It turned out that Ethel’s father Jack Sussman was a card carrying member of the American Communist Party and had been since the thirties. In his younger days he had associated with Paul Robeson and Woody Guthrie and at the time of the Committee on un-American Activities under the leadership of the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy he had been hauled up in front of one of the hearings. Jack was a dentist in the Bronx and his exposure as a ‘commie’ led to some interesting decisions for his clients. Many of them tried to remove their custom to other dentists but found that these were mostly friends of Jack and wouldn’t treat them. They were left with the choice between their toothache and being treated by a red, in most cases Jack said that the toothache won! Jack didn’t spend a lot of money on his office, when a film crew came to the town looking for locations and enquired where the oldest and barest dental office was in the town for some reason everyone they asked in the profession pointed them at Jack. They visited him, liked what they saw and used it for a crucial scene in the film they were making. They also paid Jack to coach the male lead in the correct use of the instruments. The film was ‘The Marathon Man’ the star was Laurence Olivier and the scene was where he tortured Dustin Hoffman in the dentist’s chair!

One evening Ethel took me to a jazz club on Fifth Avenue just above Washington Square where a lady called Alberta Hunter sang twice nightly, five nights a week. Ethel didn’t tell me what I was in for when we went into the club. It was a very plain room, no frills at all and the main seating was on long benches at matching tables on the right as you went in. To the left there was a piano and a couple of smaller tables. We settled down with a couple of beers and after a short wait a man came in supporting an incredibly old and frail looking black woman. He managed to get her across to the microphone and she grabbed the stand to support herself while he sat down at the piano. He played a few bars and suddenly there was a miracle, Alberta (for it was she) straightened up, squared her shoulders and launched into her repertoire. I swear she shed thirty years when she started to sing, she was wonderful. She had been an established blues singer during the Second World War and I think either wrote or first performed “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out”. She fell out of favour and went nursing for 25 years but was then re-discovered, re-united with her old pianist and established in the jazz club. I got to know her quite well and corresponded with her for years. She was about eighty years old then but was possibly the sexiest woman I have ever met in my life!'

Ethel and I went to the bar frequently and after she had finished her set Alberta used to sit at a small table in the corner so one night I doorstepped her. After that we always had a drink with her when we were in there and she told us a lot about her early years and how she dropped out of favour. Just after I left NY she fell and broke her hip and that's when we started corresponding. I'll still have the letters in my files I think. She was an interesting woman and when she sang you were riveted!  Something about the voice and the experience behind it. She had it hard in her early days but it was good to see her get recognition before she died.

Sorry about that kids, Brad and I drifted off piste!

 
 


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk