Searching for Saul Bellow
In 2001 the Noble Prize-winning author was rumored to be attending a play at Pittsburgh's O'Reilly Theater. It was my job on a Friday night to find him.
Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 June 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Feb. 25, 2001
It is winter in Pittsburgh and Saul Bellow is not to be found.
North America’s greatest living author has given me the slip and he doesn’t even know I am on his trail. And he’s 86 and I’m not. No wonder he won the Nobel Prize for Literature and I’m still a newspaper hack.
The man who gave us “Henderson the Rain King” and “Herzog” and “Humboldt’s Gift” — and a dozen other books whose covers I’ve seen in Border’s — is here somewhere in the O’Reilly Theater.
He’s one of 500-plus at a standing-room-only Friday night performance of “Yes, Jeeves,” the refurbished Andrew Lloyd Webber musical being prepared for another go at Broadway.
Believe me, I am no Saul Bellow expert.
I know only enough about him to answer a “Jeopardy!” question. But my mission is simple J-school stuff: Find the great man during intermission, get a few quotes and write a quick 12-inch article for Saturday’s morning paper.
I was given few clues to work with by my boss, who caught me at home watching the Penguins-Rangers game: Bellow is at the O’Reilly, he’s old, he’s thin, he’s tall and he’s hawk-faced.
Inside the O’Reilly’s lobby, Judy the Theater Manager is nothing but help.
Yes, she confirms five minutes before intermission, there’s a rumor that Bellow is here. But she doesn’t know where he’s sitting.
Neither does Matt, her co-manager. Neither does the guy in the ticket booth with the computer. A plural “Bellows” is a ticket-purchaser, he confides, but no single “Bellow.”
Judy the Theater Manager, God bless her, is a true Pittsburgher. She’s not the least bit concerned about protecting Bellow from a surprise media hit.
As “Yes, Jeeves” sings and prances and quips its way to intermission, she leads me in a race up and down three flights of stairs and through theater back offices in a vain attempt to find Tim the PR man. He’s gone for the night. So is Mr. Pappas the Artistic Director. He went to dinner and probably won’t be back.
All I can do now is scan the audience myself for Bellow. How hard can it be to find someone so world famous? He’ll probably be sitting in Row 1 fending off autograph seekers and paparazzi. At intermission, I pop into the emptying theater and stand on the lip of the round stage, looking for an old gray guy.
Whoops.
Welcome to 21st century Pittsburgh’s theater-going demographic. Every third man is old and gray. OK, let’s try tall and hawk-faced. Hey, there’s goes a possibility down the center aisle.
“Ma’am,” I say sweetly to the ancient blonde matron trailing my suspect, “you haven’t seen Saul Bellow tonight, have you?”
“Noooo,” she coos, “What’s he look like?”
“Tall and 86,” I say, already spying my next possibility sitting with a tiny grand dame in Row 1.
Carefully, so as not to spook her, I sit and whisper, “You don’t happen to be sitting next to Saul Bellow do you?”
“The famous author?” she fairly shouts. “No, this is my husband, Saul Weinstein.”
I’m getting close. Her Saul is 88.
Only a last name and two years separate me now from a Nobel Prize winner. But intermission ends and I am soon in the empty lobby with Matt the theater co-manager, who is now helping me on the case, which is only getting more mysterious.
Matt suspects Bellow went out to dinner with Mr. Pappas the Artistic Director. But that makes no sense to me. Why does Saul Bellow fly to town to see a play and leave before half-time, or whatever you call it in show-biz?
Would they be eating somewhere close, I ask, beginning to feel more like a stalker than a journalist, as if there’s much difference. Would he be in a local Stage Door Deli franchise or something? No, Matt says, they probably went across town.
All I can do now is wait till the show is over. I call the night editor and tell him I’ve failed. Bellow is here, but not here. It’s a cosmic paradox, a Joseph Heller joke, but not a daily newspaper story.
I have little hope of finding Bellow, but there’s nowhere else to go.
Pittsburgh’s Cultural District suddenly comes alive. Across the street the symphony has let out. Sidewalks are filling with pairs of nervous old folks headed for the over-lighted parking lots as fast as they can shuffle. Traffic is already gridlocked and disproportionately Buick.
When “Yes, Jeeves” finally ends and the O’Reilly’s lobby becomes engorged with satisfied customers, I instinctively scan the exiting mob for tall old gray guys. You never know. Maybe I’ll catch Bellow hopping into or out of his limo.
The little old bitty from Row 1 – my pal Mrs. Saul Weinstein -- sees me.
“Have you found your Saul Bellow yet?” she asks sweetly.
“Too many tall old gray guys,” I say dejectedly.
“Saul Bellow isn’t tall,” says an old woman leaning over next to her. “He used to live in my sister’s apartment in Chicago. I’ve been in an elevator with him many times. He’s shorter than you are.”
Ouch.
A vital but annoying fact to learn at this late hour. But not as annoying as the information Mr. Pappas the Artistic Director soon gives me.
He’s returned from wherever he was and is standing in mid-lobby shaking hands like a post-service Sunday preacher. I only recognized him because I just happened to notice his photo in the theater’s in-house paper while I was killing time waiting for the play to end.
I introduce myself and ask Pappas if Saul Bellow was in attendance, as rumored.
“Yes,” he says, not knowing he is about to solve the evening’s great mystery.
“Bellow was here. He saw the whole play. He sat in the audience. And right now he’s on the second floor at a post-performance dessert party with the cast and crew.”
Up the steps I fly, tape recorder ready to roll. Bellow has been found!
In a small space by a service bar, 60 people are sipping drinks and eating some sort of cherry dessert thing.
I scan the crowd looking for short gray guys, still wondering what I’m going to ask him, other than, “What the hell are you doing in Pittsburgh?”
But where is he?
No one looks famous, 86 or short enough. No one is being fawned over. The bartenderette, naturally, has never heard of a Saul Bellow. But what about that guy way over there. He’s old, gray, short and sophisticated looking.
If he’s 86, someone better call the National Institutes for Health. But he’s my last chance at glory.
I work my way through the too-hip-for-Pittsburgh crowd, grab his forearm in a friendly way and discreetly ask, “You don’t happen to be Saul Bellow do you?”
“No,” he says with a warm smile. “I’m his father-in-law.”
“No,” I say, too off-balance to laugh and thinking he’s referring to Saul Bellow the local tax accountant or somebody. “Saul Bellow. The Nobel Prize-winning writer. He’s supposed to be here tonight.”
“He was,” the man says matter-of-factly. “He just left with his baby and my daughter. You just missed him.”
Oh, God, who is he talking about?
Why aren’t I home where I belong on a Friday night, watching the 11 o’clock news?
Then it hits me.
The new Bellow baby!
The new young Bellow trophy wife!
Now this short old guy makes sense. Somewhere in the 15 minutes of Internet research that I did before setting out on my mission I read something about Bellow, at 86, starting a new family.
So this short gray man – retired psychiatrist Harvey Freedman of Toronto, Ontario, Canada – is not kidding me.
He really is Saul Bellow’s father-in-law. Even though this retired shrink is only 72. And his wife, Sonja, who won’t divulge how old she is but doesn’t look a month over 55, really is Bellow’s mother-in-law.
The Freedmans had braved Lake Erie-effect snow to drive from Toronto to Pittsburgh, where their youngest son lives and works and is celebrating a birthday.
Bellow and the Freedman’s daughter and grandchild flew in from Boston, where they live. They are all spending the weekend in Pittsburgh together.
It turns out there was no Saul Bellow mystery after all. He really was in town. He still is. I just didn’t find him in time to write anything.