Bill Graham (promoter)

==Early life==
Graham was born on January 8, 1931, in [[Berlin]].<ref>[[Glatt, John]]. ''Rage & Roll: Bill Graham and the Selling of Rock''. Birch Lane Press, 1993. p. 3{{ISBN|1-5597-2205-3}}</ref> He was the youngest child and only son of Jewish lower middle-class parents, Frieda (''née'' Sass) and Jacob "Yankel" Grajonca,<ref>[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_07786.html Bill Graham profile], Jewishvirtuallibrary.org; accessed February 10, 2014.</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Skolnik|first=Fred|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fEEOAQAAMAAJ|title=Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 8: GOS - HEP|date=2007|publisher=Thomson Gale|isbn=978-0-02-865936-7|pages=30|language=en}}</ref> who had emigrated from [[Russia]] before the rise of [[Nazism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1028677.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023124839/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1028677.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2012|title=Bill Graham, Lead Act at Last|date=October 7, 1992|access-date=June 27, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=SB&p_theme=sb&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB0D9644100A6BC&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM|title=Newsbank website|publisher=Nl.newsbank.com|date=May 6, 1991|access-date=June 27, 2011}}</ref> There were six children in the Grajonca family. His father died accidentally two days after Graham was born.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|last=Lambert|first=Bruce|date=October 27, 1991|title=Bill Graham, Rock Impresario, Dies at 60 in Crash|page=34|work=[[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/27/us/bill-graham-rock-impresario-dies-at-60-in-crash.html|issn=1553-8095}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> Graham's family nicknamed him "Wolfgang" early in life.<ref name="grahamautobio" />

Due to the increasing [[History of the Jews in Germany|peril to Jews in Germany]] and the death of Jacob, Graham's mother placed her son and her youngest daughter, Tanya "Tolla", in a Berlin orphanage,<ref name=":3" /> which sent them to France in a pre-[[Holocaust]] exchange of Jewish children for Christian orphans. Graham's older sisters Sonja and Ester stayed behind with their mother.  On July 4, 1939, he was sent from Germany to France due to political uncertainty in his home country.

After the [[fall of France]], Graham was among a group of Jewish orphans spirited out of France, some of whom finally reached the United States. Tolla Grajonca came down with [[pneumonia]] and did not survive the difficult journey.<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|last=|first=|date=2016-03-11|title=A more personal Bill Graham on display at CJM|url=https://www.jweekly.com/2016/03/11/a-more-personal-bill-graham-on-display-at-cjm/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-19|newspaper=J|publisher=Jewish Community Federations|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170423071053/http://www.jweekly.com:80/2016/03/11/a-more-personal-bill-graham-on-display-at-cjm/ |archive-date=April 23, 2017 }}</ref> Graham was one of the [[One Thousand Children]] (OTC), mainly Jewish children who managed to flee Hitler and Europe and come directly to North America, but whose parents were forced to stay behind. Graham's mother was murdered in [[Auschwitz]].<ref name=":2" />

At age 10, he settled into a foster home in [[the Bronx, New York]].  After being taunted as an immigrant and being called a Nazi because of his German-accented English, Graham worked on his accent, eventually being able to speak in a perfect [[New York accent]]. He changed his name to sound more "American". (He found "Graham" in the phone book—it was the closest he could find to his birth surname, "Grajonca". According to Graham, both "Bill" and "Graham" were meaningless to him.) Graham graduated from [[DeWitt Clinton High School]] and then obtained a business degree from the [[City College of New York]].<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite news | first=David | last=Kipen | url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/08/29/DD141675.DTL | title=Flawed look at career of blacklisted director | work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] | date=August 29, 2001 | access-date=September 14, 2009 | quote=The American 20th century went to high school at DeWitt Clinton High in the Bronx. Multicultural before there was a name for it – at least a polite one – Clinton nurtured such figures as Bill Graham, [[James Baldwin (writer)|James Baldwin]], [[George Cukor]], [[Neil Simon]] and [[Abraham Polonsky|Abraham Lincoln Polonsky]].}}</ref> He was later quoted as describing his training as that of an "[[Business efficiency expert|efficiency expert]]".{{citation needed|date=February 2014}}

Graham was [[conscription in the United States|drafted]] into the [[United States Army]] in 1951, and served in the [[Korean War]], where he was awarded both the [[Bronze Star Medal|Bronze Star]] and [[Purple Heart]]. Upon his return to the States he worked as a waiter/[[maître d']] in [[Catskill Mountains|Catskill Mountain]] resorts in upstate New York during their heyday. He was quoted saying that his experience as a maître d' and with the [[poker]] games he hosted behind the scenes was good training for his eventual career as a promoter. [[Tito Puente]], who played some of these resorts, went on record saying that Graham was avid to learn Spanish from him, but only cared about the [[profanity|curse words]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.billgrahamfoundation.org/interviews/titopuente.html | title=Tito Puente interview | publisher=Bill Graham Memorial Foundation (billgrahamfoundation.org) | access-date=February 10, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131112031356/http://www.billgrahamfoundation.org/interviews/titopuente.html | archive-date=November 12, 2013 | url-status=dead | df=mdy-all }}</ref> He also mentions in his bio-pic ''Last Days At The Fillmore'' working for Minnesota Mining.