Shakespeare, Wall Street and My Arabian Nights Adventures: The Fool in King Lear

By George M. Goritz

The actor does not create but reacts to the playwrights moments. The dancer glides on a stage to the choreographers movements. The musician and singer, each performs to the composers lead, while painter and writer serves those, who come to see or read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496952073

George M. Goritz

I have written an autobiography that may be of great interest to those contemplating career changes and are looking for ways to overcome challenges on the road to success, no matter what stage of life. Personality and perseverance are sprinkled throughout my text in a shower of fun and are the overall theme of this book. Moreover, it provides an insider's look into three intriguing arenas of my life: The New York and London Theater, Wall Street, and the culture of wealthy Arabians. My wife and I were joined in our London digs by several fellow students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), one of them being the soon-to-be-famous Peter O’ Toole. Peter and I soon became good friends, and he inspired me throughout my acting career and life. I won the right to attend RADA by audition, after four years at The Actor’s Co. of Chicago, to master the Shakespearean style. This education enabled me to play many roles in classical plays, especially with the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario-Canada. Obviously, one of the messages of my book, Shakespeare, Wall Street, and My Arabian Nights Adventures, is that education is a great aid in achievement. From RADA, I developed my lifelong ability to work hard at clearly understanding human nature. This talent and the additional ability for clear-speech projection, supported by a rich sense of humor, opened many doors for me in high finance and, eventually, led me to establish powerful Mid-East business and social connections.

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© 2014 George M. Goritz. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  02/23/2016

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5206-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5205-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5207-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014919895

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

The actor does not create but reacts to the playwright’s moments.

The dancer glides on a stage to the choreographer’s movements.

The musician and singer each performs to the composer’s lead

while painter and writer serve those who come to see or read.

—George Goritz

FOREWORD

I have written an autobiography that may be of great interest to those contemplating career changes and are looking for ways to overcome challenges on the road to success, no matter what stage of life.

Personality and perseverance are sprinkled throughout my text in a shower of fun and are the overall theme of this book. Moreover, it provides an insider's look into three intriguing arenas of my life: The New York and London Theater, Wall Street, and the culture of wealthy Arabians.

My wife and I were joined in our London digs by several fellow students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), one of them being the soon-to-be-famous Peter O’ Toole. Peter and I soon became good friends and he inspired me throughout my acting career and life. I won the right to attend RADA by audition, after four years at The Actor’s Co. of Chicago, to master the Shakespearean style. This education enabled me to play many roles in classical plays, especially with the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario-Canada.

Obviously, one of the messages of my book, Shakespeare, Wall Street, and My Arabian Nights Adventures, is that education is a great aid in achievement. From RADA, I developed my lifelong ability to work hard at clearly understanding human nature. This talent and the additional ability for clear-speech projection, supported by a rich sense of humor, opened many doors for me in high finance and, eventually, led me to establish powerful Mid-East business and social connections.

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The Fool in King Lear

ACT ONE

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Grandfather Spiro Goritsas & his brothers

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Ma & PA wedding 1925

Angela Gliatas-Mike Goritz

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Tony & Me in Detroit, before moving to chicago

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Me selling flowers in a pub

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Me in Foustanella

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on the Hyde Park football bench

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Boxing in the Navy

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Margie -model in Chicago

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Mom & Dad- Tony & Eleanor- Margie & Me on our wedding

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Dayle Rodney - Model

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Harry Mark Petrakis- Writer

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Pope with cousin Margaret Williams

All the world is a stage. And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, I recited proudly to my brother, my cousins, and my first audience many years ago when I was nine years old. At that time in Chicago, I held the role of a young tutor in my own play. I told stories, read a lot, and had great dreams—but I never realized that four centuries prior, Shakespeare had completely pegged me and my personality.

A lovely teenage girl overheard my funny stories and said, You have a nice personality, Georgie!

What does that mean? I asked my cousins as she walked away.

That’s something nice, they responded. My cousins weren’t lying to me. They all knew that I wouldn’t continue with the make-them-up-as-you-go-along stories that I was noted for if they fibbed.

Hearing that, I developed my first crush, sitting on the steps of our apartment house on the South Side of Chicago. It was a nice feeling, having this thing called personality.

At the beginning of the Great Depression in the early 1930s, my father moved us from Detroit to Chicago after he lost his restaurant. The saying goes, If you can’t make it in Chicago, you can’t make it anywhere. So we said our farewells to our cousins, the Kappas family, and went off to start a new life. Dad made sure that we lived within a block of the park; it reminded him of his homeland and enabled him to walk to his heart’s content. Later, my two children and I continued this habit as well.

Before leaving Detroit for Chicago, I recalled a not so funny incident at my expense when I was in my kindergarten class room looking out of the window. The teacher asked all the kids to sit down. Well since I didn’t understand her I just gaped at the out door view. Bothered by my ignoring act she tapped on my shoulder rather vigorously. With that I turned around and told her AH CHAISE (to defecate). That evening my dear mother, loaded my mouth with black pepper after the teacher’s inquiry. Dear me. It would have been less painful for me to have assimilated a little sooner with the English language, since indeed I am a native of this great country of ours.

My half sister, the lovely Verona, came for a two-day visit on the day my grade school, A. O. Sexton, gave its annual dance. She wanted me to escort her to it. Are you kidding? That’s sissy stuff, I told her. She retorted and claimed that all good football players learn to shift and dodge better after a dance session; with that, I started dancing, and my days of glory as a tailback scoring TDs—and scoring with the lovely cheerleaders—started as well.

With Verona staying with us, my folks snuggled in the large bed in the one-bedroom apartment while Tony and I cuddled on the couch in the living room. It was nice having Verona huddled on the couch with me the first night, but Mom took no chances and had my big sis bundle up with my kid brother the second night. I wondered who would be the lucky guy to nuzzle with Vee if she stayed a third night.

When my brother, Tony, was ten years old and I was a year older, we started earning real money by selling flowers in various restaurants, bars, and saloons on the weekends. Dad didn’t want us to shine shoes for a living, but it was okay for us to go out from 7:00 p.m. to midnight with the bouquets. In the morning, he would venture downtown on South Wabash and purchase various flowers, such as roses, gardenias, and carnations, along with greenery and colorful ribbons, and he would bring it all back for Mom to create the gorgeous corsages we sold. I liked selling flowers; it was a challenge but fun. In fact, I thought that it would be a good occupation for me. When a customer offered me a job selling his product once I grew up, I said no to him after finding it was marketing cemetery plots.

No matter how late Tony and I were out, Ma wouldn’t hit the sack until her men were safely back home. For her, our return was a welcome relief; for us, it meant work well done. I was only sixteen years old when I made my first hundred dollars by selling all my flowers before the New Year’s clock struck twelve.

The South Side was my domain. I journeyed by bus to get to from one pub to another. I didn’t have the luxury of an automobile, like my competitors did. Nevertheless, on one occasion, I managed to sell eighteen bouquets to their two in spite of their getting there first undertakings.

Every year on Saint Patrick’s Eve, Mom would fill the bathtub with cold water to soak white carnations in green dyes overnight. Then, the next morning, before our turn in the tub, she would take the now-green flowers and transform them into lovely bouquets. On Saint Patrick’s Day, we McGoritz clan would sell the lovelies to all who claimed to be Irish. Erin go Bragh.

Another plus for Tony and me, besides making money selling flowers, was that we didn’t take up smoking. Roses are red, and so were our eyes because of other people’s smoke. I did, however, take a puff or two on my pipe, until years later, when my son Christopher threw the darn thing out of the car window on our way to our log cabin in Vermont. This brave action was met with joy and laughter, as my family would never again be bathed in the fumes.

Even after working for many hours in hot kitchens as a chef, my father usually came home with that wonderful smile of his, and sometimes, as tired as he was, he would sit down with Tony and me and relate some of his stories. He would tell us how, as a young boy shepherding his flock from one pasture to another in the mountains of Corinth, Greece, he trespassed in some of his neighbors’ fields on occasion. Once, he was confronted by one of the neighbors, a young shepherd who ordered him to go around the other way. My dad wouldn’t and gave the young shepherd a smack that could have launched a thousand ships. From then on, Dad won the right to wander without any disturbance whatsoever. Like his father before him, he was the king of the mountains.

Dad also told us that whenever he felt sleepy in the mountains, he would take out his long-bladed knife, mount a flat board on top of it, and stab it into the earth. He would place his head on the board, and whenever a lamb wandered from its domain, the knife would quiver and awaken Dad to redirect the lamb.

Dad left home for America at age seventeen and never returned to his beloved mountains. Like many other immigrants in those difficult years in America, he worked on railroads, in mines, and finally in restaurants. Along with his two brothers, my uncles John and Angelo, he settled in Detroit, my first hometown. My mother, Angela, on the other hand, was brought over from Greece by her father, Tony. They moved in with her sister’s family in Chicago. I don’t know how my father heard about Angela Gliatas, but their meeting was one of those love-at-first-sight romances. When she saw his dark, curly hair above his handsome face, she immediately said yes when he asked her, Will you marry me?

***

When my father was a young boy in Greece and it came time for education, he opted out and gave his slot to his younger brother, Angelo. Years later, I often saw my father’s sadness as he picked up a newspaper and couldn’t tell what was written within it. He enjoyed hearing the news from his favorite radio broadcaster, Gabriel Heatter, with his saying, There’s good news tonight! Dad laughed when he heard that the well-known Mr. G had received a letter with no name on the envelope; it contained only two pictures—one of an electric heater for warmth and the other of the angel Gabriel blowing his horn.

Because he regretted not getting an education, Dad made sure that his boys, Tony and me, not only went to grade school but also attended Greek school. But it was Mom who suggested that it was best for us to go to the English school each and every day from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and then go to the Greek school three nights a week from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. We are Americans living in America, and we must act like Americans! she asserted.

The Greek school at Sts. Constantine and Helen Church was named Koraes and was the first place where I acted. I played a Greek hero for the celebration of Greek Independence Day on March 25. In the script, upon being captured, the Turks told my character to change my nationality to theirs if I wanted to live. In response, my dying line was A Greek I was born, and a Greek I will die. Well, at that dramatic moment, and in a kidding fashion, I changed my line to A Greek I was born, and an Irishman … eh, a Chinaman … I mean Italian. By that time, the priest had lost his stovepipe headpiece, the audience had gasped, and my mother’s cold look had heated up. That was the last time I was cast in a Saint Connie theatrical production.

On another happy occasion at school, my three cousins—Spiro, Gus, and little George—my brother, Tony, and I joined the school’s girls in the hallway when we were all summoned there via the PA system. (My cousin’s little sister, Stella, wasn’t old enough to be in the hallway lineup of girls, but pretty Stella grew up to be their role model. Talk about personality; Stella had it all.) We boys were elated at our good luck until Deacon Glynos asked me why we were there. I told him that he had called for us. You see, Goritsas, our last name in Greek, sounds close to koritshas, girls in Greek, especially over a PA. Getting our extended palms reddened by the deacon’s whacks was well worth it after those precious but brief moments with the koritshas.

A switch is a switch, no matter the occasion. Mine took place on my very first date when Koraes, my Greek school, held a hayride and barn dance that my cousin Spiro and I were invited to. His date was Jane, and mine was Vicky. The girls didn’t mind kissing on the horse-drawn wagon on our way to the red barn, and after the dance, they apparently didn’t mind