Kiwi: I was referring to killing a major (or substantive) character, not
killing a character in the course of a given story.

Rhonda: no, not Russian Jew. Background is byelorussian, White Russian,
with some polish in there somewhere. Family came from a village named (I
believe) Bogdanova, between Minsk and Pinsk (I wouldn't like about that) in
the Carpathian mountains. Anyway, that general area. The family was
catholic, not jewish. I'm actually one one-and-a-half generation American.
My grandparents came here from Europe, fleeing the Russian revolution, my
father was born here, but lived much of his early life in Germany, Poland and
Russia when he got caught there at the start of WW II in the blitzkrieg (on
the run for years as an american). Harlan keeps telling me that mine is a
Horatio Alger story...kid from nowhere, immigrant family, goes to Hollywood
and makes it big. Sounds more exciting than it is, I suspect....

jms