Oscar Fruchtman ’71

Published in the March 2021 Issue

One of our most colorful and unique classmates, Oscar Fruchtman, died March 28, 2009, in New York City.

Oscar transferred in as a sophomore but quickly became an outsized presence in the class. He came to Princeton from the Brooklyn neighborhood Crown Heights and Stuyvesant High School in New York City as the acclaimed International President of United Synagogue Youth (USY).

He was a comedic actor in Theater Intime’s “The Red Eye of Love,” was a writer of the Triangle Club’s show “Cracked Ice” and majored in English. Junior year Oscar represented Lockhart in the Undergraduate Assembly (UGA). Senior year he lived in Rocky Hill, with Michael Olmstead and others.

In contrast to the many traditional professionals in his family, Oscar pursued a varied career, from an English teacher in East Harlem to song and comedy writing in California. All through the early and mid-70s Oscar was hanging around some of the most creative people on the New York scene, especially the folks involved in the early years of the TV show Saturday Night Live. At crucial moments he seemed to have a special knack for sabotaging his opportunities. Asked about this tendency, he said: “Well, you know my motto — I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it.”

He was constantly seeking the essential humorous truth of life. He was the master of taking any situation, finding the precise comic center and putting it into words — words that made you laugh. His “longest serving friend” Hugh McCarten delivered an extraordinary eulogy, from which this memorial draws. It included this song of Oscar’s that Hugh recited:

BROOKLYN BOY
I don’t say much but I’m a fast talker
I never look I’m a jay-walker
I guess you could say I’m a New Yawker
I’m just a Brooklyn Boy
From Flatbush to Brooklyn Heights
You better not miss those Brooklyn sights
Botanical Gardens and Prospect Park
But you better lock your door when it gets dark
I used to root for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, the late Gil Hodges
I used to love to watch Roy Rogers
I’m just a Brooklyn Boy
Coney Island, down by the sea
I just hop right on that BMT
Mom cooled Pepsi right in the fridge
And Daddy tried to sell the Brooklyn Bridge!
I used to eat in a delicatessen
Turkey on club with Russian dressing
Then I would take my piano lesson
I’m just a Brooklyn Boy
I’m just a B-r-o-o-k-l-y-n
I’ll probably sing it once again
I’m just a B-r-o-o-k-l-y-n
Brooklyn Boy