Sandy Nusbaum and his wife, Ellen, have made Miami their home for 50 years and are longtime supporters of Miami Book Fair and other stakeholder institutions, including HistoryMiami Museum, Actors’ Playhouse, and the University of Miami athletics department.
How did you come to be involved with Miami Book Fair?
Initially through a neighbor, who worked at Miami Dade College. We went down on a couple of Wednesday or Thursday nights with them, and it became a really good place to meet friends from South Dade, North Dade, and people with like interests. My wife was a teacher in Dade County for 35 years in North Miami Beach, so we always gravitate to Children’s Alley to watch these kids who’ve never really had a chance to get books being given books, and all the activities there for them, like the puppet shows. That programming is a big reason why we’re involved.
You have one child – a daughter who is now married with a child of her own and living in New Jersey. Did you and Ellen take her to Book Fair when she was a kid?
I can’t remember who we saw, but yes – we went to some author presentations together when she was in high school.
Giving back to the community is clearly important to you. Why is supporting institutions like Book Fair, HistoryMiami, Actors’ Playhouse, and UM so critical, and – as a major donor – what’s your thinking behind the approach these organizations take to shore up their base?
A lot of these organizations, their major donors have passed on or moved away, and COVID has really changed everything. If it wasn’t for grassroots people taking up the torch, I don’t know that they could continue. Supporting these organizations at that level is important because by bringing kids downtown for Book Fair, for example, you’re also bringing at least one of their parents with them. I’m also a long-tern kind of guy, and I know a lot of those kids are now bringing their kids to Book Fair because of the experience they had there.
Tell me about some of your more memorable Book Fair moments.
Pat Conroy is one of my favorite authors – we’re involved in the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Buford, S.C., and we were just there for the opening in July. He’s passed on now but I saw him probably at least three times at the Fair. He was always amazingly entertaining, and he really stands out for me. I also played in the Rock Bottom Remainders at the Fair.
No way!
Probably in 1990, 1991, unfortunately before video and all this stuff, I was the high bidder at a charity auction – Dave Barry was the donor – and I got to sing the closing two songs of the show at the Fair with him, Scott Turow, Stephen King, Amy Tan, and I think Dave’s wife, Michelle Kaufman. I kept calling Dave and asking, “What am I going to sing?” and his secretary kept saying, “Don’t worry, you know it.” And I got on stage and we sang “Louie, Louie” [laughs] and like “La Bamba” or something. Maybe Dave has that on video.
Do you and Ellen take advantage of any MBF programming during the year?
Yes. Not so much now, but pre-COVID we’d go to things at Books & Books. We don’t do too much of the virtual stuff these days – we’re Zoomed out.
Me too.
[both laugh]What are you reading right now?
I’ve been reading a lot of biographies – I just finished an autobiography of Teddy Roosevelt and biographies on Ulysses S. Grant and John Jacob Astor.
What does Ellen get into?
She reads a lot of fiction. But I’d have to look at her Kindle to tell you which titles.
What was your favorite book as a kid?
I don’t think I had one. But I’ve been an avid newspaper reader since I was 6 years old. I still read probably five newspapers a day. So that’s what I read when I was a kid. [laughs]
Which papers do you read?
I’m in Princeton [N.J.] for a few months, so I start with The Star-Ledger – my uncle was a columnist there and he essentially died at his desk at 88 years old. His last column was published the day after he passed.
Wow!
Yeah, he was the oldest living columnist in New Jersey, the Walter Winchell of New Jersey. Jerry Nusbaum was his name. Little bit of history, in the early ’40s, when my dad was 17, he would go with my uncle to see Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason – all these shows in New York and New Jersey. And then when I went to school at UM in ’67, my uncle was coming down to Miami for three months every year and like, three days a week, I’d be going with him to see Sinatra, Dean Martin at the Fontainebleu, the Deauville, Eden Roc – this and that. I almost flunked out my freshman year because I was constantly out and sitting with amazing people during opening nights and then being invited back to like, Sammy Davis Jr.’s suite. For a 17-year-old kid, it was an amazing experience.
So I start with the Jersey paper, then I read the Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, The New York Times, The Washington Post and then The Wall Street Journal. Then Twitter the rest of the day. [laughs]
