MY LIFE IN PHOTOS - CHILDHOOD FRIENDS
Mark Greenberg, my friend since 5th grade, has been a constant supporting and guiding presence in my life from the age of 10. Here he is in high school looking very cool, foreshadowing a life in which he actually became very cool.
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Me and Mark during a visit to Berkeley, California where he went to college. His move from Detroit challenged me deeply and inspired my own departure a year later when I went to NYU. I never looked back.
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Larry White, my best friend from high school, and me on a visit to Disneyland when I was at NYU. When we left our shared Detroit apartment at 678 West Warren, Mark moved to Berkeley, California and Larry went traveling in Europe. I was left to experience a terrible solitude in Detroit. Their freedom showed me what freedom looked like. Without them I could never have left Detroit.
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Rona Koretz, my first girlfriend in 2nd grade, at home with her mom and brother Alan.
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Rona, fifty years later, has remained a constant friend and presence in my life. She became an amazing artist and one of her paintings, 8’x6’, still hangs in my home.
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Me and Rona visiting Yosemite, Rona’s favorite place on earth.
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Filmmaker Brian De Palma and his friend Jared Martin. Brian directed my first film at NYU called JENNIFER and bequeathed me the apartment he shared with Jared at 65 Bank Street in NYC when he moved out. It was a life-changing gift. Brian has had an outsized presence in my life and was the single most important force encouraging Blanche and me to move to Hollywood.
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Bob DeNiro and Martin Scorsese. Marty was a friend and classmate from NYU. Bob starred in HI MOM, a film Brian De Palma directed. I was Brian’s assistant director. I would later write a film for DeNiro to direct when I arrived in Hollywood. We called it THE WHITNEY HOUSTON project. He and Quincy Jones were going to co-direct but it never got made.
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Barry Kaplan, a photographer friend from Detroit and roommate in NY, was, among other things, friends of Salvador Dali and Timothy Leary. It was his relationship with Tim Leary and his access to the purest LSD on the planet that ultimately changed my life. This was the only photo I have a Barry but its blurryness is not out of keeping with our journey together.
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I met David Moscovitz as an award-winning writer at NYU. He was the best talker I ever knew. We would go out to the Waverly Diner on 6th Avenue for lunch and still be in the same booth talking away at dinner. He encouraged me to be a writer. I am forever grateful.
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Bob Fiore was a cameraman on some of the early films I worked on. He was part of a group of people who lived on Waverly Street in NY I call the Waverly group. Bob went on to shoot films like PUMPING IRON about Arnold Schwarzenegger, GIMME SHELTER documenting the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, and Brian De Palmas film, GREETINGS.
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George and Cheryl Subkoff played an enormous role in my life and Blanche’s. George guided me through my LSD return and Cheryl and Blanche were roommates and fellow leathersmiths. They introduced me to Blanche when I got back from India. It was a fateful meeting. We have been together ever since. George and Cheryl remain neighbors and an important part of our lives. Their children, Tara and Daniel are like our own.
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George and Cheryl Subkoff at Disney World with their daughter Tara. I am with Josh. We met there totally by accident after several years apart. It was a wonderful reunion.
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George and Cheryl with their daughter Tara, son Daniel and granddaughter Grace. Extended family.
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Mark as a dapper middle-aged book publisher. He became head of publishing for the J.Paul Getty Museum and we reunited in LA after many years on different coasts.
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I love this photo. Larry and his wife Jane are on the left with their first child, Becky. Mark is in the middle. And then Josh, Blanche and me. Three Detroit boys moving on in the world.
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Larry, me, Blanche and Mark at dinner in the middle of our lives.
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Larry, a lawyer for the State of California, and me during a visit to see him during his time in Berkeley.
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Mark, Leonie Kessler, Arnold Kessler, and Larry. Arnold was a roommate at 678 West Warren in Detroit. Leonie, his second wife, was one of the great additions to our circle.
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Larry as an “old” friend.
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A recent photo of me and Larry.
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Me, Blanche and Mark in our prime.
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David and Tracy Saltzman, old friends (and their daughter Sadie Mae). I knew David’s dad Alan from elementary school and his mom Susan sat next to me in high school. We are all still connected.
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Arkady and Yelena Elterman, friends from Russia who introduced Blanche and me to an amazing coterie of fellow Russians all of whom have filled and enriched our lives.
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Debbie Freedman and her second husband Bill. Debbie, an amazing painter, worked for me at the Whitney Museum and remains a friend to this day.
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Blanche (second from right) and her oldest friend Joan (second from left) and other college friends. Joan and Blanche have been best friends since the first grade.
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Joan and her husband Gary Laser. They and their three children are woven deeply into our lives.
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