Audrey Abramovitz: A life in acting

Audrey Abramovitz had long set her heart on becoming a movie star, so as a first step in this direction she changed her name to Ada Avalon. Her decision was a source of much aggravation (heartburn included) to old Mr Abramovitz, who in any case had serious misgivings about his daughter’s choice of career path. Mrs Abramovitz, though less attached to the family surname than her husband, shared his disrespect for the entertainment world. It was peopled, she thought, by a bunch of no-goodniks, lowlifes, tsatskes,richtike scheyres and chazerim, all dancing their way to Gehenom.

But Audrey, now Ada, carried the family gene for obstinacy and stuck to her guns. An actor she would be (not even an actress, I ask you) and despite charges that she was burying her parents before their time, bringing ruination on the family and, worst of all, foregoing the possibility of marrying a mensch – a professional, or at least someone with a university education (even an architect would do) – she remained adamant. Exhortations, curses and attacks of breathlessness broke over her like waves over the Rock of Gibraltar.

So it came to pass that Ada joined the Selma Glicksman School of Drama and Dance, and being a sheyne meydel with histrionic charm, clear diction and the ability to move gracefully, she soon came to the attention of a talent scout by the name of Monty (‘the Moustache’) Kuper, who arranged for her to be given a quasi-leading role as Cleopatra’s maidservant in a modern-day version of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ set in a reformatory for young women.

Ada was a hit. One critic noted that she had delighted the audience by turning Shakespeare’s tragedy into a scintillating comedy, adding that not only had she stolen every scene but also robbed it blind. The lady playing Cleopatra (the renowned Hester Strickland), having been eclipsed by such a display of favouritism, felt justifiably aggrieved. She developed a lifelong farribel towards Ada, but our heroine, seasoned by years of Abramovitz family life, remained untouched by such narriskeit.

Monty the Moustache knew when he was onto a good thing. Before you could say Jack Ruby he had swooped on Ada and appropriated her for himself. The couple were soon married and Ada’s acting career went through the roof. She graduated from stage to screen, starring in such gut-wrenching thrillers as ‘The Screamer in the Night’ and ‘The Rise and Fall of the Heavy Breather’ but perhaps her most memorable performance was as a nun turned beauty Queen in ‘Madonna and the Seven Thieves’. Along the way she and Monty acquired two beautiful little baby boys, whom they named Romeo and Alfonso. More about them in a moment.

At this juncture our story takes a tragic turn n’doggedacht’. Fast forward two decades and we find Ada and Monty spitting and snarling at each other like a couple of Tasmanian Devils. Ada’s mother, who had re-entered the stage on the arrival of the two little eyniklach took the side of her daughter (naturally) and proceeded to savage Monty with as much energy as she could muster. Her presence in the Kuper household proved to be the enzyme catalysing the breakdown of the matrimonial molecule. On a dark and stormy night Monty fled the scene, taking with him as many of the couple’s movable assets as he could cram into the boot of his Mercedes Benz sports car and was never seen again except by a very few people who kept shtum about his whereabouts.

We now return to Romeo and Alfonso. When the lads reached puberty they made life choices consonant with their blossoming personalities. Romeo developed a passion for extreme frumkeyt. He ‘made Aliyah’ as the expression has it, and changed his surname from Kuper to Kaponi. Some years after joining a yeshiva he settled down to live joyfully with his wife Bracha, and went on to father seven plus children (an eighth on the way,keynenhora).

Alfonso also became a zealot, but of a different complexion. Having converted to Catholicism, he trained as a landscape gardener and fell deeply in love with a local delivery man. The two bochers went on to lead a harmonious but clandestine life together in a collective settlement called Cherem.

Ada and her mother continued to share an apartment in gloomy togetherness. They sat for hours on end poring over the family photo albums, where Ada could admire the many photos of herself as a glamorous young actress (sorry, actor). Needless to say, all images of Monty the Moustache had been carefully excised from the collection.