Emmanuel Fried
Fighter, Father, Friend
By Bob Davis
All photography by Jim Bush unless otherwise noted.
He may have mellowed out, but he’s still speaking out, exercising his right, “to express what I think and what I feel. And the wonderful thing about this country is that I can do it.”
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But this isn’t about Manny the once blacklisted union organizer. Nor is it about the eighty-nine year old award-winning playwright and actor, activist, World War II officer, author, publisher, professor, or million-dollar insurance agent. This is about white-haired Manny the father, and Manny the friend.
The tricky part is, it’s all that other stuff about Manny—stuff he’s written about with great candor in his stories and plays—that reveals the kind of father and friend he is.
Flash back to the 1950s. Your best friends have betrayed and backstabbed you. The FBI has kept the neighbors’ kids from playing with your kids and got you kicked out of job after job. Your wife’s family buys her and your daughters plane tickets out of town and threatens to purge her from their lucrative business if she doesn’t leave you. You’re called up before the House Un-American Committee. And someone you thought you could trust excommunicates you when you don’t listen after he says you owe it to your family to cave in.
If you’re Manny Fried, you believe you owe it to your family to not cave in. You tell your wife:
“It isn’t going to be this way forever. If I start cooperating with these bastards, you’re going to hate me ten years from now. This determines whether I’ll be a human being who respects himself or loses respect for himself. Years from now, our kids are going to respect me for having stood up during this period.”
He was right; today Manny’s daughter Lorrie says his four great-grandchildren will remember him “with respect—a lot of respect for what he did, for his creative work, for his accomplishments. As tough as it was during that period, I did...learn from it that tragic unfairness in the world doesn’t have to destroy you. My father picked up the pieces and did some very meaningful things with his life, despite the efforts to shut him down. That’s been a very important model for me.”
Ditto Manny’s daughter Mindy. Her father’s example taught her that, “if somebody is being treated poorly, if there’s an injustice of some sort, you can stand up for what’s right. My own daughter, for a fifth grade project, asked him what happened during the McCarthy era. It will be significant to her to know that our family was persecuted in a particular way— and that her Poppy stood up to the House Un-American Committee for what was right. We’re all going to face adversity at some point in our lives. Her Poppy faced tremendous adversity, and was strengthened by standing up for what was right. I think that’s a powerful message for my daughter.”
Leading by example is everything to Manny, who says he doesn’t care what you think you are, what you say you are, or what people say you are; you are what you do. Ask him, out of all he’s done, which accomplishment brings him the most pride and he’ll tell you without hesitation: his two daughters.
That’s Fried on fatherhood. Here’s Fried on friendship: “In the Army, my best friend in the officer corps told me he was making daily reports on me. He wanted to assure me that he had nothing bad to report. That happened in every post I was assigned to, and I went to several, including over in Korea. I would wait to see who would try to be my friend. I would say ‘That’s the guy!’ And it always turned out it was.”
Why didn’t those devastating experiences make him bitter, withdrawn or distrustful? Simple: Manny likes people. “I’m a gregarious person. I can’t live without people, and I just figure well, that’s one of the facets of life.”
“He had years of being defiled, ” says his daughter Lorrie, “and it’s lovely that he’s gotten so much respectful recognition in these last years. I think it’s been part of how he’s been able to move on.”
He may have mellowed out, but he’s still speaking out, exercising his right, “to express what I think and what I feel. And the wonderful thing about this country is that I can do it. ”
What’s next for Manny Fried? He’s still, he says, trying to figure out what to do with his life. He describes himself as a guy who tried to survive in many areas and who was always dissatisfied, feeling that he had not done all that he should have done. And that he should try to do something else, in addition to what he’s done.
His stated regret is that he believes the FBI intentionally prevented wider production of his plays, “that brought on stage working people, labor people, who have never been there before in the history of the theater. But I think that in years to come, long after I’m dead, some of the plays like the Dodo Bird will still be revived because they tell what the situation is here now, in terms of class relationships, the political scene.”
“So, writer to writer,” I ask, “where’s this submarine going?”
“Maybe, despite myself,” he reflects, “I want to be accepted in the community. I’m never certain that the acceptance will remain. It’s all very perilous.”
“Accepted for your work?”
“As a human being.”
Manny the friend finishes his bagel, sips his milk, looks at me and laughs. “You’ve got too much for this article. Throw out ninety-nine percent of it and just say, ‘he lives.’”
Bob Davis is President of Wizard Creative, Inc. and a full-time business writer.
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