Michael Tilson Thomas

Old ladies used to come up to me on the street and said, we were kids, we had nothing, but once a week or once a month we went to the theater and we saw the red velvet curtains with the name Tomaszewski and large gold letters.

And we thought, if that's possible for him to do, then it's possible for us to do.

It really started with my father, who was trying to make his own way in life in the theater.

And he simply was unable to do that.

Everywhere that he went, he would mention his last name, and right away it was, oh, you're Boris Tabashevsky's son, and therefore he didn't want that.

He just wanted to be able to find his own way in life and in the theater.

So he was the one who changed his name initially to Ted Thomas.

And quite frankly...

He also wanted to escape from that whole crazed celebrity situation, which my grandparents inspired.

And I think he also wanted to protect me from that because there were questions.

Crazed fans is the only way of describing it.

There were stalker kinds of people who were pursuing my grandparents and their children with the same kind of ardor that we're accustomed to thinking of crazy paparazzi or fans pursuing stars today.

Well, she had also moved out to L.A., and one of the reasons for doing that, outside of getting some character parts in movies she hoped for, was that she wanted to get away from the whole scene in New York, a town, as she said, with too many ghosts.

But what I really became aware of the shadow of Boris for the first time was when I went back east when I was perhaps 11 or 12, and I was going to a lot of...

stage manager, cousins of mine, because so many members of the family were still in the business, in show business, not necessarily as actors on stage, but in everything having to do with the behind-the-scenes life.

And we used to go to just one scene in every play.

So theater people, they say, oh, kid, the good scene to see the Luntz act two finale is good.

Eddie Foy's joke in the second scene of the first act is good.

You know, so that kind of stuff.

But there was this one show, My Fair Lady, and everybody was talking about it, and I thought I'd like to see it.