1954-1957 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania & Palm Beach, Florida

Donna Moss

Born 1949

Philadelphia & Palm Beach

Interviewed January 23, 2024

by: Cat King

Tell me about the first movie you remember seeing? 

You know, we went to see every science fiction movie, everything. I always went with my brother. So, between Mighty Joe Young, and Godzilla, and Beginning of the End, and everything that gave me nightmares, I saw that.

And my first experience with a movie was just what turned out to be a nightmare. I was about five or six. And we lived in Philadelphia. My mother hired a babysitter to take me to this movie. And I don’t remember much about it—I mean, I don’t remember what movie it was. But she took me to the bathroom and sat me on a hot radiator. Oh my God, she forgot to pull my pants up. So, my mother then displayed my rear—my backside—to the entire neighborhood so that this girl would not get hired again.

Wow, that is not a great first movie-going experience. Tell me more about going to the movies with your brother.

I do remember as a kid, when we moved to Florida, my brother and I used to take the bus to the theater downtown in West Palm Beach. That was where, you know, the only thing we ever saw was science fiction movies—honestly, it’s because of him. Everything from Dracula to Godzilla. Really, anything with giant beasts.

The giant locusts in Beginning of the End were the thing that got me scared to death every night. And growing up in Florida, obviously you hear those locusts every night. Oh, yeah, right outside your window. So, I was sure that if I opened the blinds, I would see one looking in trying to, you know, eat me.

I wish I could say that I went to see, you know, like Elizabeth Taylor. But I didn’t, because we were kids and we went to see science fiction. That’s just what we did.

So, you were watching science fiction movies with your brother—do you remember how old you were? 

Oh yeah, I started when I was five. Then, of course, he would dress up like Dracula. We would get home and then, you know, he would reenact slowly what he learned at the movie step-by-step.

Can you remember any more details about your early movie experiences? Was there a type of candy that you liked? 

You know, the biggest deal whenever you go to the movies still is the popcorn. That was always the highlight of whatever movie you went to is that you got to eat popcorn. I liked to bring my own candy. I didn’t like to buy it. I liked Raisinets. That’s a classic, and it’s supposedly sort of healthy. I mean, I wasn’t a Milk Duds person. Those are my two remembrances of the candy situation. You know, it also depended how much your parents would let you have.

But, getting on the bus to go to the movie theater was always—that was a big thing. And especially, I hate to say this, but back in those days, when I was growing up in Florida—I moved there from Philadelphia when I was five or six. Let’s say that I was six or seven on the bus. And I was defiant because I didn’t believe in segregation. Philadelphia was just everything, you know, it wasn’t segregated, they didn’t have “Colored Town” or anything like that. The buses in Florida were the first introduction to me, you know, like, you weren’t allowed to sit in the back of the bus. And so that’s where I would want to go. And of course, I did.

You know, that was just, it was just a huge nightmare. Thinking back to the whole…schools were segregated, the bathrooms and the water fountains were segregated. That was painful. So, there you are at the movies and everything is segregated: black bathrooms, white bathrooms, black drinking fountains, white drinking fountains. I was sensitive to that. I can’t remember why I was made sensitive to that. Maybe because my father played baseball and Jackie Robinson was really big back in those days.

I don’t know. I don’t know. But I was a rebel about that even when I was very young.

Note from the interviewer: Ms. Donna Moss is my best friend’s grandmother.