The Frommers

THE "IT HAPPENED . . ." SERIES

By Myrna Katz Frommer and Harvey Frommer

We invented the "It Happened . . ." series in the process of writing It Happened in the Catskills (Harcourt Brace 1991). It is a particular brand of oral history, an interactive narrative that is fashioned out of the memories of a range of people whose testimony is cut, re-ordered, re-imagined and re-arranged into a format one critic likened to "a conversation in a living room." Subsequent to its publication and widespread critical acclaim, we were invited to join the Dartmouth College faculty where since 1994 we have been the exclusive professorial purveyors of the art and craft of this genre, preparing a new generation of oral historians.

In 1989 when we began working on the Catskills book, it was envisioned as a traditional work of non-fiction. However once we got up to "The Mountains" and began hearing the zany, poignant, unusual, and memorable stories, it soon became clear that our book would be "An Oral History in the Words of Busboys, Bellhops, Guests, Proprietors, Comedians, Agents, and Others Who Lived It."

For that work, we reached a glorious gamut of people including fabled celebrities like Joey Adams, Morey Amsterdam, Norm Crosby, Billy Ekstine, Eddie Fisher, Lionel Hampton, Linda Hopkins, Mal Z. Lawrence, Tony Martin, Robert Merrill, Neil Sedaka, and Jerry Vale.

Transcribing their tapes led to the epiphany that resulted in the interactive format: the best way to tell the story of the Catskills was for us to step back and let the interviewees interact with one another.

It Happened in Brooklyn (Harcourt Brace 1993) followed the same format, mixing and matching voices to tell the story of a time and place. Once again, we combined ordinary people’s memories with those of celebrities – in this case Mel Allen, Julie Budd, Betty Comden, Pat Cooper, Marvin Kaplan, Clem Lebine, Al Lewis, Robert Merrill and Neil Sedaka once again, Peter Nero, Rachel Robinson (the widow of Jackie Robinson), Jerry Stiller, and Eli Wallach.

Growing Up Jewish in America (Harcourt Brace 1995) called for an alternate title, but in style and method, it was a continuation of the "It Happened. . . " brand. This book again mixed and matched memories of private and public figures. Cal Abrams, Marc Angel (rabbi of the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue), Broadway producer Manny Azenberg, Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, Blu Greenberg, Bel Kaufman (the granddaughter of Sholem Aleichem), Neil Postman, Al Lewis, and Frank Rich were among the well known.

It Happened on Broadway (Harcourt Brace 1998) contains the memories of major figures in the American theater including Manny Azenberg, Clive Barnes, Mary Ellin Barrett (the daughter of Irving Berlin), Theodore Bikel, Betty Buckley, Len Cariou, Marge Champion, Carol Channing, Martin Charnin, Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Charles Durning, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Cy Feuer, Joan Fontaine, Dolores Gray, Joel Grey, James Hammerstein (the son of Oscar Hammerstein), Kitty Carlisle Hart, Jerry Herman, Al Hirschfeld, Hal Holbrook, Celeste Holm, Kim Hunter, Richard Kiley, John Lahr, Louise Lasser, Linda Lavin, Andrea Mcardle (the original "Annie"), Donna McKechnie, Patricia Neal, Barry Nelson, John Raitt, producer Marty Richards, Mary Rodgers (daughter of Richard Rodgers), Vincent Sardi, Jr., Maureen Stapleton, Elaine Stritch, Susan Stroman, Charles Strouse, Leslie Uggams, Gwen Verdon, Tony Walton, and famed directors Robert Whitehead, George C. Wolfe, and Jerry Zaks.

It Happened in Manhattan (Berkley 2001), which tells the story of New York from the post war years when the city came into its own until the 1970’s when it nearly went bust, includes the reminiscences and perceptions of a swath of New Yorkers such as Herman Badillo, Jimmy Breslin, restaurateurs Sirio Maccioni (Le Cirque), Andre Jammet (La Caravelle), Elaine Kaufman (Elaine’s), and Ken Aretsky (Patroon), Theodore Kheel, Robert Merrill, Jerry della Femina, Monte Irvin, urban critic Jane Jacobs (author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities), journalist Bill Gallo, the late haute couture designer Pauline Trigere, Margaret Whiting, and Saul Zabar.

All five of our highly praised oral histories make extensive use of archival photos. They criss-cross a gamut of individuals and social issues encompassing moods of poignancy, drama and humor, ribaldry, debasement, and exaltation, fury, nostalgia, and melancholia, inspiration, the sacred and profane. Through the magic of oral history, we combine the tiniest grasp of detail with the long march of memories. With subjects as young as people in their twenties and as old as people in their nineties, with entries as brief as a few sentences and as lengthy as several pages, our brand of oral history enables us to mold the clay of memory into a document of time and place, a reflection of cultural changes and events.

As Ph.D.’s in Communications and Culture who were longtime professors in the City University of New York with careers that span the realms of academic rigor and popular culture, and as a wife and husband team with vast experience dealing with people from all kinds of social and ethnic backgrounds, ranging from the renowned to the ordinary, we have succeeded in getting at (in Studs Terkel’s phrase) "the truth behind the facts."

Over and over again, our subjects tell us, "I didn’t know I had these stories in me." But it is their stories that provide for posterity a sense of "what happened" that "official" historical accounts often ignore.