Describe your career.
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| Judy Nazemetz, 2018, Los Angeles |
Where do you live now?
I live in Los Angeles, after having lived in North Plainfield after
college, then Weehawken, NJ; then New York City; Studio City, CA; Sherman Oaks,
CA; and now Valley Village (North Hollywood), CA.
What was your
sense of community in your class/in the school at NPHS?
I felt a deep sense of community. In high school, I was in many classes
with the same kids I'd gone to Stony Brook School with. And I loved 6th grade
at Harrison School, when the Stony Brook and West End 6th graders were
together. When I was a senior and worked as a cashier at Castroll's, Lou
Carlucci and David Siegel also worked there and I used to see parents of many
of my classmates there. I knew what everybody was eating! And, a PS here. Years
later, when I was doing a comedy gig in NYC, in a small performing space up a
rickety flight of stairs in the theatre district, I went behind the bar and
found an empty bottle of 5v. You'd have thought I'd found gold! I told everybody
there about Vitelli Brothers and those little bottles of soda, and why that
bottle of 5v meant so much to me! Yes, the sense of community had extended into
New York City and, again, into my life.
What experiences
in high school, positive or negative, helped to shape you as a person?
My modern dance training with Mrs. Schuman taught me to create and to
focus and to work as part of a team, all qualities necessary for anyone in the
arts. Our glorious first dance assembly, 7 pieces based on the music "The
Planets", in which we danced the astrological essences of 7 planets, as
defined by composer Gustav Holst, was stopped less than halfway through because
the boys in the auditorium wouldn't stop yelling, mocking, and making fun of us
dancers on stage in our leotards and tights. I was making my entrance
presenting Saturn, the planet of old age, as the heavy maroon curtains closed
on me. How did this shape me? It shaped me to be fearless. To go out and do what
I train to do, to go out and do what I do, no matter the audience response. Key
for any improviser or actor. This experience also influenced my volunteer work
when my daughter was in grammar school. I made it my mission to bring music and
dance assemblies to all classes in the K-5 school, and to teach the children
how to be a good audience. Happy to report I succeeded.
Do you have any
regrets about your experiences during your high school years?
Absolutely no regrets. Oh, perhaps that I never really learned to play
chess. I tried, at the Canteens, but it never stuck.
Now, 50 years
later, has your perspective on your high school years changed at all?
If so, how? I used to think everyone loved high school, just as I
did. Then I met people who hated their high school years. For me, NPHS was
great school. A terrific education and great extracurricular activities.
What is your
fondest memory of your years at NPHS?
I have to go back to 7th or 8th grade here (but, hey, we were all
connected then) and I fondly remember David Schmedes getting an appendicitis
attack in Mr. Kanter's math class.
What was the
craziest or stupidest thing you did in high school?
I volunteered to be Decorations Chairman for our Junior Prom and worked
for weeks getting all the giant daisies ready. A few days before the prom, I
didn't even have a date and assumed I wouldn't go. But, Richard Quigley came to
my rescue and I went.
What was your
proudest accomplishment in high school?
I'd have to say that it was getting my parents to go to my junior prom.
All class officers' parents chaperoned. My parents had never gone to a prom. My
mom made her gown. That night, when the band struck up a polka, only four
couples got on the dance floor to do the polka. My parents, me and Richard, Linda
Shebey and her date, and one more couple. My folks got an ovation! A proud
moment for me!
Who was your
favorite teacher?
Mrs. Schuman, for showing me the world of arts and music. Miss Gordon,
for letting us sing folk songs in English class. And, Miss O'Brien, for not
giving me a failing grade when I wouldn't speak during Great Books discussions
and then for letting me out of Great Books for a few months to make a movie
with Mr. Dietzman. Oh, and I also had another English teacher one year who had
an enormous effect on me. I can't even remember her name. That year, because of
certain courses I had to schedule, I couldn't take English with all the other
kids who'd I'd been in class with. I was put into an English class with all
jocks and football players. I knew no one. I was incredibly shy and
self-conscious. The teacher said we'd have to do oral book reports. I was so
scared. I picked a book years too young for me. I got up in front of the class
and fumbled, stumbled and finished, with tears in my eyes and knowing I sucked.
The teacher just took me aside and said I had a week to prepare to do it again,
but in front of a completely different class of hers. Strangers. She challenged
me to face my fear. The second time, I flew. I soared. She'd seen potential in
me and asked me to rise to the occasion. If I could remember her name, I'd
thank her.
Chemistry. Worst in college, too. Once, in a college chem lab, we had to
boil water and add something to it and test it. Everyone around me was boiling
water and finishing the experiment and walking out of class. At 45 minutes, my
water hadn't even boiled. Then, the TA looked up, saw me, came over and
discovered I was using a faulty Bunsen burner. No heat. Yes, Bunsen burner
incident #2 (see below). I had no luck with chemistry.
What is your most
powerful or haunting memory during your years at NPHS?
Two things. One, the death of Irene Hutnick. She was our cheerleading
advisor and, on Thanksgiving, she never showed up for the game and we couldn't
figure out why. Later, we found out this beautiful woman -- inside and out --
committed suicide because of a rejection from a boy. I vowed to never let a guy
make me feel like that. And, two, the time that my chemistry lab partner, Ricky
Smith, set his hair on fire as he jokingly showed me how well he could handle a
Bunsen burner.
How did growing up
at a child of the 60s – and all the social baggage and impact that it may have
entailed – impact you at the time and in your young adult years?
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| Judy Nazemetz in the late 1980s performing as her hippie character Sparrow in "All that Naz" |
Were you a student
at Kent State in the spring of 1970?
No,
I was a student at University of Rhode Island. However, we had all been
marching, going to rallies, protesting, taking part in whatever way we could,
feeling we could make a difference...then, the shots. It was as if they went
through me. I went from feeling powerful and hopeful, to feeling powerless,
helpless, and afraid. I tried to make it through second semester but most of
the URI students had already left, taking pass/fail grades. I so wanted to
finish but was so downhearted I just left and took my grades pass/fail. I
especially wanted to get a good grade in Urban Sociology -- the teacher was so
awful and mocked me for coming to class in my gym clothes ('cause I didn't have
time to change and run across campus to get to the class on time) but it was
not to be.
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