, he said, you can do it. I did.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Uh, but I said screaming for one minute is hard, but I think it's harder to fake. Well, a lot of women wouldn't think it's harder to take an orgasm.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

It was it was I I watched, I mean, Angie, I love Angie Dickinson. So this is nothing personal, but I watched the text and I said to her, Why do you want to why do you want to do that? Uh because Angie's wonderful, and he showed me the scene, it's a two and a half minute orgasm scene.

unknown 34:32

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

And he went and it was in the taxi, and she didn't go very loud, she's very subtle, like uh he wanted it like big. So can you still do that? I probably could. I said to Brian, I have to watch because let's hear, let's hear you do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Oh okay, okay, okay. But when did you start to actually get important parts?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Uh well I it was little by little. I I got um it was I I got some started getting some parts in television that was shooting in New York, like the early NYPD one. I got uh I had a part in Gene Kelly working with Gene Kelly in uh Hello Dolly, and I also did all of Barbara Streisand's uh photo doubling. But it was working with Gene Kelly was for six weeks, was like I you know, I become I was such a fan. He was so sweet to me. But let's let me let me look at uh I I can't remember the order of where I went. It doesn't have to go in order. Uh I well, the biggest part I got that really was an Oscar Winnie movie was the deer hunter.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

And I play Angela the Bride. So I'm in the first, I'm in the wedding and the funeral.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

And that was with was Robert De Niro in that one?

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yes, he was in that. In fact, he uh I called him and I said, I heard there was uh it was casting, and I said, Is there any anything in it for me that I could read for for the director? And he said, Yeah, there is part of the bride, and we we haven't cast that yet. He said, I'll set up a meeting for you uh with the casting director. And the casting, I didn't have to meet her, she just called me and said, Uh, he Michael's in town, uh, so he'll see you, Michael Chemino. So I I have to laugh because I went in, and this was when a director because had confidence, and he didn't make me read at all. He just talked to me for 45 minutes, and then he thanked me, and I I went got up to leave, and the exit door and the closet door were side by side. So I I went into the closet door and I stood there for about maybe 20 or 30 seconds, realizing that I had made utterly humiliated. Utterly humiliated. I thought I opened the door very slowly, and I said, I think I got the wrong door.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Um the director hired you just on the basis of conversation with you, or had he seen other work that you'd done?

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Well, he'd seen other work that I had done, and uh other work that uh especially the early Bobby De Niro movies.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

But then and Robert De Niro were really good friends.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

We were good friends for a long time. Now I I I I wish we would be in contact again. But you know, Bobby's career has gone off on a whole other big I mean, he's a major movie star, and uh so things change, relationships change, but he was a very good friend to me. And what was what was the next big part that you had? The next big part I had was Mommy Dearest. Oh, with John Bryant. I play Carol Ann. And again, I it was like with Michael, Frank Perry. I went up to meet him. He didn't require any reading, no, no auditioning, no. I again talked with him for about an hour. And then he said thank you. It was right right around a couple of weeks before Christmas. And so he said thank you, and uh we said goodbye. And on the day before Christmas, he called me and said, Well, you've got the part. That's really interesting. The earlier directors were like that. Kazan was like that. Oh, I forgot to tell you about Kazan.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

He hold on, our audience doesn't know who we're talking about. We're talking about a famous, very famous award-winning film and stage director called Eliyah Kazan. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Yes. Well, he had seen me in uh the Hi Mom, the B Black Baby scene, and he wrote me a card, a postcard, this is, and saying he really loved me in the in that in that film.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Thank goodness, I'm I'm I'm awed that he would do something like that for to an actor.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

They don't do that anymore. He loved actors. He he loved act. I became uh anyway, I was in LA at the time, swing some teller, I went out for like a year, and I heard he was casting The Last Tycoon. So I I wrote him a letter at Parallel.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Who starred in that?

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Uh Bobby De Niro.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

But I didn't get that one through Bobby. I got that one by writing him a letter saying, uh, do you remember you you wrote me such a lovely postcard about Hi Mom? I work at Hi Mom. Is there anything that I could audition for for you? And they uh he next thing I know, the casting directors calling me and said, Can you come to Paramount such and such a time at such and such a building and meet Ili Kazan? And I said, Oh, absolutely. So I went, this is very interesting because the early directors had such confidence in what they what they saw. So I walked into this room, which was very long, like I'd say 50 feet narrow and long, and Ili Kazan was there by himself, no producers, nothing, by himself at the end of that room behind a table. And when I walked in, I could feel, I could feel him taking me in, taking my energy in. So by the time I went and sat down, he said, Well, you've got the part. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

I was I don't think that happens today in today's world at all.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Doesn't happen today. People they're put through the hoops, and you you they don't see you anymore in person. They have to see you on some odd uh uh video audition. So it's a different time. So I said, now he said, can you type? And he had an old typewriter there, and I said, Yes, because what one of the things that I was pretty good at in high school was typing. So I sat down and I started typing, just type anything you want to type. So I just let you know one of those things. And I said, Oh, uh he said, Stop. And I said, I I think I made some mistakes. I don't he said, I don't care. You look like you're typing, you're a real typist. He said, You look like a real typist. So I was one of the three secretaries in uh in Robert De Niro, he played Monroe Starr. When he comes in, the one secretary was the one that took all the papers. I was the one typing, and some one of the other girls was did something else. So all right, so let me move on.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Let me ask you something.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

So you've won some awards, right? Yes, I've won. Uh well, I've won for mommy dearest. I won what is it, the Razzie Award. That's not a good, that's a negative award, isn't it? I know, but I wish if they had told me I would have gone and accepted that award.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

Could you explain to our audience what a Raspberry Award is?

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Uh it's uh it's the worst, the worst film and the worst performance. Faye Dunoway won for Joan Crawford and I won for Carol Ann, the supporting performance.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Now let's talk about the positive awards.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Oh well, I've won Best Actress in a lot of the off-off Broadway uh drama, you know, desk award and uh the the off off Broadway. I used I was very big in off off Broadway. Uh and then my early career, I I did a lot of it. That was when there were a lot of off off Broadway theaters. And uh you were a bit of a cult actress. I was a cult off-Broadway actress, yes. And I did do one, I came close to well, I did do one uh major show, which I understudied Mary and Haley Moss, our mutual friend.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

And unfortunately, they send a critic that hated comedy, so we We close the next day. I did a major play. It was it was three of us called Murder at Howard Johnson's. I got a lot of recognition from that.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

I'm gonna divert you from that for one second, okay? Because our program is called How We Love, and obviously one of the things that you love clearly is theater and performing. But also you were married. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Can you tell us about that?

SPEAKER_01 44:30

So obviously, you must have fallen madly in love with someone.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yes. At the beginning, it was very uh I was madly in love. And he was he was Richard Bright. He was a wonderful talented actor.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

And you met him and fell in love how?

SPEAKER_00 44:51

I met him when I was always living in LA for a couple of years in the 70s. And uh he was doing Marathon Man. Uh the big the movie with Dustin Hoffman? With Dustin Hoffman. He was the guy that pursues Dauston, Dustin, and actually puts him in the bathtub and holds him under. Was that a lead in that film? Second lead? Yes, he was he was uh uh uh second lead in that movie.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Well he was a well-known actor in in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yes, he was in all three of Godfathers, worked with uh Coppola, he was uh Al Neary, major part in the uh And was he handsome? I thought he was very handsome.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Okay. And how did how did you meet?

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Well, he didn't know very many people, and he was a uh Marathon man for like two and a half months. And it was some friend of mine said, Well, why don't you call Ritanya? Because he was looking for people to just hang out with or go to dinner with. So he called me and he said, I knew who he was because we were actually in the same movie together. We were in Sam Peckinpaw's movie, Pat Garrett, and Billy the Kid, but we weren't on location at the same time. But I had seen when Pat when Sam screened his movie, I saw Richard Seen and I said, Well, he's a really good actor. And Sam thought so too. So he had he said, Well, we were in the same movie together, but we didn't have any scenes. I said, I remember you, you were wonderful. And uh so he said, Well, I am looking for some people to go to coffee with a dinner on my days off. And I said, Okay, so we arranged to meet at some coffee shop and have coffee, and that's how that's how I met him. I mean, I met him outside of knowing who he was.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

No, you were absolutely gorgeous, so I'm sure he was quite enamored of you very quickly.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Well, thank you. I was just oh in those days, I was just a lot of fun. I was a free, I was like a free spirit in those days. Is that a dog I hear in the background? That's the downstairs dog, which oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

That was drive you crazy.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

I locked my cats up in the bedroom because they would be here in front of in front of uh, they would he they would just be in the middle of everything. So let's go back to what was your husband's name?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Richard Richardson. Let's go back to Richard. So how did it become an you know a marriage?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Well, we we saw it, he's decided after marathon man, he decided to stay on for a year, so uh a little bit more than a year in Hollywood and get some television parts, which he did. And then we just kept seeing each other and seeing each other for about almost two years. And I think we became really good friends. Uh be and then it got serious. So let me ask you saying you became friends without chemistry? We had some chemistry, but we didn't act on it for the first year. It was the second year that we that we became intimate.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

When did the chemistry start that it became you know irresistible?

SPEAKER_00 48:19

It started about uh probably a month or two after we after we uh saw each other.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

I would think so, because you were both so good looking and in the same business. I can't imagine that the enormous chemistry wasn't there, but you resisted it apparently for a long time. And so after a year or two, you kind of felt that what? You had something deeper in common?

SPEAKER_00 48:42

Yes, we we we just decided that uh we were a match. We had we're both actors, we understood the industry and the demands of the industry. Now I look at it and I think you should never marry an actor because they have the same issues that you do. And it it uh for me it's it's like it's like when you experience the same issues in your partner as you do yourself, it's kind of a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

What do you mean? What do you mean?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

It's like he was forever he was only really happy when he worked. So when he worked, he was really happy. And um he wasn't he wasn't that happy for me. I mean, he was happy, but it was almost about it's it was about him and his career. And I think that's happened.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Surprise, surprise, you're telling me he was an actor who was highly narcissistic.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

He was like it was he was it was about himself and his career.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Well, of course, he's an actor.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

Yeah, and that that that I didn't anticipate.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

There was no true give and take.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yes, that's right. So you so you fell out of love. Well, eventually, not right away, but eventually because there were other issues that were overwhelming to me. What do you mean? Uh uh drug issues.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

Oh, he used drugs. Yes, he I didn't that yeah, that is something you can't get over.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Can't get over it. No. He not when he was working, though. He that then he would stop. But I didn't You know, I'll tell you something, Ritanya.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Part of his inability to really connect to you would have had to come from the drug because when you are a drug user, you're preoccupied with nothing but that.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

Well, that sure was that's sure I found that out. Uh it was very painful. Uh because I didn't Robin, I didn't understand what it meant. I was so naive. I didn't understand what it meant.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

You weren't naive, okay? If you're not a drug user, you can't understand why this person that you're in love with suddenly changed like this. You can't possibly.

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Yeah, I didn't. It was like no one does. Oh, okay. I I it was like I I you know how you you you think, what can I do? How can I help?

SPEAKER_01 51:21

All that's yeah, right, right, right. Because you think there's something wrong that you can fix, you don't understand because they're lying to you. You don't understand that they're using drugs. Yeah, yeah. So when you finally did find out, is that when you left? That's when I left. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 51:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

And he had a strange ending, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 51:43

Well, it was really uh yeah, it was strange. I had just talked to him because we kept in touch because we shared a son, but I I w I had moved out to LA at that time just to get away, just to get I I just needed a space where I was free of all of this. And uh so I but I kept in touch with him a couple of phone calls a week, and he he said, Well, I'm going over to there was a coffee shop on uh block away, and he used to go there all the time in the evening because he had a friend there, Tony, that he uh the owner of the shop, they get along with. And so he said, I'm going over to Tony's, and uh so uh I'm on my way, so I'll talk to you in a few days. Well, what happened was about 30 minutes later, a friend of mine called and said, I just heard on the news that Richard was killed. And I said, Well, I just talked to him. What you know, I I don't I don't think that's true. And he said, No, it's on CBS News right now. I'm watching it. This Godfather actor is killed. Uh the bus, the bus was making a turn and ran over him, even though he had the right of way with the light. It just he got caught under the wheels, under the rear wheels, which is different on a big bus. You can they can miss you on the front wheels, but then the rear wheels hit you unless the driver is very experienced. True. I'll keep that in mind. And how does that affect your son? Well, he was 18 at the time.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Yeah. Because we had lived, we were living apart. We were just, I was in California, he was in New York. And uh, but we came back always, we always came back during the Christmas holidays, December, January, and then the at that time the season started in February, and then we would come back when the season ended in California, which was like the summer, July, August, uh, those months. And so he would see Jeremy, but I limited the uh time, but I didn't want my son to be have his father be a mystery, you know, like I didn't want him to think that so I I wanted him to actually know him on some level, but uh it was on but it couldn't be full full out because of the drug use, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Yeah, exactly. I I understand. So moving on from there, where so he died what year?

SPEAKER_00 54:21

I'm sorry. What was the year that he died? He died in uh 19, let's see, how done roughly. Roughly he died in the early 80s.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Oh, that's a very, very long time ago. And then your career went on you because when if anybody goes to Wikipedia and looks at the number of films that you've been in, they're enormous, just enormous. And so these are going to have to wrap it up pretty soon. So tell me where you are today.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Well, I made my own film. I wrote and uh produced it and wrote and perform in it about my early uh experience growing up in the refugee camps and what happened to my father where I met him. He told me the story of how he survived his miracle survival in the gulags, where like 95% of the people died.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

So I felt felt like I So tell me about just quickly, can you can you just give us a couple of minutes about your you and meeting up with your dad?

SPEAKER_00 55:30

Yes, I met him uh when I found out he was alive, he had just come back from the camps. They were closing the camps. And uh he he I had another aunt, the farmer aunt, who to had her her farm taken over by the Soviets, who who had uh welcomed him back, and then so she wrote a letter to my uh scientist aunt who was living in Florida that my father had returned, but the letter was delayed by two years.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Two years.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Yes, the Soviets had control over everything, so it arrived two years later. So I this was in 1969, the summer of 1969. So I said, I have to go and meet my father. I just have to do this. So I went, I I went in a very I was very poor then. So I I went in uh cheap, cheapest way possible. So I these the connections, I won't bore you with that. But I I I met my father, and I had 10 days with them before I had to leave because they limited you to 10 days. I couldn't stay with him, I had to stay at a hotel because it was all about the money, then they wanted the American money. So uh he told me the story, and he said, I said, what happened to you, Papa? He said, I will only talk of this once, and then I will never talk of it again. And so he told me a story in between we couldn't, we couldn't talk in the hotel room. It was microphone. So we had to do it when we were walking, or we were in trams, or we were in the cemetery, or a park. So he told me then what happened to him. So then I finally got to know what he went through. So in my movie is a two-parter. It's my uh growing up in the refugee camps, and at the same time, it parallels my father's uh my father's experience in the gulags.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

I I have to tell you, I think you're an absolutely remarkable person. Oh, right. And I think anybody that hears this story is going to think the same thing that you have gone through what you have gone through in your life, and have then turned it into a successful acting career, a career that most people cannot make a success and survive and have earn a living from, and yet you have gone on to do that, is just so much about your strength. You are so strong, you're you're a role model. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. You are, and and on that note, on that note, my dear friend, I'm so grateful for you giving us this interview. And we'll say goodbye for the time being.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Oh, Robin, thank you very much. Thank you. I I admire you so much, also. I think you're an amazing woman.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Thanks again.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Okay, Natanya Alder.