In 1968 at my cousin Joshua’s bar mitzah reception, a woman suddenly started screaming from the back of the room “You dirty kikes ruined Hollywood! You should all be sent back to Delaware where you belong!”
The silence and confusion that ensued was broken when my uncle Myron bellowed “Jesus Christ it’s that Fairy from Wizard of Oz!” and sure enough, at the back of the room stuffing her face full of blintzes was Billie Burke. She was immediately rushed by women seeking her autograph and in the end she led us all in the Hava Nagila before the ambulance came and took her. She was suffering from dementia by then.
