My mother’s mother, who had been the girl in the arrow shirt ad, a medallion I believe, was a mother of two when the Depression struck. My grandfather, a dashing, if short, gentleman, was in the kind of business that involved a great many meetings abroad and many handshakes.
My mother was very beautiful. At nine years old she had to support her family because, in the Depression, the handshakes didn’t work anymore. She went on stage, modeled and was the little girl on the "Amos ‘n’ Andy" radio show.

Exhausted by ten years of career, she married my father at 19 and vowed never to work again.

My father’s father, who, family legend has it, was a half breed — a rare mix of Jew and Cherokee or Cree — played the piano for silent movies, and by the time the Depression came had his little cigar store at 1600 Broadway. My father’s mother was a mother of two when the depression struck.

My father went to work at 15, becoming a press photographer in New York. I still have his badges. He moved out to L.A., shot stars and studio heads, became a cameraman during the war and then a producer.

When I was a baby, something that happened to them was worse than the Depression: the House un-American Activities Committee investigations, which divided Hollywood. My parents were never communists, but the level of hatred and mistrust in their company town made them decide to get the hell out of the States. They moved to Paris with my mother’s parents.

When times got tough again — because they always do – my mother gave a big sigh and played Charles Boyer’s secretary in a Four Star Playhouse shot in Paris.

Then times got good. Then they got bad again. Then they got almost good. Then they got absurdly good for certain people — and never quite good enough for the rest.

All I have ever seen is cycles, good and bad, each one perceived as an unchangeable reality while it was happening.