By Stephen Silver
On a couple of occasions in Julian Schlossberg’s early life, he found himself in parts of the US where some people he talked to had never met a Jewish person. The first was a stint in the Army, the second was while selling movies to rural television stations.
Julian Schlossberg, center, is shown with Elaine May and Alan Arkin (Courtesy via JTA)
But over the next six decades he was rarely the only Jew in the room ever again.
Schlossberg tells those stories and many more in his new memoir, Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life (Beaufort Books).
Schlossberg was born in 1941 and grew up in what he describes as a middle class family in a Bronx neighborhood that at the time was heavily Jewish and Irish.
His father Louis played semi-pro baseball, but as Schlossberg writes, turned down the chance to play for a team in Kansas City in part because “there were almost no Jews in baseball.”
Before and after his time in the Army in the early 1960s, Schlossberg worked as a cab driver, a busboy, a waiter, a counselor, a typist and more while taking college classes at night. He got a job at the ABC in 1964 and worked his way up the company’s ranks.
“I had decided, as a very young man, that since I didn’t have a law degree or a dental degree or a medical degree, I was going to learn every aspect of show business that I could,” he said.
“I didn’t know what it was going to do, but I knew that knowledge was power, and that if I had knowledge, maybe I’d get some power.”
He would live out that goal, working in just about every area of entertainment, from radio to movie distribution to theater producing.
In the 1970s, he hosted a radio show called “Movie Talk,” for which he interviewed hundreds of movie stars. WMCA station executives wanted Schlossberg to use a different stage name, to sound less Jewish.
“I said, ‘Wait a second — if I’m going to be on the air in New York City, I can’t be a Jew?’ So they gave in, and I kept my name,” he said.
“You want to remember the times you did stand up, I guess. Not that it was a giant standing up, but I would have not done the show if they had asked me to change my name.”
Schlossberg has worked with a virtual who’s who of famous Jewish entertainers over the years, from Neil Simon to Lillian Hellman to Sid Caesar to Mike Nichols to Peter Falk to Ethan Coen.
In 1995, Schlossberg worked with three prominent Jews on one off-Broadway production: a set of one-act plays performed together each night, called “Death Defying Acts,” written by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May.
“Elaine, as I’ve written, is the smartest person I’ve ever met, and probably one of the most talented if not the most talented, because there is nothing she cannot do,” Schlossberg said of the now 90-year-old Oscar, Tony and Grammy winner who wrote the forward to Schlossberg’s book.
“She’s a great actress, she’s a great writer, and she’s a great director. And she’s a hell of a friend.”
Schlossberg crossed paths with producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein. When Weinstein was young, he asked Schlossberg to teach him the movie business. The two worked together for a time, although eventually they fell out.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought he would hit the heights that he hit, or the depths that he sunk to. Never,” Schlossberg said.
Another mentoring experience ended on a more positive note. Mark S. Golub, a rabbi, came to Schlossberg for advice on learning the theater business. Golub, who died late last month at 77, went on to become a prolific Broadway producer and founded the Jewish Broadcasting Service channel.
It was a fruitful partnership: Golub learned about the industry, and Schlossberg absorbed lessons about Judaism.
Schlossberg had several projects set to go at the start of the pandemic, but when the industry shut down, he wrote his memoir instead. Now he’s looking to rev up some of those projects.
Next up on the docket is “Tales From the Guttenberg Bible,” an autobiographical, four-character play written by and starring the Jewish actor Steve Guttenberg. It is now set for its world premiere in April, at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ.
“I think audiences will respond to it, because he’s so kind and personable and living . . . a nice Jewish boy,” Schlossberg said of Guttenberg.
