Gladys Lavitan oral history interview 2, 1993 July 1
Description
Gladys Lavitan recounts her life and her sixty-three year acting career in Charlotte, North Carolina. She describes growing up in Charlotte during the Depression, the city's reaction to the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and how the city grew in the post-war years. Mrs. Lavitan's acting career officially began at the age of fourteen when she became the youngest member of the Little Theatre of Charlotte (which later became Theatre Charlotte). She discusses how the city's theater community developed, with attention to the roles Tom Humble at the Little Theatre and Dorothy Masterson at the Golden Circle Theatre played in shaping the community's culture. In addition to her stage career, Mrs. Lavitan was a popular radio personality and interviewer during the 1940s and 1950s, and she discusses her work as the host of WAYS-AM's "Woman's World" talk show, which ran until 1960. Mrs. Lavitan also discusses the growth of Charlotte's Jewish community over her lifetime, including her family's role in the founding of Charlotte's first Reform synagogue, Temple Beth El, and the development of Shalom Park and the Jewish Community Center.
