Nate Bloom blogs on this week's Jews in the News.

 

A Funny Crime Flick; Elizabeth Taylor Speaks Candidly, 59 years later; Newhart and the Jews; Simmons and Westheimer

 

“The Instigators” opens in a few theaters on Aug. 2 and then begins streaming on Apple+ on Aug. 9. It’s a comedy crime heist flick. Premise: a botched robbery causes two thieves (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) to go on the run, dragging along one of their therapists in the process.

MICHAEL STUHLBARG, 55, and RON PERLMAN, 74, have fairly large supporting roles. DOUG LIMAN, 58, directed. His hits include “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “The Bourne Identity”.

On August 3 (8:00 PM) a new documentary entitled “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes” premieres on HBO/Max. The film was directed by NANETTE BURSTEIN, 54. (Her best-known documentaries include “Hillary” and “The Kid Stays in the Picture”). The “lost tapes” refer to 40 hours of newly unearthed audio tapes of interviews that Taylor gave to Life magazine reporter Richard Meryman in 1965.

Taylor talks about everything in her life: as a child actress star; her breakthrough as an adult actress in hits like “Giant” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, and about her marriages (Richard Burton, who she was married to in 1965, was her fifth husband).

The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a very positive review. The reviewer praised Burstein’s deft editing of the tapes, and her appropriate insertion of “visuals” (photos and  relevant film clips). The Reporter also noted how candid and biting Taylor could be.

As most know, Taylor converted to Judaism when she married EDDIE FISHER (#4) in 1959. Fisher didn’t ask her to convert. It was her choice. I’m not sure if Taylor practiced Judaism “much” after her split with Fisher. But I do know that she always called herself Jewish and she had a Jewish funeral.

In the near future, I will write-up something about “Faye”, a bio-pic documentary about Faye Dunaway which premiered on July 13 on HBO/Max. The film prompted me to look up all her “Jewish connections”---and I was astonished to learn that virtually every hit film she was in was written and/or directed by a Jew—and she had a large number of Jewish romantic partners—and one Jewish husband. So, if you watch the Taylor flick, check out “Faye”, too, and look for my Jewish/Dunaway connections item.

Before, and after his death, every person who was interviewed about Bob Newhart described him as kind, funny, and always professional. You could just tell by the tenor in their voices that everything they said was genuine.

When Newhart broke into stand-up comedy in 1959, he was kind of an oddball. He was an accountant and a practicing Catholic. I can’t think of another famous “stand-up” who was an accountant and, in 1959, most stand-up comedians were Jewish. But he had two things going for him: he was easy to work with and, most important, he was the creator of really funny stuff.

Virtually every American star actor, or comedian has, or had, important personal and professional “Jewish connections”. Newhart had more than most. Here are some of them: DAN SORKIN (1927-2020), a Chicago D.J., listened to Newhart’s comedy tapes and loved them. Sorkin helped Newhart get booked for his first nightclub stand-up shows and he helped him get a record company contract. Newhart’s first comedy album was a surprise huge seller;  Newhart is most famous for his “one sided” phone conversations with imaginary people. He said this “shtick” was inspired by routines by SHELLY BERMAN and by the team of MIKE NICHOLS and  ELAINE MAY; “The Bob Newhart Show” was created by, and written by two Brooklyn-born Jews: (the late) DAVID DAVIS and GERALD “Lorenzo” MUSIC. The late SUZANNE PLESHETTE, who played Bob’s wife, was Jewish; BUDDY HACKETT got Newhart (1962) a blind date with Ginnie Quin. She married Bob in 1963. Like Newhart, she was a Catholic of mostly Irish ancestry. They had four children, one of them had the nickname “Buddy”—that was gratitude for Buddy’s matchmaking; and, last January, I wrote about a 20-minute 2023 documentary entitled “Bob and Don: A Love Story”. This JUDD APATOW film (on Youtube) had an interview with Bob and Ginnie about how (the late) DON RICKLES Rickles and his (late) wife, BARBARA, were great friends and the couples (and their children) did everything together. In a clip shown on a CBS special about Newhart (July 22), Newhart said that he and Rickles “were brothers of the heart”. He said his family celebrated Jewish holidays with the Rickles family and the Rickles celebrated Christmas with his family. Newhart added that their friendship was based on similarities. He was referring to their kind personalities in private and their devotion to their families.

Last January, JEFF, an old friend who lives in the Los Angeles area, forwarded an article about a 10-munute comedic film that had just been screened at the Sundance Film Festival. This satire featured Richard Simmons (played by comedian PAULY SHORE ) doing an exercise work-out on TV.

The article noted that Shore, 56, was using this short film as a preview of a full-length film about Simmons that he hoped to make. Shore said he didn’t intend to make fun of Simmons.  

Simmons rarely made public statements in the last five years, but he did issue a terse statement about Shore’s projects, “I had nothing to do with this.”

Jeff entitled his e-mail: “I know Richard Simmons and he is half-Jewish”. I asked him how he knew Simmons---he said that Simmons was a waiter in an L.A. restaurant he went to—and, encouraged by friends, he (Jeff) invested in a (combo) restaurant and work-out studio that Simmons was going to run. The restaurant did ok, Jeff said, but the work-out studio was a huge hit with women and its success was the first big step in Simmons’ fame. (P.S.: Jeff got his investment back and made a small profit).

I vaguely recalled that Simmons’ mother was Jewish, but he wasn’t raised Jewish. Wikipedia said (and still says) his father was a Methodist, his mother was Jewish, and he became a Catholic as a young adult.

This didn’t sound right and, last January, I found the correct info in a 20-minute 2011 interview on Dr. RUTH WESTHEIMER’s TV show!  This Youtube video is entitled “Dr. Ruth and Richard Simmons discuss dieting and exercise”.

In the first five minutes, Simmons said that his late father was Catholic, his mother is Jewish, and he was raised Catholic. He added that his mother was disowned by her parents when she went to dance in “the Follies” and this led his mother to bury her Jewish background. He said he was 19 when he learned that his mother was Jewish.

I have to say that Simmons and Westheimer (a sex info expert) were just so sweet and bubbly in this interview. Simmons talked about new exercise programs for seniors and for the disabled. His work for the disabled, he added, was totally free.

At the close of the interview, Westheimer stated what most of us found in Simmons: he had  “joie de vivre” (love of life). Of course, Dr. Ruth had the same joy.

Dr. Westheimer, age 96, died at 11:30PM on July 12 and Simmons, age 76, died the next day. They were eccentrics who knew they could be figures of fun—but that “fun” helped them convey invaluable info (about sex and exercise) to millions.