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From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York were a popular summer escape from New York City. The resorts needed entertainment, and talent agents like Jack Segal made their living booking comedians, singers, and novelty acts there.
Here, Jack’s son, Mort Segal, and daughter, Joan Feldman, remember their dad.
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Piece Description
From the 1940s through the 1960s, the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York were a popular summer escape from New York City. The resorts needed entertainment, and talent agents like Jack Segal made their living booking comedians, singers, and novelty acts there.
Here, Jack’s son, Mort Segal, and daughter, Joan Feldman, remember their dad.
Broadcast History
NPR Morning Edition 7/29/11
Transcript
Mort Segal (MS): He employed performers that the other agents would never use or couldn't even find, like the lilliputian stripper, blind xylophone player...
Joan Feldman (JF): He had dog acts.
MS: He had dog acts.
JF: Sometimes the hotels would complain...
MS: Right.
JF: Why are you sending me something like that?
MS: Like that...
JF: That's terrible...
MS: Yeah.
JF: But he felt for every person, there was a show somewhere and somebody would like them.
MS: In the heyday of the Catskills, the performers slept on pool tables, on the stage, in the chicken coop, and dad would never have any of that. So, he used to say to the hotels, part of your contract has to be you have to give them the room. And when he went up the first weekend, after he got all the performers situated, he realized he didn't have a place to stay.
JF: Place to stay. That's right.
MS: So, a cop us...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:Time now for StoryCorps, recording America's stories…
From the 1940s through the 60s, the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York were a popular summer escape from the city.
There were more than 500 hotels and resorts in the region, which was known as "the Borscht Belt."
...
And they needed to entertain their guests.
A talent agent named Jack Segal [SEA-gull] made his living booking novelty acts there.
And recently, his son, Mort Segal, and daughter, Joan Feldman, remembered their dad at StoryCorps.
OUTRO:Mort Segal and Joan Feldman, remembering their father, Jack Segal, at StoryCorps in New York.
Their conversation will be archived along with all StoryCorps interviews at the Library of Congress…
The podcast is at NPR-dot-ORG.
This is NPR News.
Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manhattan Minuet | Raymond Scott | The Music of Raymond Scott: Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights. | Sony | 1992 | 02:40 |
Additional Credits
NPR, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Principal Financial Group
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Erin Gleeson
Posted on August 01, 2011 at 07:21 PM | Permalink
Great little character study
Mort and Joan told the story so seamlessly. They seemed to click the pieces in place together. This was really enjoyable.