From aspiring actor to pre-law at New York University, 1963

Jacobson

What made you go to NYU?

Allison

I wanted to escape. From the time I was small, I think. My mother working in a movie theater sort of promoted this thing. I was very interested in acting. I actually wanted to come to New York to be an actor. I got to see every movie ever made, not because my mother worked in the theater. I could go and I could see--I think I saw "On the Waterfront," like, five times. That was my plan. My plan was to come to New York. NYU was sort of like a convenient way to do that. But I wanted to become an actor.

Just to fast forward, I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice, after all is said and done. But what I have is a lifelong passion for the theater, for film, for acting, which my kids share. But that was my plan. And I didn't major in drama when I went to NYU. I majored in political science and history. I had a dual major. Pre-law. So there was

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obviously a lot of schizophrenic thinking going on in my head, because I came with one goal in mind and proceeded academically to do the opposite.

I even took the exam for the foreign service when I was at NYU and could have pursued that. They wanted me to take the exam a second time. That could have been a career path. You know, I really wanted acting. I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice, the tremendous sacrifice. If you're going to do that, you have to be able to take a lot of humiliation, a lot of rejection; you have to be very tough, and you have to live with the thought that you may never ever see your name in lights.

It was also during the war.