The process of changing Nazi history in films and television actually began some time ago in films and television. From Chaplin\’s \”The Great Dictator\” to \”Hogan\’s Heroes,\” from Ernst Lubitsch\’s \”To Be or Not to Be\” to \”The Grey Zone,\” World War II and the Holocaust have been told almost solely from the point of view of the victors and the victims.
When Bernard Rose first met superagent Jay Moloney, the inspiration for his controversial new film, \”ivansxtc,\” he was a hot young director courted by every agent in town. \”I was staying at the Mondrian, and gifts would suddenly appear in my room,\” says the 41-year-old Jewish Brit, who had just made an acclaimed 1988 drama, \”Paperhouse.\”
Linda Hamilton, the buff action star, is studying Yiddish-language tapes. The image is startling for anyone who remembers her as Sarah Connor, the all-American waitress-turned-warrior in James Cameron\’s \”Terminator\” flicks. It\’s even more startling when you consider that the Yiddish is for a play, Lou Shaw\’s \”Worse Than Murder: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,\” which opens tomorrow at the Ventura Court Theatre in Studio City. Hamilton plays Ethel Rosenberg, who was strapped into the electric chair in 1953 and executed, along with her husband, for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to the Soviets. Sitting on a faded gold couch in the bland rehearsal space at the Court, the petite, smoky-eyed actress says even she was surprised she accepted the part. \”I\’d sworn off heavy roles since \’Terminator 2\’ because I was just so sick of playing these very earnest, strong women,\” she says. Instead, Hamilton did some acclaimed TV movies, films such as \”Dante\’s Peak\” and a comedy or two.
When Debra Messing heard she\’d been cast as Woody Allen\’s girlfriend in his new romantic romp, \”Hollywood Ending,\” she shrieked.
\n\”I\’m just a nice Jewish boy with one vice,\” says Queens native Ron Jeremy. \”Twenty-three years of porn films.\”
\”The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America\” by Lawrence J. Epstein (Public Affairs, $27.50).
\”I\’ll tell you. I don\’t get no respect. My mother stopped breast-feeding me as a kid. She told me she liked me like a friend.\” (Rodney Dangerfield)
For as long as I\’ve been a comedian, I\’ve been asked two questions over and over:
Why are there so many Jewish comedians? And why do you think Jews are so funny?
In
\”My mind\’s going to be closed all day.\”\n\n * Mort Sahl, Comedian\n\n\”I think my girlfriend and I are going to be in town. My brother will come in from school. It\’s a great time of the year, and it\’s always nice to reflect on yourself and to spend it with family. We fast, we get cranky, but it\’s nothing a little pickled herring can\’t cure.\”\n\n * Fred Savage, Actor
The new television season is upon us. African American and Latino groups are making the expected protests about the lack of people who look like them before and aft of the camera, and the Jews are — as usual — adding up their TV IQ on the fingers of one hand.
If there aren\’t many \”brothers\” out there, there are even fewer \”Members of the Tribe,\” and those that are there are not particularly Jewish Jews, if you know what I mean.
\”Why don\’t we f— this audition and I\’ll play you right now for the part?\” she said. \”If I lose, you\’ll never see me again. But if I win, I walk out of here with the script.\”
\nFifty-six years after Anne Frank perished in Bergen-Belsen, her life and legacy loom larger than ever.
