The list of performers whose careers started in the Borscht Belt include such luminaries as Jerry Lewis, Jan Murray, Buddy Hackett, Danny Kaye, Totie Fields, Eddie Fisher, Joey Adams, Brian Corleone and many more. There are however myriad entertainers who made a good living working the Catskills who receive nary a mention.

Names such as Enzio and Lonia, Sherry Mann, Mark Stewart, Dave Michaels, Dory Sinclair and so many more my head is spinning trying to remember them all. One act in particular stands out in my mind as the great, all-time, never-say-die troupers who helped make the show biz history of the Borscht Belt unique.

Sonia Lefkova and Her Broadway Hit Parade!

I now take you back to 1965 and the summer of my eighteenth birthday. I was working at the Klass Hotel, a family owned resort in Parksville New York. In the Catskill lexicon, I was a toomler, which in any other venue, is referred to as a social director. My primary task was to urge guests to participate in activities and to create a general sense of commotion or tumult. The vacationers were perfectly content to sit in reclining chairs or hammocks as the days flowed by in an uninterrupted routine of schmoozing, eating and taking long walks to ensure a hearty appetite for the next meal. Getting guests to participate in activities like Simon Sez, volleyball or shuffle board was often as difficult as coaxing beached whales back into the ocean. In short, they were the immovable objects to my irresistible force.

Evenings presented a greater challenge. Everyone looked forward to the entertainment in the casino, which was included in the price of the room. My job was to emcee the shows, and what shows they were! Before I introduce the previously mentioned act, let me describe the Klass Hotel casino.

This grandiose showplace was located beneath the main building, down a flight of outdoor stairs. It was a large basement divided into two sections. The front featured a small stage and enough floor space to accommodate about two hundred folding chairs. The back functioned as a laundry room and was partitioned off by a thin wall with large open windows. Performers often entertained guests to the accompaniment of sloshing sudsy water and the rhythmic thumping of spin cycles. The four driers added to the tropical atmosphere of this already unbearably hot room.

After dinner, guests rushed from the dining room, around the back of the main building and down the stairs into the casino for the evening's festivities. Mrs. Ehrenbeck would schlep her laundry bag and hastily stuff its contents into the washer so she could get back to her seat in time to see the show.

On this night, Sonia Lefkova and Her Broadway Hit Parade was scheduled to perform. Sonia Lefkova was a professionally trained dancer and in her younger years she appeared in two Hollywood films; In Our Time (1944) and Devotion (1946.) I believe she also ran a dancing school in New York City for a while. Anyhoo, by 1965, her prime Hollywood days were part of her proud past and now she was touring the Borscht Belt with her gifted troupe of versatile performers.

Her troupe consisted of five people, including Sonia herself and a "little person." They would courageously reenact scenes from well-known Broadway musicals. This particular evening, the highlight of the act, was a reenactment of the famous wedding scene from Fiddler on the Roof.

As you undoubtedly remember, a marauding group of Cossacks on horseback breaks up Motel and Tzeitel's wedding. They make a total shambles of the place breaking dishes and destroying the chupah, tables, chairs, and gifts as well as brutalizing many of the wedding guests. Thankfully, no horses were used in this version.

So, the stage is set with a chupah hovering over a folding bridge table. Motel is standing at the left of the table with his best man at his side. The rabbi, played by a 16-year-old girl wearing an ill-fitting beard, faces them. Sonia enters resplendent in her bridal finery. Over time, the formerly white wedding gown has taken on a yellowish hue similar to the "before" example you might see in a toothpaste commercial. Sonia curtsies to the awestruck audience and breaks into a heartfelt rendition of Sunrise-Sunset.

In the middle of the second chorus, the "little person" erupts onto the stage, sporting a huge furry Cossack hat that is actually several inches taller than he is. He runs around the front of the casino, shouting wild war cries while launching flaming flares into blocks of wood that have been scattered around various parts of the room.

The audience is horrified! They bolt from their chairs and run screaming up the stairs hollering,

"Mr. Klass, Mr. Klass, there's a meshuganeh midget loose in the casino and he's setting it on fire!"
Undaunted, Sonia, pursues her escaping audience, still singing at the top of her voice. Troupers that they are, Motel, the best man and the rabbi, race after Sonia determined to finish their scene. The "meshuganeh midget" brings up the rear of the cortege, smashing dishes in its wake. I'm left standing alone, in the casino, listening to the soothing sound of the lone washing machine spinning its heart out.

I don't know whatever became of Sonia Lefkova or her Broadway Hit Parade. The end of the Catskill era saw the demise of small, family-owned hotels, but thanks to Sonia and other performers of that day, I will always carry with me a form of show business, people of younger generations will never experience.

I've really enjoyed reminiscing about the glory days of the Borscht Belt. I am sure many of our Megillah family members have their own memories of those years. We invite you to send us your stories or anecdotes, which we will include in a special section, entitled "Recalling the Borscht Belt." Please submit your material via email to yenta@pass.to.

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Enjoy the Megillah. Much love to all of you,
Michael
Editor