[on the making of
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)] He [Universal Pictures president
Carl Laemmle]
brought a man over from Germany who trained all of us in German
military drills for two weeks on the back lot. That man was an early
Nazi. I was a very happy-go-lucky kid, had a sense of humor--which thank
God I still have--and played practical jokes. One day, I played one
that he didn't appreciate and he lost his temper, and said, "Goldberg,
you goddamn Jew, I warned you not to do that--you're fired". The man
was an idiot.
Lewis Milestone, the director, was Jewish.
George Cukor, the dialogue
director, was Jewish. They called him up and fired him on the spot and
put me back on the picture. But from then on, I was not quite so
playful.
