Madeline Kahn by William V. Madison Read Free Book Online Page B

really,
my
contribution had to do with
my
feelings about Kurt Weill.” 21
    At the end of the summer, Madeline returned to live with her mother in Queens and took part-time jobs: temporary office work, babysitting, and singing three nights per week at a restaurant on Long Island. Gradually she earned enough money to afford a place of her own, an apartment on East 63rd Street in Manhattan, and she applied to the New York City school system for work as an elementary-school teacher of “speech improvement,” either full-time or as a substitute, putting her Hofstra degree to use. Her application, dated March 29, 1965, reveals intriguing details, including her omission of any mention of the Manumit School. Her decision was at least in part pragmatic, since Manumit had closed, and its records were destroyed. There was no way for anyone to check them, and that in itself might appear suspicious. Moreover, the application, very much a product of its time, required Madeline to state whether she’d ever been a member of the Socialist, Communist, or Fascist Party, and while little Madalin Wolfson wasn’t a card-carrying member of any political organization, Manumit did have a leftist reputation, as did Freda. Better to mention only P.S. 135. Beyond such considerations, however, the application proves that Madeline’s longtime reluctance to talk about Manumit had begun already.
    She did refer in interviews throughout her life to her experience as a teacher. She filed her application for employment in the coming school year, 1965–66. Records don’t indicate further action, such as assignment to a particular school or employment either as a full-time or substitute teacher. She’d been a teacher’s aide at Van Buren High, and she did engage in student teaching as part of her course work at Hofstra, but her teaching career ended with her application. She had hardly submitted it to the board of education before she took off in a different direction altogether. As a young adult in the big city—but also as Freda’s daughter—Madeline craved independence, and she understood she’d need an income in order to get and keep it. Surprisingly, perhaps, she discovered that show business could provide steadier employment than teaching.

    Shortly after applying to the board of education, Madeline auditioned for and won a spot in the chorus of a limited-run revival of Cole Porter’s
Kiss Me, Kate
, featuring the original star, Patricia Morison, under the aegis of the New York City Center Light Opera Company. This was an Equity production, making Madeline eligible for her union card and opening up new professional possibilities. 22
    One of these was a Manhattan cabaret, Upstairs at the Downstairs, where Michael Cohen was musical director. Recently relocated to a townhouse at 37 West 56th Street (the former home of department store magnate John Wannamaker), the club had begun at 51st Street and Sixth Avenue, where the success of the Downstairs Room led to expansion to the second floor, the first Upstairs at the Downstairs. While the golden age of nightclubs was drawing to a close, these venues still offered the promise of an almost unmatchable sophistication, and they proved a breeding ground for generations of talent: singers who breathed new life into pop standards, comedians who set the tone for American humor. Those who didn’t know already learned how to work an audience, how to put over a joke or a lyric, and how to hold a listener’s attention despite the distractions of clinking cocktails and handsome busboys. Producers, casting agents, and other performers regularly came by to check out new talent, and New York nightclubs could still provide a springboard to national attention via television (notably
The Ed Sullivan Show
). As Madeline told writer James Gavin, her hope was always that the Upstairs would lead to something bigger. 23
    Downstairs at the Upstairs generally featured solo acts, and when Madeline wasn’t working, she