Abraham Polonsky: Interviews

Interview with Abraham Polonsky and Walter Bernstein

170 Interview with Abraham Polonsky and Walter Bernstein Robert Siegel / 1993 From The NPR Interviews, ed. Robert Siegel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 62–67.© 1993 National Public Radio, Inc. NPR news report titled “Blacklisted Writers Reflected Upon” was originally broadcast on NPR’s All Things Considered on June 14, 1993, and is used with the permission of NPR. Any unauthorized duplication is strictly prohibited. Walter Bernstein and Abraham Polonsky talk to Robert Siegel about writing the early CBS television program You Are There when they were blacklisted during the McCarthy era. The two men, together with the late Arnold Manoff, submitted scripts through fronts, individuals who lent their politically acceptable by-lines to the banned writers’ works, to the producer Charles Russell, who was in on the ruse. Polonsky’s longunacknowledged You Are There teleplays were assembled and published by California State University at Northridge. Polonsky: It’s very bad and very sad that Arnold Manoff and Charles Russell are dead. It’s very sad that all the scripts, the wonderful scripts, that Arnie wrote shouldn’t be made available with the name of the proper author on them. His show on Socrates, remember, Walter? I think that was picked up by the Museum of Modern Art as one of the better shows that they had, right? Bernstein: Yes. Polonsky: They got some prize of something. So I think these things should be made known. Walter and I can defend ourselves with lies, but he can’t. rober t siegel / 1993 171 Siegel: Walter Bernstein, what did you do as the outside man? Bernstein: I had been working in television. It was then live television, before Abe and Arnie Manoff came from the coast. I had had certain credits under my own name and I knew certain producers, like Russell, so I was able to go to Russell in particular, and say, “I have these two friends who are here and they are very good writers and how about using them on the show?” He was very amenable to it. Siegel: Did he know that you were blacklisted? Bernstein: He was the one who told me when he was the producer of Danger, which was the show before You Are There. Oh, yes, he knew we were all blacklisted. Siegel: Your friends from the coast? He knew that when you were speaking of Polonsky and Manoff that they too were blacklisted? Bernstein: Oh, I told him that, and his concern was only that he be able to tell his bosses upstairs that there was a real, live person whom they could see on demand. Siegel: So the three of you would be able to write this new television program, You Are There, provided that you each had a front who would be the body? Bernstein: Yes, that was an absolute requisite. Siegel: Did the three of you meet frequently? Bernstein: As often as possible. We would meet in Steinberg’s Dairy Restaurant of Broadway. Polonsky: And don’t forget Max the waiter. Bernstein: We had a waiter named Max who couldn’t figure out who we were because we looked like bums but we would occasionally throw around big numbers and money and things like that. We would be talking about scripts, but he wouldn’t know. He came to us one day and he said he had finally figured out who we were and what we did, and we said “What?” and he said, “You’re in the wholesale fruit business.” 172 abraham polonsky: inter views Polonsky: [laughs] That’s right. Bernstein: [laughs] I don’t know how he put that together. Polonsky: Because Arnie looked like he worked at the produce market. Siegel: Arnold Manoff? Bernstein: Yes. But we would meet regularly, usually there or at one of our houses. Siegel: For people who don’t remember this program at all, for those who are too young or who didn’t watch television at the time, we should say that after an introduction by Walter Cronkite [who was not yet the anchorman of the evening news], CBS news correspondents like Mike Wallace and Bill Leonard would cover an event as if it were a live television event. One of them was “The Crisis of Galileo.” That’s in your collection of screenplays, Mr. Polonsky. Did you choose that subject? Polonsky: It came up in a discussion probably at the restaurant one day and I got it...