George Chakiris - My West Side Story: A Memoir

AN EDITOR NAMED ELLERY SEDGWICK ONCE SAID, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES ought to begin with . I smiled when I came across that, because I get it. Weve all read memoirs in which the author goes into such exhaustive detail about their childhood that were already tired of them by the time they reach puberty.

Every life, like every good story, has a backdrop that gives it depth and context and texture, but I promise to do my best to accomplish that without assuming youre curious about what I wore on my first day of kindergarten.

My parents, Steven and Zoe Chakiris, were extraordinary people. Somehow they managed to build a strong, loving, committed marriage and family from the worlds most unromantic courtshipor, to put it more accurately, no courtship at all.

My beautiful father (center) at age fourteen

My paternal grandparents immigrated to America from a Greek village in Asia Minor with their children when my uncle Andy was fourteen and my father was twelve.

Eight years later my grandfather, finding himself with two sons of marrying age, did what any responsible, self-respecting Greek patriarch would do: He traveled back to that Greek village in Asia Minor, retrieved two attractive, appropriate young women, and presented them to Dad and Uncle Andy with an unceremonious, This ones for you, and this ones for you.

Incredibly, that worked. For both couples. For a lifetime. No protests, no hesitation, no questions asked. The only comment I remember my mother ever making about it was, Im glad I got the good-looking one.

She also got the sweetest, most devoted, most responsible man Ive ever known. My father was an irresistible combination of dreamer and realist, a hard-working man with a beautiful singing voice and the soul of an artist. His sister, my aunt Sophia, wrote a book about our family in which she said that Dad grew up wanting to be an actor, which always fascinated mewhat on earth would have inspired a young boy in a small Greek village in Asia Minor to even think of such a thing? Then again, he obviously had an adventurous streak. He used to get on a train from time to time when he and his family were living in Florida, not to run away from home but just to explore, and I have a picture of him and a couple of his friends when he was fifteen and dressed like a cowboy. He had a great sense of humor, an infectious laugh, and the worlds worst poker face. My brother Harry and I played a lot of pinochle with him, and we never had to wonder how he felt about the hand hed been dealt.

My mother was one of those rare people who was born with a natural moral and ethical compass, and who could have fit in perfectly at a truck stop diner or Buckingham Palace. No matter where we went, everyone lit up when they saw her, as if she was the one person they were hoping to run into, because she was just so wonderful to be around. She was also a brilliant seamstress and had the patience of a saint with me and my siblings, which cant always have been easyMom was forty-five when she gave birth to my youngest sister Athena, whos still my closest friend and confidant, and my teenage sisters made sure she knew how mortified they were to have a pregnant mom.

These two world-class parents worked hard to support their family, and they raised seven children who never doubted for a moment that we were loved, we were safe, and we were cared for. We were very blessed.

For the first three years of my life, we lived upstairs from my grandfathers confectionery and beer garden in Norwood, Ohio. I remember a patio with cherry trees and wrought iron tables and chairs... icy, snowy, bitterly cold winters... the Ohio River overflowing its banks... and literally being a kid in a candy store, stealing as much as I wanted whenever I wanted and never being scolded for it.

My parents worked at the confectionery and returned their weekly paycheck to my grandfather, who then gave my parents enough money to maybe see a movie. This old world arrangement probably sounded reasonable when they all agreed to it, and my father, of course, had to respect his father. But my mother always knew it was wrong.

Finally, when I was three, Dad decided that everyone would be happier and healthier if he packed up his wife and children and moved us to the warm sun and independence of the South. We spent some time living in Arizona, and in Florida. Then, when I was six, we settled in Arizona againMom, Dad, five kids, and all our belongings crowded into the family car, en route to a modest house outside of Tucson. Mom and Dad found work at a laundry, Mom as a seamstress and Dad driving a laundry truck, and I started school.

Isnt it interesting how we tend to look back on most of our childhood years through kind of a filmy haze, but a few random details are preserved in our minds with such crystal clarity that its almost as if they just happened?

Eight months old in 1932

Three years old in 1935

I remember sharing sleeping space with my older sister Catherine.

I remember long walks in the cold Arizona winters to retrieve kerosene for the heater in our house.

I remember how much Catherine and I loved to dance, almost from the moment we were born, and how wed dance in our living room at night and watch our reflection in the windows.

I remember selling newspapers with my brother Harry on a street corner in downtown Tucson. Hes eighteen months older than I am, and hes such a good big brother that on the rare occasions when we got into a tussle, hed always let me win.

Me with my brother Harry, 1939

I remember a Sunday when I was nine years old. December 7, 1941a date that will live in infamy. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and the grownups were very upset about it. I didnt understand exactly what was going on, I just knew that something terrible and scary had happened to our country. We loved our country. We were proud of our country. We were Americans, and we felt good about being Americans in the world. But we had an enemy. Not a Republican or a Democrat, not across the aisle, but far away, across oceans, something called the Axis Powers, a team of Germany, Italy, and Japan who wanted to dominate us. We knew we would be all right, though, because we had a great man to lead us through the war, a man named President Roosevelt, fearless and respected and much loved. I remember my mom crying the day we lost him.

But mostly, I remember the movies.

From the time I was a little boy, movies enthralled me. They werent an escape. I had a nice life. I wasnt looking for an escape. Instead, movies were a destination, a beautiful Technicolor fantasy world I could live in for a couple of hours, a world full of gorgeous people and places and stories and, always, music. I wasnt interested in movies with soldiers and guns and blood and violence, just beauty and grace and happy endings and music that would stay with me long after I left the theater.

Back row: me; my sisters Catherine, Virginia, and Viola; and my brother Harry Front row: our mother, my brother Steve, and our father, 1939