INT: My name is Robert Markowitz and today is May 17, 2002. I'm conducting an interview with Elliot Silverstein for the Directors Guild of America's Visual History Program. We are at the DGA in Los Angeles, California.

INT: Why don't you begin by just giving your full name?

ES: Elliot Silverstein. [INT: And was that your name at birth?] No. [INT: What was your name at birth?] Boy Child Silverstein. [INT: And you have any nicknames?] No. Although people have known to say, "God, Elliot." [LAUGH] [INT: And date of birth?] August 3rd, 1927. [INT: And that was where?] Boston, Massachusetts. By the way, that's true, when I was born my parents got in an argument as to what I should be called and they forgot to reach a decision so years later I decided that, because of another guy in the class had an Encyclopedia Americana and his name was Elliot and I was jealous, I asked them to call me Elliot, so we filled it in. [INT: How old were you when you arrived at Elliot?] Probably seven. [INT: Well what did they call you for the first six years?] Elli. [INT: Elli.]

INT: When you were growing back--growing up and looking back on that, what was going on in the world that ultimately had real influences and impacts on your later life? Is it--

ES: You mean when I was a kid? [INT: Yes.] All I can remember back in those days was stories of Nazi anti-Semitism, sterilization of women. I remember I didn't understand what that meant but I saw that in a headline of a tabloid. And stories that were brought to my house by people that were coming from Europe, telling stories of the persecution of Jews in Europe. So largely I was informed by that. Also during that period of time I lived at the confluence of three cultures. There was an Italian culture, an Irish culture and a Jewish culture. Which all, like the pieces of a pie and my house was at the center, so there were lots of fights in the street. I was accused a number of times of killing Christ. I didn't understand what that meant. As a matter of fact, as an Orthodox Jew at the time, I didn't even understand who Christ was. So there were many fights and I knew that there was something wrong. The guys in my gang, as it were, didn't travel alone and when you did it was at the peril of our, of our lives. I still carry bumps on my skull from my adventures at the, somewhere between the ages of seven, maybe 12.

INT: And you went to school in, where?

ES: In Boston at the... Boston Latin School and Roxbury Memorial High School for Boys, it was not co-educational in Boston at the time. And then I went from there to Boston College, which is a Jesuit school. And... [INT: As a Jew?] As a Jew. Well because I had received notification from many colleges across the country, Ivy League and others, in writing, that the Jewish quota was filled. That's not recalled by many at this time that it was a practice. And my father was serving in the military, as a physician in Burma, wrote to me that since the traditional schools won't give you a chance, why don't you try the Catholic schools, since the Protestants won't give you a chance. And so I went to Boston College and I remember [LAUGH] going into the tower building there, being greeted by a, kind of an Edwin Glenn priest, roly-poly with a big red nose. "Yes?" he said. "Well, I'd like to matriculate here." "Oh, really?" Now I had never, I didn't know what these men were with long, black garments. It was a little intimidating for me but I said, "Yes. I don't know what to do, Father." I knew to call him Father. And he said, "All right. We start in two days." I said, "Yes." He said, "Will you take the examination?" He said, "What is your name?" And I said, "Elliot." He said, "No, no. What is your Christian name?" which paralyzed me at that moment. I said, "There's goes my chance." And I said, "I don't have a Christian name, Father." "Oh, everybody has a Christian name." And I said, I took a deep breath and I said, "No, I'm Jewish." He said, "Oh, well do you know who we are?" And I said, "Yes, I do." "You still want to come here?" "Yes." "Take the examination." Took the examination, the next day, 48 hours later, they called me and said, "Come to class." [INT: And you were how old?] That changed my whole life. [INT: And how old were you then?] I think I was about 17. Probably. [INT: So that was--] 16 or 17, I've forgotten now. [INT: So the war [World War II], the war hadn't...The war was over at that point, right?] No. No it wasn't because-- [INT: It was in the middle? No. It was still going on.] I served about a year in the Coast Guard. I volunteered for that. [INT: Before you went to college or after?] That's a bit hard for me to remember. I think I, I may have done one semester before I went. I volunteered to go. My father was in In--was in India at the time, the China-Burma-India area. And I had some kind of fantasy that I could wind up as a pharmacist mate and get over there. But then he died as a service connec--service-connected problem and so they let me go out just after the war was over.

INT: Now you mentioned that, you said that you had this dream of being a pharmacist mate and hooking up with him [father]. So how, what brought the transition that started to bring you into the field of drama?

ES: Yeah, that was a specific series of events that did that. I went back to BC [Boston College] afterwards and I was a major in biology. And as part of the course we had to pith frogs, had to take a frog and stick a needle in its back. I couldn't do that, I couldn't, the frog was living, I couldn't do that. And so I was quite depressed because I was having problems meeting the requirements of the course. Now parallel to this, I enjoyed drama and I joined the Dramatic Society. And the Jesuit who was in charge of the Dramatic Society was Father John Louis Bonn and he was very much a John Barrymore kind of character, a very handsome man, white hair and so. And he saw me walking around with my head down, "What's the matter, El?" And I told him I was uncomfortable about that. He says, "What do you want to do?" I said, "Well, I really enjoy the Dramatic Society." "Well why don't you just change your major?" "Well my father was in India at the time and my mother wanted me to be a doctor like him." "I want to see your mother." I said, "Oh, what? You really…?" "I want to speak to your mother." I went home to my mother and I said, now she was an Orthodox Jewish woman, I said, "Mother, the Priest wants to speak to you." "Oh my god, you're going to convert." I said, "No." "No, no, no, I'm not. He just wants to speak to you." So I said, "What should we do? What should we do?" So we arranged to have a Friday night dinner for him, Sabbath dinner. And she lit the Sabbath candles and he sat at the table. She asked him to say a prayer and he gave a, kind of a non-denominational prayer. We had dinner, at the end of which he said, "You, out." And he threw me out of my own house. And I came back an hour later and my mother hugged me and kissed me and told me that I could change my major. Now I don't know to this day what he said to her, but she, I had her blessing. So I changed to a major to social sciences and became very active in the Drama Society under his tutorship--[INT: Was your...]--tutelage. [INT: Was your father alive then or was he...] He was dead then. No, he, actually he came back just about the time, after I had changed my major. And he died in this country. And so after I did that, then I had to finish three years at Boston College, in which I--I just had, I think, three courses to go to qualify for the Catholic Seminary. I did quite a bit of... [INT: Wow.] ...scholarship, at collegiate level on Catholic theology and things of that nature. I had a, I had quite a good time doing that. I loved the Jesuits. They're very rigorous teachers. And, what was your question? [LAUGH] [INT: Well, I'd asked you about whether your father was alive at that point.] No. He was gone. He was gone. [INT: He was gone.]

INT: Now were your parents immigrants?

ES: Yes. My father came here when he was 11 and my mother came here at nine. They both lived near 60 miles outside of Kiev [Kiev, Ukraine]. As a matter of fact, something kind of interesting happened. Recently the Guild [Directors Guild of America], Directors Guild, entertained a group of Directors and Writers from Russia. And we sat across the table and I looked at one of them and he looked very familiar to me. And his name was Ostrovsky, which was my mother's maiden name. [INT: Oh my God.] And I remember my mother telling me that when she left her little village, that one cousin ran after them and, "Please take me. Please take me," but they couldn't because they didn't have any more tickets. So a shred of the family was left behind. Well I looked at this guy, and I was convinced that I'd seen him before somewhere. And afterwards I went over to him and I spoke to him, and he's speaking broken English. And I said, "Your name is Ostrovsky?" "Yeah." And I took a deep breath and I said, "Are you Jewish?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "Where did your family come from?" And he named the town and the area. And then I told him. And we were cousins. And I communicated with him afterwards by email back in Russia and asked him if any of my family, distant family, is still alive in Kiev. He did some research and found out that unfortunately all of them had been killed by the Nazis. But he is a Director and a screenwriter in Russia now. [INT: Amazing.]

INT: Your life has been very much informed about, in different levels, about a sense of injustice and correcting injustices. And I was wondering as you were speaking whether or not, how did that connect with you becoming a dramatist? Was it because that was a means to express it or did that come as a, out of a creative impulse and then the rectifying of injustice just became a resource of material for you?

ES: It's an interesting question. I have always felt uncomfortable and rebellious in the presence of bullies. That's because I was the second smallest guy in my group and next to the last to be chosen for anything. And was generally the guy that had the hardest time defending himself against the groups, that I mentioned before they used to parade through the area of Dorchester, Massachusetts, where I lived, the suburb where I lived, looking for Jews, with baseball bats. And so I had a very early rage against bullies and a desire to somehow defeat them. And may explain somewhat the rest of my career with the Directors Guild [Directors Guild of America], in terms of relating to corporations and things. But we can get to that later. [INT: Right. Right.] But I was always attracted to the story of "the worm turns," the Atlas [Charles Atlas] ads, the bully who kicks sand in the face of the little guy who exercises and turns the, turns the story around. And I engaged in that program for a while because I wanted to kick the sand back. And the, actually I was very interested in acting for a long time--this relates to your question. Did a lot of it, a lot of it, on the stage and community theaters and things like that. And I found out that the Directors that I was working with at the time were stronger than I was, as a Director. And that, I guess, started me to say, "Well I want to be a Director, 'cause that's where the power is." And so I started down that route. And after I got out of Boston College, I had, a friend of mine, Boris Sagal, who was a Director member many years ago, who died many years ago in an unfortunate accident, had gone to Yale, Yale Drama School [Yale University School of Drama]. And I wanted to do that. So I applied and I had the recommendation of the President of the University and the Dean of the school and Father Bonn [Fr. John Louis Bonn], and I had all the papers and the grades necessary to do it. And they turned me down. And I couldn't figure out why they turned me down. And I went to Father Bonn and I said, "Why'd they turn me down?" And he looked me square in the eye and he said, "You know why they turned you down." "What are you gonna do about it?"

ES: So I went to Yale [Yale University School of Drama] and I went into the office of Chairman Boyd Smith [Boyd M. Smith] and I said, "I want to speak to Mr. Smith." "Do you have an appointment?" "No. I'd like to see him." "Well you can't see him without an appointment." I said, "Does he ever come out of the office?" "Yes, he does but you can't see him." I said, "Yes I can. If comes through, comes through that door I'll see him." So I sat right there and I sat for about four hours. And he came out of the office and the secretary says, "This gentleman's been waiting to see you." "Oh, do you have an appointment?" "No." And I said, "Dr. Smith, I just would like to speak to you for a few moments if I may. I've come all the way from Boston to do it." He said, "All right. All right." Went in the office. And I said… now here we're at Yale University. It was again, the center of power. And I was in that same psychological state of mind. He said, "What can I do for you?" I said, "I want to come to Yale." "Well just have to apply." I said, "I have applied. You turned me down." "Well there's nothing I can do about that. It was an admissions committee." I said, "Well I want to talk to you about the reasons why. I have the grades. I have these references here." He said, "Really?" "Yeah." I said, "Would you mind reviewing my grade folder again? Please just do that for me 'cause I come all the way from Boston?" He asked for it. And I remember, looking at, looking and I knew he was hunting for a reason and he said, "Would you mind if I had some of the faculty come in here?" "No." They he called in, Mullen, the name was, and a number of other, they all, I remember they all stood around his desk, after they'd received an explanation as to why he’d ask... And they were all looking at my grades. And I said, "Can you find a reason why I have not been accepted?" And there was silence. And I said, "Since you can't find one, I'm gonna tell you why." And there was a shock that went up and down. Somebody--I was being impertinent I'm afraid. And I said, "It's because I'm Jewish and because you have a quota." And I said, "Unless I'm admitted to Yale, I'm gonna go to the Hartford Courant and tell them just what I've told you." You could have heard a pin drop in that room. And Smith eventually, "Well I, there's no need to go that far. I understand you really want to come here?" I said, "Yes I do." He said, "Could you excuse us please?" That, "Would you excuse us please?" That happened once again in my life when I had confronted someone with the truth and the time was requested in order to revise the decision. So I went outside and a few minutes later he called me in. He said, "Okay, you can come to Yale." So I went to Yale. And another battle against the dragon and was, you know, it was victorious. [INT: So your life, in a sense, your early life was like a rehearsal for the work you were ultimately going to do for the creative rights for the Guild [Directors Guild of America]?] I guess, in a way. I guess so. It's a… I, you mentioned the word injustice, earlier. I couldn't have done this if I felt that I was not right, if there wasn't an injustice there. I mean if they had, had given me a good reason that they turned me down I wouldn't have fought it. But they gave me no reason. [INT: Right.] Pardon me.

INT: So you went to Yale [Yale University School of Drama]. You were very active in acting and realized that…

ES: I got in as a Director. [INT: Oh, you got into Yale as a--] As a Director, yes. I had decided at that point that I wanted to… [INT: 'Cause that was a graduate program?] Yes, that's right. [INT: Okay.] Yes. [INT: So then what happened then? As far as your directing is concerned now.] Well I spent three years there, which was the normal time for a master of fine arts. And made lots of friends and contacts. And then--[INT: Were you on scholarship?] No. Oh, wait a minute. No, that's not true. I was. I was on scholarship. As a matter of fact, some of the, some of my fees were earned by being an assistant to Dr. Lewis Knogler [PH], who was a very famous theater historian. And I used to go into the darkroom and photograph, print photographs he had taken in research tours through Europe, to various theaters and took pictures of costumes and sets and so forth. I spent a lot of, a lot time at Yale in a darkroom. And I managed to get some of my fees taken care of. And then in my second year there I got a call from a girl who had been a part of the community theater group that I had been in. She was working for an executive director of a new university near Boston called Brandeis University. Now Brandeis University was founded in a revolution against the practice of Jews being denied admission to medical schools. So they just--[INT: That's about '52 [1952]?] Pardon me? [INT: That was around '52 or...] I think so. [INT: Yeah.] Yeah. I, a little early than that actually. [INT: Yeah.] A year or two earlier than that. And they bought out the, an old veterinarian school, Middle-- called Middlesex College [Middlesex University]. And she called me up and she said the students in the first class, which is having its reunion in about two weeks, by the way, from now, asked me to, would I be interested in helping some of the students form a drama club because there was nobody there. They had a minimum faculty. But a fairly substantial student body had come. So I said, "Okay." And I, on weekends, went down there and all the girls wanted to do LYSISTRATA, Aristophanes' LYSISTRATA. So I, "Okay." And we staged that in a big amphitheater that existed at Waltham [Waltham, Massachusetts]. And a lot of the faculty came and the President, Abram Sachar came and it was quite a production we made of it. I got John Reilly, from Yale, design student to come down and do the, do everything, an aerial ballast and other ones. So I got my friends from Yale to come down and help. And he was sufficiently impressed with the production that they asked me to join the faculty as a instructor. [INT: At Brandeis?] At Brandeis, and to start a theater arts department.

ES: So I used to commute from New Haven [New Haven, Connecticut] to Boston for a small amount of money, which helped with Yale [Yale University School of Drama] costs. And I started a little department there [Brandeis University]. And then the next year it grew, they hired someone else to come in and then they asked Leonard Bernstein to be the chairman of the fine arts department, which included theater arts. And then they had a theater arts festival, in the outdoors, two years. And I had, I was, practically produced that. I directed one or two items at it. And then I was bitten because I had staged kind of concert version of Kurt Weill's, Bertolt Brecht's THREEPENNY OPERA [THE THREEPENNY OPERA]. And with Bernstein conducting the score, Mark Blitzstein had done the lyrics and they all there and had some really first class performers from New York there. And I said, "God, I'd like to do that Off Broadway." But alas, I couldn't raise the 17,000 bucks to do it. And a man who's since become a friend, Stanley Chase did, and he put it into a small Off Bro--Off Broadway theater and it ran for years there. [INT: Oh wow.] And that... [INT: But you, did you or did not direct that?] I just staged it. It was a concert ver--[INT: You didn't, right.] And that got me thinking that I was not gonna get anywhere in the university life. That I had to move out. That incident did. And so I said to them, if you don't build a theater here, I'm leaving. [CLEARS THROAT] Pardon me. [CLEARS THROAT] So, they weren't ready to build a theater and they wanted to build a science building, so Bernstein gave me a letter to, OMNIBUS, which was a, for those that may not remember it, ever see this, a first magazine show at five o'clock on Sunday afternoons, 90 minutes. And so the--[INT: It was a lot of dramatic content.] A lot of dramatic content: little plays, pieces of plays, segments, I did. [INT: Films, like LITTLE FUGITIVE and... Right.] Yeah. Documentaries and things like that. And I got a job as a Production Assistant, 100 bucks a week, sharpening pencils, ordering equipment.

ES: And then one day they had scheduled... I got this job sometime in August and the program was preparing a Christmas show. And Tyrone Guthrie, the great British stage Director, was going to stage it. And it was going to be THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PLAY, which is a medieval playlet. And they were gonna take the, they were gonna do it at the Cloisters up on Hudson River, do it remotely there. Well for some reason, I can't recall what it was, Guthrie couldn't do it, so they were all in a panic at the last minute. And Paul Feigay, who was the Associate Producer, knew of my academic background and called me into an office where there were 15 people sitting around. I walked in the door and sitting next to me in my right, was a little, short little guy, and then all the big executive, the suits were all there. And he said, "Do you know THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PLAY?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Tell us about it." So I was able to rattle off the history of THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PLAY, where it had been done in England, where, what its history was and what its importance was and so forth and so on. And this little guy to my right said, "You surely do know that, don't you?" And they said, "This is Mr. John Gassner. He did the adaptation of it." A famous, as you know, literary critic and historian. And he said, "Would you like to direct it?" I said, "I don't know how to direct with cameras." "Well we'll get you a camera Director. He'll help you." I said, "Sure, I'll do it." And that was when I met Seymour Robbie who was a member of the Guild [Directors Guild of America] and who was the staff Director for OMNIBUS. And so I staged THE SECOND SHEPHERDS' PLAY, loosely. A lot of animals roaming the set in a very improvisational way and seen where he had his hands filled, 'cause I couldn't really understand the disciplines required for camera work. But he was very patient with this idiot who thought he could have animals roaming around the set and what would happen if they took a leak on an Actor's leg. And I told the Actors just to, you know, to play with it. And so that came off and Variety said it was a very sophisticated Christmas show. [LAUGH] [INT: [LAUGH]] And so I continued with them until--[INT: So then did you get an opportunity to continue to direct?] [CLEARS THROAT] Not yet. [CLEARS THROAT]

ES: Sidney Lumet was scheduled to do DARKNESS AT NOON, an Arthur Koestler piece, and later on it was scheduled, ANTIGONE by Sophocles. And suddenly at the last minute they found out they didn't have the rights to do Arthur Koestler’s piece, but they had a cast and so they managed to make the cast in, fit into ANTIGONE. And Sidney was gonna do ANTIGONE. Okay, fine. Now, problem was, three days to go and there was no script. So I was called into the office again and said, "Do you know ANTIGONE?" I said, "Yes." [INT: [LAUGH]] [LAUGH] And, "Do you know, [LAUGH] do you know Sophocles' ANTIGONE?" "Yes." [INT: [LAUGH]] And, "Can you make a script for us?" I said, "Well, I'm not essentially a Writer." "Well, can you make a version for us? Sidney just doesn't want to use 15 people in a chorus, that's all." I said, "Well I can try, do it, take me a few weeks." "You got three days." So they gave me three secretaries. I had a gallon of coffee. I took about four different versions of it and wrote a version of it and a little bit with his input and things he wanted, and that went on the air. [INT: Live?] Live! Oh, live, yeah.

ES: So we were in a production meeting, and Henry May, who was the talented designer, had made some Greek columns of a Corinthian design with very floral tops, and Roman horsehair helmets. And I pointed out that these were, Corinthian was what it was and that the helmets were not Greek. And everybody turned around, 'cause here was this Production Assistant, at a 100 bucks a week, who was a pencil sharpener and equipment orderer, and I was offering these historical details. So I became a consultant [LAUGH] on that. And then I went back to sharpening pencils after the show was over. And then they had a, what they called a subscriber, they weren't sponsors, of OMNIBUS, they were subscribers. And there was one for Scott paper tissue, that was gonna be done with Mort Marshall and they said, "Would you like to direct this?" "You, camera? You do the camerawork." Only a four-minute piece, I couldn't go too wrong. So I did it and I remember that as a reward and an expression of gratitude, Scott Paper Tissue Company [Scott Paper Company] sent me 144 rolls of toilet paper. [LAUGH] [INT: [LAUGH]] So... [LAUGH] [INT: But that's really the moment when you became, in a sense, what led to becoming a Director of a new medium for you?] Anyway, that was my first experience. [INT: And...] Maybe, hope and not prescient in terms of the was a gift that was given to me, gratitude, but…

INT: And did you stay in that medium [television] or did you go back to theater?

ES: During the course of that period, somehow there were two Broadway plays that I did. As a matter--before I ever got to New York, the community experience theater, theater experience I had, led me to do plays from the Greek classics, through Molières, through the Moderns, there was an outdoor community, stock theater, professional stock theater I was associated with on the grounds at Wellesley College. This was all during the time I was at Brandeis [Brandeis University]. So I was fairly comfortable in the theater. And so I had two opportunities to do two Broadway plays, which I did. [INT: Which were?] One was called, I've forgotten which came first now... A SWIM IN THE SEA. And the other one was called, MAYBE TUESDAY. And MAYBE TUESDAY I remember I picked that up in Washington. I replaced another Director and it was a very funny piece by Mel Tolkin and Lucille Kallen who were ingenious comedic Writers. But there were too many laughs in it. You know, it was one joke after another. So however, when we came in to New York, the laughs continued. The laughs were not my doing. They were, they were the cast. I made a couple of adjustments and so forth. But Brooks Atkinson thought the theater was packed and said it that way. [INT: Oh.] But it hadn't been, because it was, they were laughing from the time I first saw the show. So that didn't live long.

INT: So but did you--[ES: So...]--were you thinking of yourself as a theater, a career as a theater Director at that time?

ES: I didn't know where I was at that point. I was doing whatever I could do to stay alive. [INT: I see.] And I did some other things for OMNIBUS, I did, SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER with Sir Michael Redgrave and a number of things. Then I, yeah there was an incident there, which ties to some of these other things I told you. Sir Michael was a superlative Actor. But he was use to taking long lunches. And I had learned, I had learned one thing about, from the OMNIBUS schedule, and that was a respect for time. And he used to come in late at rehearsals. I don't think it was malevolent. I think he was just careless and maybe he was enjoying himself too much at lunch. And he came in... One day I said, "We gotta put a stop to it." So I had all the cast take their places and I said, "We'll just wait here until Sir Michael arrives." And he walked in and he saw everybody waiting and immediately got--everybody was on their mark. And he immediately got the message, apologized profoundly, was never late again. But the reason I did that, was again, was to equate the power. Here was a guy who was a worldwide star, and I felt maybe was impressing himself on our schedule. But other than that he was wonderful. And...

INT: So when did you start to be, really begin to think of yourself as a Director with a camera? Whether it was--

ES: Well I guess it was somewhere during that period, probably with SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER. And then I got a call sometime during that period from an Agent to come out to California and to talk to Bert Leonard [Herbert B. Leonard], who was the Producer at that time of a program called NAKED CITY and ROUTE 66, “And would I like to do ROUTE 66?” I said, "I've never done film before." "That's all right, you've done camera before. You'll know what to do." So I went to New Orleans and I did the first ROUTE 66 and then... [INT: Your first or their first?] It was their third. It was my first. First time I'd really done any... film professionally.

INT: Now during this period, what was your consciousness of movies and films and, was that something you were following or was it off in a corner somewhere? Did, was it something you aspired to? Talk about films that may have impressed you at that point.

ES: Well there are a number of different questions posed there. I remember a number of films that had impressed me for various reasons. But if you're asking me whether I aspired to be a feature film Director 'til... No I was just trying to make a living, trying to stay alive in a world that I considered to be much larger than I could handle. [INT: Did you have a family then?] No, I did not. [INT: Okay.] I was living a happy bachelor life. Which may have been distracting me from further goals I guess. I don't know. Any rate, one movie I remember was KING KONG, 'cause I was sitting in the theater with my grandfather, who spoke no English. He took me to see the movie. And there's a scene where King Kong attacks the other animal and in my childhood memory I recall thinking, it's not true, but he's ripping the skin off the other one, but anyway, he gave him a whack and my father, my grandfather, in this silent theater, shouted out, [MAKES NOISE] like that and the whole theater broke up laughing. And I remembered that moment. And I said, I remember thinking of the power of the screen. Of this thing happening on the screen being so real, that my aged grandfather could get involved on behalf of the hero gorilla. And that impressed me. [INT: This was at what point in your life?] Oh this was much earlier. [INT: Much earlier.] This was probably, I don't know, seven, eight, something like that. And then I remember A GARDEN OF ALLAH, this, just a movie that was terribly romantic and very beautiful, with Charles Boyer. And I remember Frank Capra's movies. And then I remember seeing DR. EHRLICH'S MAGIC BULLET, with Edward G. Robinson, with my father, who taught me a lot about medicine as a result. And then I began to see how, movies, historical movies, LOUIS PASTEUR [THE STORY OR LOUIS PASTEUR] and DR. EHRLICH'S MAGIC BULLET, could really teach me things that I never knew otherwise. And a great effect it had on me. And so later I became very interested in history and in the accuracy. Matter of fact, I'm naming names here in this interview probably for no other reason then the sense I just want some kind of accurate history to be, not that anybody's gonna particularly interested in it except me. But it's there. [INT: So it's, the film's about the doctors, medicine was a nice combination for you to go on to another medium and still serve the memory of your father?] Right. That's right. So...