There they were, Jewish titans of American show business, gathered at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles, itself an emblem of their success. The club was started in 1920 so Jews, who were barred from L.A.
’s other clubs, would have one of their own, which is what Jews tended to do when they ran into the social antisemitism of America in the first half of the twentieth century. Within a few years, most of the Jews who made Hollywood were members—including Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, Adolph Zucker, and Louis B. Mayer—even if they didn’t play golf.
George Jessel, the actor who played the lead role in the stage version of in 1926, went to the Hillcrest for the food and the company, both of which could be enjoyed at a large oak table, known as the Round Table, set in a corner of the dining room. That’s where the Jews who had made it big as singers, actors, and comedians gathered to eat, drink, smoke, and kibitz. Al Jolson was prominent among them.
His friends George Burns and Groucho Marx were regulars. So were Eddie Cantor, Danny Kaye, Jack Benny, and Jessel himself, all of them huge stars of Broadway, the movies, and, later, television. Burns and Marx wrangled over who was funnier.
It seems likely that these men, in the privacy of their minds or perhaps out loud to each other, engaged in some amazed self-congratulation over how low they had started and how high they had risen. Certainly, one of the things that bound them together was an awareness of having achie.
