Esther Grossfield always dreamed of being in the entertainment industry. That dream came true when she moved to Laguna Woods Village.
Since 2015, Grossfield has hosted “Esther’s Laguna Woods Show” on Village TV Channel 6, interviewing all kinds of folks: singers and actors, World War II veterans, Vietnam and Korean war veterans, and Holocaust survivors, among them. The show airs at noon on Thursdays and Saturdays.
“I always wanted to be an actress and a model when I was growing up in Israel,” Grossfield said. “As a teenager, I was modeling clothing for a newspaper’s ads. I loved it and loved that everyone in my small town knew me, so I wanted to keep doing it.”
Grossfield said she has interviewed around 75 people over the five years she’s been hosting the show. She said she’s lucky when it comes to getting guests to come on her show — and they’re almost always from the Village.
“Because the show is so well known, I’m always being asked if someone can come on or I get a referral,” she said. “I want different topics, so I look to feature different people.”
One of her favorite guests, she said, was Lt. Muriel Engelman, a Village resident who was an Army nurse during World War II whose unit braved the Battle of the Bulge.
“She was also a Jewish woman and said the bombs were coming every 10 minutes for two months,” Grossfield said. “She helped the soldiers and the Belgian people during the war when they got injured from the bombs.”
Grossfield also recalls singer Linda Leigh. Leigh once lived in the Village and met the Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe back in the day.
“Linda once was asked to sing for the Rat Pack’s table in Las Vegas where Marilyn Monroe was also seated,” Grossfield said. “She was singing, and one night a guy came up and said, ‘Come to our table.’ She went to the table, and who was seated but none other than Frank Sinatra and all of the Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe.”
Among the most memorable interviews, she said, was when she had three Laguna Woods City Council members on the show at the same time, albeit on Zoom: Mayor Noel Hatch, Mayor Pro Tem Shari Horne and Councilwoman Cynthia Conners. The three ran as a slate for reelection, and all won, she said.
Grossfield also enjoyed talking with Roberto Ruiz, a World War II bomber pilot who flew missions over Germany. He was in the same platoon as actor Jimmy Stewart and flew with him, she said.
Ruiz choked up as he described a mission over Germany when the bomber’s propeller was hit, Grossfield recalled. He safely guided the plane back to England, saving his crew of 10. When they landed, the crew members were so grateful to him for saving their lives.
Grossfield also recalled interviewing Brett Halsey, a Village resident who won a Golden Globe in 1961 and appeared in “The Godfather Part III” in 1990, among many other TV series and movies.
Halsey “brought his Golden Globe Award to the studio, and it was a thrill for me to hold it,” she said.
For her January show, Grossfield interviewed Joey Sims, the president of the Laguna Woods Village Komedy Klub, who she said was “great and so funny.”
Grossfield, who is in her 60s, was so hooked on being in the limelight that she left her roots in Israel behind and emigrated to the United States in 1972.
“My sister Hana was married and already living in California as a homemaker so she sponsored me,” she said. “I also have a twin sister who still lives in Israel. I had to wait two years before I could come; I couldn’t just come like it is today with people crossing borders.”
Grossfield got her green card when she stopped in Chicago before landing in California, she said: “They handed it to me at the Chicago O’Hare Airport when I arrived. It was amazing.”
When she moved in with her sister in Beverly Hills, Grossfield said, she had a bit of culture shock: “First thing in the morning, I remember when I got here, I heard people talking in English. I didn’t speak much English, but I learned some in Israel. But I was surprised to hear it because I was used to hearing Hebrew.”
Though she lived in the Beverly Hills and Los Angeles areas for several years, acting jobs didn’t come around for Grossfield, she said, but she had other jobs, including stockbroking and selling real estate.
Grossfield and her husband, William, 73, whom she met in 1989, moved to the Village in 2012, after hearing about it from friends. The first thing she did when she moved to the Village was look for something in entertainment, she said.
“I joined the Video Club right away, and after a while, they gave me some airtime and started letting me do some interviews. Then I started my show in 2015 and have been doing it ever since.”
Grossfield’s show was taped at the TV 6 studio before the pandemic hit, but now she does it via Zoom from her home. As much as she enjoys doing the show, it does take some work, she said.
“I love doing it, but it takes me two hours to get ready before we start. I have to choose what I am going to wear and do my hair and makeup,” she said. “Everyone thinks this is how I look every day, but not really. I do it all myself now because of the pandemic, but I am having a great time.”
And she certainly doesn’t regret the choices she’s made in life.
“I always knew (America) was the land of opportunity, and I always wanted to be here,” Grossfield said. “But it just didn’t work out, the acting thing back then. I decided I was going to be in the business world instead, and one thing led to another.
“So, here I am now in Laguna Woods Village doing a TV show.”
