Lavitan, Gladys, 1916-2014

Greeson, Jennifer

Charlotte, North Carolina

J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

1993-07-01

1 audio file (1:30:51) : digital, MP3 + 1 transcript (26 pages)

Audio

spoken word

eng

Gladys Lavitan was a 77-year-old woman at the time of interview, which took place in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1916. She studied theater in New York and attended courses at UNC Charlotte, and was employed as a stage and film actor and a broadcast journalist.

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.

MP3 access copy created on ingest from WAV preservation master. Interview originally recorded on analog audio cassette and digitized using a Digidesign 003 rack.

Lavitan, Gladys, 1916-2014
Humble, Thomas B., 1971-
Masterson, Dorothy S., 1897-1991

Little Theatre of Charlotte (N.C.)
Golden Circle Theatre (Charlotte, N.C.)
Mint Museum of Art
Temple Beth El (Charlotte, N.C.)
Temple Israel (Charlotte, N.C.)

Pearl Harbor, Attack on (Hawaii : 1941)

Actors
Radio broadcasters
Acting
Community theater
Depressions
Radio broadcasting
Radio Talk Shows
Reform Judaism
Theater and society
Jews--Social conditions

North Carolina--Charlotte
Georgia--Augusta
New York (State)--New York
Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Area

Interviews
Oral histories

1920-2000

Levine Museum of the New South

Professional Women

Living Charlotte : the postwar development of a New South city

Gladys Lavitan oral history interview 1, 1990 April 22, J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections and University Archives, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (http://goldmine.uncc.edu/islandora/object/uncc%3A1854)

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Digitization made possible by funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

audio/mpeg

MU-LA0019

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/uncc:208