LOS ANGELES — Steven Spielberg and his sisters — Anne, Sue and Nancy — are singing along to "My Girl." And not just singing, mind you. They have the choreography pretty much down pat, their arms and feet moving to the Tempations' classic Motown beat, and they're taking such delight in harmonizing that it seems clear this must be their favorite family song ... until the next number on the playlist starts and the opening drumbeat to the Ronettes' classic "Be My Baby" rings out and within a few seconds the siblings are singing the "whoa-oh-oh-oh" chorus at the top of their lungs.
We're crowded in a booth inside the Milky Way, the West Los Angeles restaurant that the Spielbergs' mother, Leah Adler, opened in 1977 with her second husband, Bernie, an eatery the family still owns and operates. "Mom was part of that harmony until she was 96 years old," Steven tells me, just before pleading with his sisters to break out some of the melodies they used to sing together on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. They oblige. He is the big brother, after all. "I'd be in big trouble if I had been born last," Steven says. The women do not dispute this.
The Spielbergs haven't seen each other since the AFI Fest premiere of "The Fabelmans," Steven's tender recounting of his filmmaking origin story folded inside an empathetic look at a complex relationship between his decent father and unfulfilled-artist mother. Steven thought the event was three weeks ago. Anne, the oldest, sets him straight: "No, that was November, Steve" — the sisters still call him Steve, as they always have — "and it's February now."
