Eudice Shapiro; violinist & extra grandmother (really lovely)
amelia...@gmail.com
A cultural treasure, musical pioneer and a great violinist, Eudice
Shapiro's life was packed full of infectious enthusiasm.
Sasha Abramsky
Guardian
A virtuoso: Eudice Shapiro, early in her career. [a great photo]
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_abramsky/2007/09/farewell_to_a_fri
end.html
My friend Eudice Shapiro died last week. I say friend, but really she
was an extra grandmother, a warm, happy person in love with life and
determined to live that life to the full.
Eudice first met my grandfather nearly 80 years ago, at the Curtis
Institute for Music, in Philadelphia, where they both studied violin
and she gained a reputation as a teenage prodigy. Afterwards, my
grandparents and many of their friends moved west to Los Angeles - the
studios offered tempting employment for young musicians struggling to
break in to the big time in New York - in the years surrounding the
second world war. Eudice was among them.
For as long as I can remember, that generation of musicians has been a
centerpiece of my life. When I was young, I'd sit on the steps at my
grandparents' house, listening to impromptu quartets, watching these
elderly men and women - many of them political radicals who had been
scarred by the McCarthy witchhunts - conjure magic from their fingers.
When they weren't playing music, they were talking, arguing, telling
jokes, discussing politics. They were, perhaps, the last generation of
true kibitzers. Some had been Communists in their younger years,
during the depression; others had never accepted the rigid - and, with
hindsight, stultifying - party orthodoxy but nevertheless attached
themselves to left-leaning political causes. By the time I knew them,
with a couple of exceptions, they had all gotten pretty comfortable
with the fact that destiny had thrust them into the bourgeoisie.
Some of these men and women, most of them children of Jewish
immigrants who had grown up in the crowded cities of the east coast in
the early years of the century, had been called to testify before the
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the late 1940s and
1950s, when McCarthy turned his attention on Hollywood, and, refusing,
they'd lost their jobs and their careers. Others, like my grandparents
and Eudice, had not been called before HUAC but had watched in horror
as their friends' lives were ruined.
They were proud, fiercely proud and, unlike McCarthy and his clique of
thugs, they were quintessentially American: they came from everywhere,
they struggled and made good, they dreamed about better worlds, and
they tried, in their own ways, to nudge the country along a path they
cared about. Perhaps most important, they were an extraordinarily
dynamic, zestful group. They worked not just at work but at having
fun.
Almost all of these people are now dead. Most of them have been dead
for years. Yet Eudice remained, seemingly ageless, defying time.
Until my grandmother passed away in 2002, Eudice and she would have
near-nightly "dates". They'd drink martinis together and polish off a
small dinner at one or another of several restaurants that they
frequented. They'd take the leftovers home for lunch the next day.
When I was in town, I'd tag along, driving them to the Wine Bistro,
proudly accompanying them as the maitre'd led them to their special
table.
They were two stylish, octogenarian widows, always careful about how
they dressed, always ready to smile and laugh, never quite ready to
act their age, whatever exactly that might mean.
Eudice made it to nonagenarian-status. She was 93 when she died. Until
the end she lived in a house halfway up Laurel Canyon, the part of Los
Angeles largely inhabited by "creative" types - musicians, artists,
film people - and immortalised a few years back by the movie of the
same name. It was an oasis, a house lined with books and records and
photos of famous musicians, a large grand piano dominating the soft-
carpeted living room, Eudice's enormous collection of cow memorabilia
- everyone's got to have a hobby - lining the mantelpieces. When I
stepped into her house, I stepped away from the cares of the world.
Eudice was a musician. But that doesn't really do her justice. It's
like saying Pavarotti was a singer. She was one of the twentieth
century's greatest violinists and was the first woman to head a studio
orchestra (RKO) in Los Angeles. Over her decades-long career, she
counted among her friends and musical companions legends like the
pianist Arthur Rubinstein, the violinist Jascha Heifetz, the cello
maestro Gregor Piatigorsky, and the composer Igor Stravinsky. She
performed around the world, gave workshops at music festivals, and,
for over 50 years, taught violin at the University of Southern
California. Last year, the prestigious university held a huge concert
in her honour, celebrating her half-century with the institution. That
same year, the city of Los Angeles designated her one of the city's
"cultural treasures".
Right to the end, Eudice had students driving out to her home in the
hills for lessons. She was a time-warp, a perfectly-coiffed 1950s
Hollywood society dame holding court in the first decade of the 21st
century.
When I would visit LA with my kids, I'd pick Eudice up from her house,
put her walker (its legs spearing two squashed green tennis balls) in
the trunk of my car, and drive over to have breakfast at DuPar's, an
old diner on Ventura Boulevard that five generations of my family have
now frequented. We'd sit on the vinyl seats and Eudice would play with
my children. It was a wonderful sight. Ninety years separated Eudice
from my daughter, but it didn't matter. Her enthusiasm was infectious
and Sofia adored her. I'm sure my infant son, who only met her once,
would have had just the same reaction if he'd been a little older.
I'll miss Eudice. And I'll miss the train of memories, the living
history, which she so effortlessly carried in her wake.
DOE of Malibu
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