Jew Eat Yet?

Barney Fife, Mentor

I’ve always identified with Barney Fife, the incompetent, nervous, self-aggrandizing deputy from “The Andy Griffith Show.” As played by Don Knotts, who died this weekend at the age of 81, Barney Fife was one of the most memorable characters from my childhood. Like many Jewish kids living with crazy relatives in the big city, I longed for the simple, ultra-goyishe way of life enjoyed by the residents of fictional Mayberry. I dreamed of being Opie Taylor, growing up under the wise and calm tutelage of Sheriff Andy Taylor and the nurturing care of kindly Aunt Bee. Everyone in Mayberry seemed subdued and reserved, from doddering Floyd the barber to the Forest Gump-like Gomer Pyle.  Even Otis the Drunk seemed like he was on more of an even keel than some of my own family members. But the character who made us laugh the most was the sole resident of Mayberry who closely resembled the neurotic, anxiety-ridden, loudmouthed know-it-alls I was growing up with (and  becoming myself). Barney Fife—the most Jewish Gentile in Mayberry.

Mayberry is often held  up as a model of true Christian values. There’s a website that offers a bible class centered around episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show.” Following Knotts’ death, Christian bloggers weighed in on the spiritual impact of Barney Fife. And yet, to me Barney’s sensibilities are familiar as can be. Why am I surprised? The reality is that the small-town Christian values of Mayberry were created by mostly urban Jewish writers, including my father’s best friend, Sam Bobrick, who wrote some of Barney’s best episodes.

My sister recently found a letter that Sam wrote to my parents when he was a struggling writer in New York in 1960 (don't you miss those typewritten letters with all those wonderful mistakes?). He had just decided to quit  his job as a staff writer on “Captain Kangaroo” and as he says in the letter at right (click to enlarge), “I was breaking my hump trying to think like a four year old and I kept finding myself two years behind.” Sam decided to leave the show to try his luck writing sitcom scripts (“Those half hour shows bring in two grand a show. If I just get three a year I’m in business.”). In the meantime, he figured he could live on the tiny unemployment check he received, “45 bananas a week, plus knowledge that Elvis owes me two grand helped matters.” That last bit of news, geometrically increasing the eBay value of Sam’s letter, is a reference to his song that Elvis Presley had recently recorded called “The Girl of my Best Friend.” No matter what she accomplished in her life, we always considered this song my mother’s biggest claim to fame. How many Chicago housewives could turn on the radio and hear Elvis singing about them:

The way she walks,
The way she talks
How long can I pretend
Oh I can’t help I’m in love
With the girl of my best friend.

Her lovely hair,
Her skin so fair
I could go on and never end
Oh, I can’t help I’m in love
With the girl of my best friend.

The way they kiss
Their happiness
Will my aching heart ever mend
Or will I always be in love
With the girl of my best friend?

Okay, I’m not saying that the song belonged on the Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band album but it had a special place in my heart. Sam wrote it with Beverly Ross, who also penned such classics as “Lollipop” and “It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry.” Sam then went on to write some of the great songs from the Mad magazine albums including “She Got a Nose Job,” “Please Betty Jane, When Are You Going to Shave Your Legs,” and my all-time favorite, “It’s a Gas,” which consisted of a series of musical riffs punctuated by an endless supply of loud belches. As Sam says on his website, “it was endeavors like this that brought my music career to an abrupt but necessary halt.”

Our favorite part of “The Andy Griffith Show” was the credits. We looked forward to them every week to see if the show was one of the episodes Sam wrote with his writing partner at the time, Bill Idelson. In addition to “The Andy Griffith Show,” the two wrote for “The Flintstones,” “Bewitched,” and “Get Smart,” among other classic shows of the 60s. Bill Idelson was also a well known character actor who is best known for his role as Sally Rogers’ nebbish boyfriend Herman Glimscher on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Sam and Bill’s Andy Griffith episodes always featured a lot of business for Don Knotts. They won a 1964 Writer’s Guild award for an episode called “Barney’s Bloodhound” in which Barney is convinced he can train a miserable old mutt named Blue to be a crackerjack police dog. A dangerous criminal has escaped from a nearby prison and Barney insists that Blue is hot on the trail. In this scene, Blue has just wandered up to Floyd in the barbershop. When he goes up to Floyd and sniffs his pocket, the barber proceeds to remove a lollipop.

Andy: Has that dog been in here before, Floyd?
Floyd: Oh, yes. Barney had him in here a little while ago and I gave him a lollipop. Oh, he's a smart dog. He knew where to get another one.
Barney: (annoyed) It was NOT the lollipop he was after. He was after the man's scent – that's all – just the scent.
Floyd: Oh, no, no, no. I think it was the candy. I smell of witch hazel and shaving cream. That wouldn't interest him. No, no, no, it was definitely the candy.
Andy: Good. Good dog. He'll probably lead us right to the criminal. Provided he's travelin' around with a pocketful of lollipops.

In my opinion, Don Knotts’ portrayal of Barney Fife was as subtle and nuanced as anything Meryl Streep has ever done in front of a camera. Knotts had a way of displaying his vulnerabilities with such depth and understanding that you would wince in pain as you laughed. Every week the show would provide another opportunity for Barney to dream big only to be thwarted again and again by reality and the massive insecurities which continually seeped through the eggshell-thin veneer of Barney's arrogance and bravado. Where the rest of Mayberry’s residents represented the Our Town-like archetypes of family values, Barney Fife was forever raw and exposed. He was us.

On my very first date with Kendall in 1989, after meeting her at Sam Bobrick’s daughter’s wedding, we went to a fundraising event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for some old movie society. Sitting at our table with us was none other than Barney’s girlfriend Thelma Lou, the actress Betty Lynn. I was more excited to meet her that night than any of the big movie stars who were at the event. Barney dated Thelma Lou throughout his tenure in Mayberry but he could occasionally be found warbling love poems on the phone to his other fling, the mostly unseen waitress named Juanita. For shame, Barney! But he always came back to Thelma Lou in the end, and finally married her in the 1986 reunion special, “Return to Mayberry.”

We were at our friend Leona’s house a few weeks ago and I was looking at some old framed pictures on her coffee table. Leona’s late husband Bob Van Scoyk was a successful writer and producer of shows such as “Columbo” and “Murder She Wrote” so there were lots of big-name celebrities in the photos. But it was only one faded photograph in a square lucite frame that caused me to start jumping up and down with excitement: “Oh my God, it’s Helen Crump!!” Andy Taylor’s girlfriend Helen, whom he later married, was played by Aneta Corsaut. Helen was also Opie’s teacher and was the kindest, most loving educator any young boy could ever hope for. I hadn’t had such a crush on a teacher since Beaver Cleaver’s Miss Landers! Leona’s photo showed a much hipper Helen Crump than I remembered. Aneta looked very mod in her hiphugger elephant bells and love beads. Sadly, Corsaut died ten years ago of cancer, but not before Andy Griffith hired her (along with Don Knotts and Betty Lynn) to appear in several episodes of his successful 1980s show “Matlock.”

Don Knotts left Mayberry after five years to pursue a movie career and his films were among my childhood favorites. I’ll never forget that spooky organ music in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.” I remember being truly scared by that movie which also starred Joan Staley (Playboy’s Miss November 1958 and now a grandmother of 11) and the great Reta Shaw. And I think my love of the space program owes as much to Knotts’ “The Reluctant Astronaut” as it does to the actual Apollo missions. Just last month, I introduced Leah to my favorite Don Knotts film, “The Incredible Mr. Limpet.” I wanted to show her our friend Carole Cook, who plays Knotts’ wife in the film (before he turns into a fish). Carole, still one of the funniest people on the planet and appearing next weekend in her usual slot  at the annual S.T.A.G.E. benefit, was actually quite mean in the film, blowing Mr. Limpet off so she could carry on with sleazy Jack Weston. Leah and I were rooting for Don Knott’s ocean-based paramour, the lovely Ladyfish, as voiced by Elizabeth MacRae. Boy, that voice sounded familiar, I thought. When we watched some of the special features on the DVD, including footage from the premiere of the film that was held in an underwater theatre in Florida (the first and last  film to be  projected in the ocean!), I realized why. MacRae was the actress who played Lou-Anne Poovie, the girlfriend of Mayberry’s Gomer Pyle after he left town to join the Marines and got his own show, also written by Sam Bobrick.

Though not the brightest bulb on the marine base, I had a major crush on Lou-Ann Poovie. Some thought her accent wildly offensive to Southerners but I later read that it was quite authentic. Who can forget her “Wayul, ack-shoo-ully..” or the way she pronounced her boyfriend’s name (“Gom-uh!”) Sam wrote some of Lou-Ann’s best episodes including 1967’s “Lou-Ann Poovie Sings Again.” This autographed photo that Sam sent us in the late 1960s was one of our prized possessions and was tacked to our wall for many years. I still invoke some of Gomer’s catch phrases on a regular basis even though I don’t think anyone around me knows that’s what I’m doing:

Citizens arrest! Citizen’s arrest!
Shazaam!
Gollll-lee!

I was so moved this weekend to hear that as Don Knotts was taking his last breaths, the two people at his bedside were his wife Frances and Andy Griffith. Their friendship had lasted almost fifty years and had survived the ups and downs of their respective careers with flying colors. “I loved him very much,” Griffith said after Knotts died. “We had a long and wonderful life together.”

In a way, the two of them remind me of my father and Sam. It’s hard to imagine a closer friendship. They’ve known each other since they were six, were there for each other through difficult childhoods, career struggles, poverty and success, marriage and divorce, and a variety of family joys and traumas. At our wedding last year, my dad and Sam were like a vaudeville act. Every time my dad would speak Sam would  heckle him from the crowd. But rather than get upset, my dad would laugh uproariously and tell everyone what a comic genius Sam is. Like Andy Taylor and Barney Fife or Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, Peter Miller and Sam Bobrick are my role models for all that friendship can be.

Blog Ethics

Sophia Loren’s son is stalking me. Or wait—am I stalking him? All I know is that I had breakfast yesterday morning at a café miles from Nate n’Al’s and as I sat there reading my manuscript who should sit down at the table directly next to mine (again) but Loren’s younger son, director Edoardo Ponti. I've been feeling a little weird ever since i wrote that Nate n’Al’s post because of the way I included direct quotations from private conversations, especially the one between the studio execs who were kvetching about their wives and children. What are the ethics for something like that? I took care not to identify them in any kind of traceable way, but it still felt creepy. And, of course, I didn’t hesitate to mention Edoardo and the conversation I overheard between him and the high-powered agent he was with. Not that I said anything negative—I mostly just described his passionate speaking style (which was very much in evidence yesterday during his meeting with a screenwriter I won’t name) and his intensity as he talked about his upcoming film projects.

I just found something called the Blogger’s Code of Ethics and was struck by the one that said, “Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone's privacy.” What do you think—is it acceptable to discuss people who are already in the public eye but less cool to repeat the conversations of non-celebrities? I can’t think of a lower form of life than paparazzi or sleazy tabloid journalists but is that what I’ve become?

What about correspondence? Is it okay to post private letters as long as I am the recipient? I can’t see anyone objecting to public displays of my letters from people like Roald Dahl, Julie Newmar, or the casts of “The Waltons” or “Maude.” But what if I were to post a private note from my late mother that revealed some sensitive material about her life or a letter from Kendall written during a tough time in our marriage? If it’s sent to me, does that give me carte blanche to do whatever I want?

When I write about family and friends, I find that my natural censors rise up and help me make judgments about what I think is okay to disclose and what would be better left off the blog. Occasionally I push the envelope but there are many things I would never write about family members without getting their permission first. Kendall has made it very clear that I’m free to write about any aspect of our personal relationship but the one thing she insists on is that I never quote her when she’s said something negative about any well known people, on the off chance that they’ll see it and get hurt. I used to tell Kendall that the likelihood of any of these people ever seeing my blog is near zero, but, with such powerful search engines these days, who knows?

Last week I wrote about not meeting Martha Plimpton at my brother-in-law’s show and then rattled on about how much I admire her as an actress. The Internet really did its thing that day. Within an hour of posting, Martha Plimpton had not only read what I wrote about her but she and Fred Armisen were on their way to say hi to us at Farmers Market. My stomach was in knots as we waited for them to arrive. What did she think about my fawning comments? How embarrassing. Would she arrive with a restraining order in hand? Not to worry, thank goodness, she was as down to earth as I thought she’d be and proved that my admiration was well placed.

One celebrity friend of ours specifically asked that I not write about her on my blog and I won’t. Some friends of mine now pause in the middle of conversations and say “please don’t mention this on your blog.” Such comments make me cringe—do they think I engage them in discussion looking for raw material? Well, maybe that’s not so far off. I don’t want to count the times I’ve been in the middle of some experience and suddenly said to myself or out loud: “Blog entry!”

At least the vast majority of my ruminations about celebrity are positive, I’m certainly no Addison DeWitt. The anonymity of sitting alone in a room as I post blog entries also helps me write about things that I’d be too embarrassed to mention in casual conversation. And let’s face it, if I decided to adopt some new ethical stance where I no longer make references to celebrities I might as well pack it up here and now. Despite all my claims, there must be a part of me that hopes that some of the people I write about DO see my blog. When I wrote about the original cast of the 1970s TV show “Zoom,” one goal was to see if I could find out whatever happened to the girl who was the object of my biggest pre-adolescent crush: beautiful Nina, The closest I got was a comment from someone whose friend used to work with the adult Nina.

In the post-Frey world, I’ve also been thinking about blogs as they relate to “truth.” My goal in writing creative nonfiction has always been to honor the spirit of the truth—that is much more important to me than being a slave to some alleged “reality.” If it works better for the piece to compress a date here or there or leave out a person or two, who cares? The only time I came anywhere near to pulling an all-out James Frey was in a post I wrote about going to my grandfather’s synagogue as a kid. While it accurately represents my feelings, I let my imagination wander in that piece and it’s the only time that I actually created composite characters (such as the fictional Gloria Shutterzeiss) who I mixed in with real-life people (such as the fabulous Yiddish theatre star Dina Halperin who was the niece of fabled actress Ida Kaminska).

Then there’s the frequent situation where people question my version of events. I recently got a bit of a dressing-down from someone I went to high school with regarding my perceptions of race relations at my old school. As I said to him, everything on here is filtered through my own private warehouse of memories, neuroses, hopes, and fears, I’m not surprised in the least that other people who were present would remember things very differently.

But back to Mr. Ponti. Even though it’s not meant in a malicious way, I do think I should refrain from repeating private conversations that I’m not a part of, don’t you? Oh, but before I set that in stone, can I just tell you one really good line? He was talking to the screenwriter about his script and said, “After reading this, I think you now know the color of your movie.” Nice, Edoardo. I would love to have someone talking to me that excitedly about my work. I have nothing but admiration for Ponti’s enthusiasm even though it may sound like I'm poking fun at it. He must have inherited this passion from his mama. As Edoardo said recently when he was directing Sophia Loren, “When we were on the set, it was the most natural thing in the world. It was as if we'd been doing it all our lives. She has great timing and a huge sense of emotional truth. She's never the same when she expresses emotion. She has the generosity and the enthusiasm to try different things.”

Hey, Edoardo, where should we meet for breakfast tomorrow?

Acoustic Sweet Spot

Having those actors in our house last week got me to thinking (again) about celebrity and the difference between knowing someone as a public figure versus having some kind of personal exchange. I'm glad that I didn't accost Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, or Hugh Jackman when they were in our house even though part of me longs to bond with artists that I admire. But isn't that better done by enjoying their work rather than in some awkward encounter?

We attended my brother-in-law’s solo show last night at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. I never feel qualified to discuss Jeff’s music but his from-the-gut performance was extraordinary—insightful, heartfelt, and extremely moving. I thought about how much he gives of himself in those moments and realized that on many levels I learn so much more about what makes him tick when I see him on a stage than I do having a conversation with him over breakfast. Some of the diehard fans travel from city to city to see Jeff perform and I’m sure they enjoy the personal contact they often have with Jeff after the show. But I hope they also recognize that what they are getting when Jeff is on stage is just as “real” and intimate (more so?) as those brief meet n'greets outside the dressing room or in front of the tour bus.

You could hear a pin drop during many parts of the show last night. What a powerful dynamic is created when a group of people gather with a common purpose. Glen Kotche, the brilliant Wilco drummer, opened for Jeff and then played with him at the end of the show. Apart from their musical talents, it’s a pleasure to watch the two of them together because of how much they clearly enjoy each other as musicians and as people. Jeff joked about their rapport, wondering whether people were getting sick of their mutual admiration society. But the fans love it—there’s never anything boring about artists who respect each other and help each other reach new heights.

As great as Jeff and Glen were, my favorite part of the show was when my ten-year-old nephew Spencer got up on stage and played the drums while Jeff sang “I’m the Man Who Loves You.” Spencer is so damn good on those drums and getting better every day. I tried to snap a photo but it barely came out so I’m also posting a photo of the two of them performing a song for me and Kendall at our wedding. That was so much more meaningful than anything Jeff could have said to us personally about our getting married.

Six-year-old Sammy spent the entire show sleeping on the floor at our feet but Jeff told the crowd one of Sam's brilliant jokes. Excuse my stage directions but it's so deep I want to make sure that I don't ruin it:

[Excited voice] Hey, look! A losers' contest!
[Dejected voice] Oh...I won.

Jeff also told the crowd the last words Sammy told him as he was going to bed the night before. Half asleep, he said, "Dad, you know what you should call your next CD?" "What, Sam?" Jeff asked. Sammy paused for dramatic effect before responding. "The Nazi Website." OY. All of us are trying to figure that one out but I'm taking partial credit. Three days in my presence and even six-year-olds have Nazis on the brain. (Will someone please call Children's Social Services?)

I was sitting next to Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener at the show but let me tell you what an idiot I am. When we got to our seats I saw that there were two blocked off in our row for C. Keener. I assumed they were probably for Catherine Keener since I’d heard she was a fan but someone else was sitting there. When I took my seat, the woman next to me kept asking if it was okay for her to sit there or did she need to move to make more room for our family. No, stay right there, I said, marveling at how much the woman looked like Catherine Keener. For some reason, since she wasn’t sitting in the C. Keener seats and was acting so deferentially, it didn’t occur to me that the Keener clone was the actress until after the show when she was talking to Jeff. Was that God’s way of protecting me from making a fool of myself? Wasn’t it better that I interacted with her during the show as “regular person” instead of tensing up and blurting out an ill-timed “Oh, Miss Keener, I so enjoyed your performance in Capote!” or “Hey, Cathy, good luck at the Oscars next month! You rock!” I think of the Retropolitan’s recent post called “The Case for Not Letting Me Talk to Celebrities” and I can so relate to that. I’d hate to think that had I been fully aware that I was talking to Catherine Keener I would've acted differently but I’m sorry to say that I probably would have especially since my sister and I were both wondering who she was and why she had an all-access pass so we were probably giving her weird vibes. I have always been a huge fan of Keener’s work and I can usually recognize any actor within a 10-mile radius so I have to ask myself whether my disconnect occurred because she was being so nice to me. Am I so neurotic that I can’t believe a real celebrity would ever give me the time of day? Jeff joked that as much as he enjoys spotting celebrities when he’s in L.A. (he was very excited yesterday to run into Peter Bonerz, Jerry the Dentist from old “Bob Newhart Show”), as soon as a celebrity attends one of his shows he loses all respect for them (“They’re dead to me!”). He was kidding, of course, but I understood exactly what he was saying. We know a fair number of recognizable folks but once they’re friends the mystique is gone (thank God) and it’s hard to remember that they’re famous. After the show my sister and I tortured ourselves about whether we were “nice enough” to Catherine Keener. Oy.

Jeff told us a story the other day about his Saturday night gig in San Diego where he had to stop the show and ask someone to quiet down. Unlike Wilco shows, his solo gigs are pretty quiet affairs so when people talk loud during the songs it is very noticeable and distracting. When the incident was discussed on the Wilco chat boards, as these things often are, people said that they actually couldn’t hear the woman talking—that she must have been in an “acoustic sweet spot” that projected straight up to the stage. I had never heard that term but I love it—all night long, whenever my sister and I were whispering anything to each other about people in the theatre, be it Jeff, James Spader, or my mystery date Catherine Keener, we panicked that our voices were being projected all around us in a series of acoustic sweet spots. Now I’m thinking that my blog is like one giant acoustic sweet spot with my private and often embarrassing ramblings projected to specific parts of the room. I’m always shocked when people refer to something I’ve written in here. “How do you know that?” I ask incredulously, even though I remember writing about what they’ve mentioned.

My sister’s friend Fred Armisen, who used to work with her at her Chicago club Lounge Ax and is now on “Saturday Night Live,” came over to say hello during the show but it must have also been an act of God that kept me from meeting his girlfriend Martha Plimpton who was there with him. I am such a huge fan of Plimpton’s that I know I would have blathered on like a lunatic and made her inch back in fear, eyes darting as they tried to spot the nearest exit sign. Kendall and I saw Plimpton in her wonderful cabaret act with Julian Fleisher last year and thought she was extraordinary. Fred (usually as his character Fericito) has appeared on stage with Jeff lots of times (including in the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) so I kept fantasizing during the show that he’d go up there and bring Martha with him to sing a few numbers with Jeff. I wish Plimpton made more films. What is it about her acting style that I find so incredibly genuine, whether it’s her performances in The Mosquito Coast, Running on Empty, and Parenthood or her later work in films like I Shot Andy Warhol (with music by Wilco), Pecker, or 200 Cigarettes? You also need to hear what she has to say in the documentary about women working in Hollywood called Searching for Debra Winger. She’s a member of Chicago’s great Steppenwolf Theatre and will open on Broadway in April in Colin McPherson’s “Shining City” which I want to see. As I said when I was boarding a plane with her uncle David Carradine a year ago, I would go out of my way to see anything Martha Plimpton was appearing in. Oy, I’m fawning again—see what happens? I can’t be trusted around famous people unless I know them and have seen their warts.

We’re about to leave for Jeff’s second show tonight. Yikes, more celebrities to seek out and avoid. In an L.A. Times interview this week, Jeff summed up what is so great about the dynamic that occurs when people listen to good music:

“All the best parts of people coming together can be found in music — rock concerts, and the experience of listening to records with your friends, and becoming more human by being reminded of your feelings through a great record. I believe in all of that stuff.”

Wendy, Betty, and Coretta

I don’t subscribe to that urban myth about celebrities dying in threes but we sure lost a trio of amazing women during the past week. And to continue my tortured Zelig-like quest to place myself on the periphery of celebrity, I will point out that I’ve met all three of these extraordinary individuals: Wendy Wasserstein, Betty Friedan, and Coretta Scott King.

I was so sad to hear about Wendy Wasserstein’s death last week. I only found out she was sick about a month ago when I was in the middle of listening to the audio version of her wonderful book of essays, “Shiksa Goddess, or How I Spent My Forties.” It’s great to hear her read her own work, the minute she starts talking you feel like she’s your best friend in the world. She writes about the agonizing period when her sister was dying of breast cancer, shares tidbits from her mother Lola (“Always look nice when you throw out the garbage, you never know who you might meet”), and details her difficult pregnancy at the age of 48. Her daughter Lucy Jane is only six and it’s heartbreaking to think that she won’t be growing up with her devoted mother who must have been one of the coolest moms in the world.

My first exposure to Wasserstein was the 1979 PBS version of her play “Uncommon Women and Others” that featured an amazing cast of actresses at the beginning of their careers including Jill Eikenberry, Swoosie Kurtz, and Meryl Streep. I’ll never forget the scene in which Swoosie Kurtz bounds into the dorm room at Mt. Holyoke and blurts out, as a total non sequitir, “I just tasted my menstrual blood!” That kind of line sure got your attention in the 1970s! We saw Amy Irving in Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-prize winning play “The Heidi Chronicles,” and I always looked forward to seeing or reading about her new plays. I loved Wasserstein's interpretation on the American Jewish psyche and how that played into the gender politics of the day.

The thing that impressed me the most about Wasserstein was her work with inner-city students to get them involved in the theatre. She would get to know a group of kids each school year, many of whom had never been inside a theatre, and accompany them to a range of Broadway plays. “As far as I’m concerned,” Wasserstein said, “every New Yorker is born with the inalienable right to grow up going regularly to the theatre. After all, if a city is fortunate enough to house an entire theatre district, shouldn’t access to the stage life within it be what makes coming of age in New York different from any other American city?”

A few years ago, Kendall and I went to see Wasserstein speak at L.A.’s Jewish museum, the Skirball Center. She was delightful and when Kendall mentioned her playwright dad Oliver Hailey, Wendy was very familiar with his work and got all excited. It’s just crazy that she had to die so young and leave that little girl she fought so hard to have. And how can there not be a new Wendy Wasserstein play every few years? What a loss.

I don’t think anyone could question Betty Friedan’s all-important role in bringing about massive shifts in our society. She was constantly dismissed and ridiculed during her work in the women’s movement (I remember all the hideous jokes about her appearance) but she soldiered on, developing a tough shell that many of her loved ones commented on at her funeral the other day. She was born Betty Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois, and like Wendy Wasserstein, was another nice Jewish girl who went off to a snooty mostly goyishe women’s college. She published “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963 with a print run of only 3,000 and it became a groundbreaking work that eventually touched the lives of millions.

“How do you make sense of Betty?'' her daughter Emily asked at her funeral on Monday. “You just don't. She made so many connections and yet was exquisitely lonely. Maybe the ultimate contradiction was that Betty just didn't fit into this world. That was her curse, and yet she started a revolution. Goodbye Betty. Goodbye Mommy.”

“Betty was not the perfect mother,'' her son Jonathan said. “Emily, Daniel, and I ate TV dinners growing up way beyond the recommended limit.” But when tens of thousands of people cheered his mother at a rally when he was 17, he said, “My heart, despite its adolescent shell, burst with pride.”

In the late 1980s and early 90s I was part of a small Jewish study group led by Laura Geller, one of the first women to be ordained as a rabbi in the United States. Laura was friends with Betty Friedan and whenever Betty was in town she joined our group. It was a thrill to have Friedan’s sharp wit and brilliant mind in our class, bringing new insights that we never thought of to the Torah portions that we were interpreting. I remember everyone in the group being especially on their toes when Betty was there. She couldn’t have been nicer, but it was a little intimidating having this icon in our midst. Whenever I said something in the group and Betty engaged me in discussion, I felt on top of the world. But if I said something and thought I saw a glazed look pass over Friedan’s eyes I wanted to curl up and hide under the nearest Sisterhood Is Powerful poster.

Betty Friedan died on her birthday, just like Ingrid Bergman. The Virgo in me loves that symmetry, the punctuation of having the same birth and death date. I’ve spoken so often about wanting to die on my birthday that everyone in my family gets nervous when September rolls around. Not yet, folks, don’t worry!

It was only after Coretta Scott King’s death a few days ago that I learned about her past as a classical singer and the promising career she gave up when she married Martin Luther King, Jr. at such a young age. She and Martin were married in 1953, a few weeks before my own parents' wedding, and they had four children who all became civil rights activists. Coretta King’s public speaking style was worlds apart from her husband’s but every bit as powerful. I remember hanging onto her every word whenever I heard her speak. Like Friedan, King was a woman who did not suffer fools gladly and she stood by her beliefs no matter what anyone thought. Did you know she campaigned vigorously for gay rights even when many people, including some of her own family members, were dead-set against it? She felt that her husband’s memory demanded a strong stand for gay and lesbian rights. “I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice,” she said a few years ago. “But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people…We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny. I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be.”

In the late 1980s, not long after I had moved to Los Angeles, a former colleague of mine came to town because she had written a TV special to celebrate the newly established Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, something for which Coretta King had fought for years. My friend Sandra asked if I wanted to attend the star-studded taping at a theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and I jumped at the chance. When I picked up my ticket at the box office and was led to my seat, I almost fainted. I was sitting in the first row next to the King family! Some of the best entertainers in America were performing that night but I could not take my eyes off of Coretta Scott King. I thought she was the most beautiful, regal woman I’d ever seen. But as Bill Clinton said at her funeral this week, “I don't want us to forget that there's a woman in there--not a symbol--a real woman who lived and breathed and got angry and got hurt and had dreams and disappointments.” And that was the most amazing part about sitting next to Coretta Scott King that night—getting a brief glimpse into the normalcy and intimacy of her conversations with her children, hearing her say the things that any mama might say to her kids as they sat in a theatre waiting for a show to begin—the refreshingly banal talk and private laughs that made me realize that even the most powerful icons of our time are flesh and blood creatures under their public personae.

I don’t understand all the controversy about the “politicizing” of Coretta’s funeral. What would any of the speakers talk about at such an event if not the struggle that Coretta Scott King fought for during her entire life? I have no doubt George W. Bush was uncomfortable listening to some of the remarks condemning his administration’s policies, who wouldn’t be in that situation? But hey, if you can’t stand the heat, Mr. President, get out of the freaking kitchen. As I watched him and Laura squirming in their center-stage seats and then heard all the pundits moaning that more respect should have been placed at his royal feet, I wanted to scream that popular cliché of our time: “It’s not about you, Georgie!” I’m not a big fan of George Sr., but if George W. had half the humility or self-awareness of his dad, he could have weathered the funeral without looking like he’d rather have been in the Eye of Hurricane Katrina.

I didn’t see that much of the six-hour funeral proceedings but was excited to see Maya Angelou on the platform. I think Angelou is one of the greatest voices of our time, I would travel for hours to hear her speak about a new sewage system. As I listened to her eulogize her beloved friend, I had the sad, morbid thought that Maya Angelou’s own funeral will suffer immeasurably because Angelou won’t be there to speak at it. If you haven’t read Maya Angelou’s multi-volume autobiography, beginning with “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” you should definitely put that on your list.

“On those late nights when Coretta and I would talk," Angelou said, "I would make her laugh. And she said that Martin King used to tell her, you don't laugh enough. There is a recent book out about sisters in which she spoke about her blood sister. At the end of her essay she said I do have a chosen sister-- Maya Angelou, who makes me laugh even when I don't want to. And it is true. I told her some jokes, jokes only for no mixed company. Many times on those late evenings, she would say to me, 'Sister, it shouldn't be an either or, should it? Peace and justice should belong to all people everywhere all the time. Isn't that right?' And I said then and I say now, Coretta, you are absolutely right. I do believe that peace and justice should belong to every person, everywhere, all the time.”

Can’t you imagine a great conversation happening right now between Wendy Wasserstein, Betty Friedan, and Coretta Scott King? I wish I could hear that.

Live from the Film Set (Updated)

I should be more jaded but I can’t freaking believe that Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson are downstairs right now filming a scene for "The Prestige" in our living room. Christian Bale and Michael Caine are down there as well waiting for the next scene. Our house is a tavern in one scene and the interior of the Greenroom Drinking Club in another. There are also 10 bar wenches, 3 bar maids, 2 bartenders, and 30 bar patrons dressed in period garb and sitting in our dining room and library which are in the background of the shot. When they were walking down the street from their holding area on the corner they looked like a group of refugees leaving Anatevka. Everyone is smoking and between that, the smoke machine, and the gas lights they’ve installed I’m waiting for our house to go up like a powder keg.

I’ve been trying to snap some decent photos but I’m far too timid—my career as a photojournalist in war-torn countries will never work. Here’s a photo of Hugh Jackman walking into our house. Scarlett Johansson was led in under a huge umbrella and I didn’t get my camera out in time. Director Christopher Nolan is sitting in our breakfast room. I think I saw his wife, Emma Thomas, who is also the producer on the film, and their new baby. Nolan directed "Memento" which I loved and "Batman Begins." He was supposed to direct a big film about Howard Hughes that he wrote which would have starred Jim Carrey but Scorsese beat him to the punch. Hugh Jackman has TWO more films as Wolverine coming up. He's also slated to play a 1930s literature professor in Germany who ends up working at Auschwitz. That film has my name on it.

The entire crew just burst into laughter at Jackman’s line reading. They gave me a copy of the sides and for the whole day Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine only have three lines each, darn it. I better not reveal too much about the story but I’ll just say that Johansson’s last line is “He’s an out of-work actor—of course he’s out of his mind!” Did you know that she has a twin brother in real life? And that she's only 22? She is so hot right now—this film is one of SEVEN that she's got lined up including the lead in "The Nanny Diaries," "The Black Dahlia" and a Neil Jordan film about Lucrezia Borgia co-starring Colin Farrell. She's also already made another Woody Allen movie in London also with Hugh Jackman and Woody himself. Is any other young actress in Hollywood getting work these days?

I can’t believe all the trouble they go to for two very short scenes in a movie. And all the expense to completely transform our house. Tomorrow they will come at 6 am to start transforming it back. We may be able to keep the gigantic bar that they built in the middle of our living room and I'm going to start drinking heavily so we can make good use of it!

This looks like it's going to be an excellent film. Hmmm, I smell fire...

2:30 pm: Just had the largest lunch I've had in years. If I worked on a film crew I would weigh 400 lbs. Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine came to the regular catering tent and couldn't be nicer. Johansson is hauntingly beautiful in her period costume.

Even I have too much decency to take a photo of her while she's eating so here she is getting out of a car in front of our house. All my photos are of the backs of people which is just as well since I'm sure I'm not supposed to be taking them, much less posting them for the world to see. We watched a few scenes being shot and, as anyone who's ever worked on a film knows, it's sloooooooow going. How do they remember where their characters are emotionally when they shoot in such a disparate, piecemeal way? I really admire their skills but if I were an actor I think I'd prefer working in the theatre. Another thing that amazes me on a film set is how quiet the scene is as it's being shot. I was standing right there and could barely hear Hugh Jackman. And yet everything is so loud and forceful when you see it on the screen. What an industry. Grueling work, but looks like so much fun. Is my life meaningless because I'm not a movie star? Because they all have such well balanced and happy lives, right? Director Christopher Nolan seems like a great guy and he looks like a movie star himself. There's a huge light set up right outside my office door. I think I'm trapped.

Nate n'Al's

Sometimes after I drop Leah off at school in Culver City I eat breakfast at a Beverly Hills institution called Nate n’Al’s. It’s a small deli on Beverly Drive that is as worth visiting for the Jewish delicacies such as chicken liver omelettes, potato pancakes, and smoked whitefish as it is for the anthropological study of southern California life it provides.

Nate n’Al’s is the spot where deals are made and schmoozing is king. In fact this morning I sat near none other than Mr. Schmooze himself, Larry King, kissing up to the wizened waitress like she was one of the guests on his show. The movers and shakers who are regulars at Nate n’Al’s are a different variety from the ones that can be seen power breakfasting at the nearly Polo Lounge, the tony establishment in the Beverly Hills Hotel. The Nate n’Al klatsch is a bit more harried, a bit more rumpled, and way more east coast.

While you’ll find rock stars searching for the perfect matzoh ball and acrylic nailed Russian housewives eating eggs and onions at Cantor’s Deli on Fairfax, and you’ll see local sports stars gorging on Reubens and Holocaust survivors devouring their flanken at Factor’s on Pico, Nate n’Al’s is a pure industry hangout, and I don’t mean the automobile industry.

The last time I ate there I was sitting next to a handsome young guy with a carefully groomed five-o-clock shadow who was giving a passionate sermon about his current film project to his breakfast companion, a high-powered New York agent I didn’t recognize but who was obviously a head honcho the way everyone in the room practically genuflected in her presence. The director had a slight accent and would occasionally break into perfect Italian or French as he discussed the European funders he was approaching.

“Put me in a room with anyone, and I mean anyone,” he wailed, “and I I can sell them on this project.” He was so intense and convincing that I was almost ready to write him a check myself. “I believe in you, bubbeleh,” the superagent swooned with a thick Brooklyn accent that made her sound like one of Gilda Radner’s “Saturday Night Live” characters. “I want to make things happen for you, dahling,” she cooed. “Let’s meet up in Milan next week. I’m leaving L.A. tonight and I pray to God I don’t have to come back here until August.” Why do New York agents always feel the need to trash L.A. while they’re still in L.A.? Another one of this woman’s fawning clients entered the restaurant and she introduced him to her companion. “Ben, you know Edoardo Ponti, don’t you?”

Of course—that’s where I’ve seen him. The passionate film director with the five-o-clock shadow and custom-made dress shirt was Sophia Loren’s younger son. Yikes, I’m old enough to remember when Loren was pregnant with Edoardo and had some complications that literally forced her to stay in bed for the entire nine months. “Do you know what your mother went through for you?” I wanted to yell over the divider that was separating us in the cramped deli. But I’m sure he did know—the two seem very close and Edoardo even directed his mom in his first feature film a few years ago. Have you seen Sophia Loren lately? She was born in 1934 and looks as sexy as she did when she was debating whether to run off with Cary Grant or marry Carlo Ponti. Luckily for Edoardo, she chose his dad, and even luckier for him, he looks more like her than his rotund father, now 93. But though Sophia is still the va-va-voomiest, she is also a brilliant actress and one smart cookie, I have such respect for that dame. When they finished their meeting, Ponti kissed the agent on both cheeks and from the time he got up from the table until he left the restaurant he had already made two frenetic cell phone calls to Europe. The agent told the waitress that she’d see her again in a few hours. Apparently she was taking meetings at Nate n’Al’s all day long until she had to leave for the airport. Another schmear please, and a bissel two cents plain.

This morning I was sitting at the same table but my table mates were definitely not the sons of any glamorous movie star. The film executives were former New Yorkers, of course, and one of them was talking about his first job as a waiter in the Catskills. They kept name dropping and talking about how they got bigger offices so they could put up more artwork. “It’s a tiny HBO movie,” one of the guys said about his latest project. “Only 12 million dollars.” The other exec talked about his wife and his ex-wife with the same contempt. Apparently the current ball and chain wanted to dissect their relationship day and night but hubby would have none of that. He’d just finished bankrolling a new pool at their Mulholland Drive home that cost over 50 grand was now forcing his kids to “get in the fucking pool” every day after school so that his money wasn’t spent in vain. He told his friend a horrifying tale of his 15-year-old daughter getting blitzed on New Years Eve and ending up in the emergency room with her friend who passed out from alcohol poisoning. The guy tried to reach his ex-wife but she only called back after 3 am since she was out with an Academy Award-winning actor that night and didn’t want to be disturbed. “You think you know someone for 20 years,” the film guy moaned, “but you don’t. She turned out to be such a disappointment. My shrink said she’s a fuck-up because she knows how dependable I am with the kids. I can’t wait until they turn 18 and I never have to speak to that bitch again.”

During this rant, the other guy had sent back his simple breakfast order twice. He wanted a tomato with his eggs, not cottage cheese. (Why won't anyone in Beverly Hills eat a freaking potato? The way people respond, you'd think they'd just been offered a side of radioactive sludge.) His biggest complaint was that his milk wasn’t cold enough. “I like it really icy,” he said. I was listening to this conversation as I was reading a manuscript aimed at helping teachers turn their students into peace activists. The chapter I was working on was about the horrific plight of child soldiers and refugee children around the world. It definitely put a different perspective on some guy losing it because his milk wasn’t cold enough. Because Nate n’Al’s is such an industry hangout, everyone seems to know each other. Throughout my breakfast, the two guys waved to about seven or eight people coming in the door, yelling out the classic Beverly Hills greeting, ‘How the hell are ya?” and then turning right back to the their conversation before getting any reply.

I looked around the packed restaurant in amazement—every single patron except for me seemed to have something to do with the biz. What was I even doing there? Oh wait, look at those two nice little old ladies eating blintzes. At last, some normal Jewish bubbies who didn't have a development deal at New Line and had nothing to do with the movies except as patrons of the occasional matinee. But when I passed the ladies’ table on my way to bathroom, this is the snippet of conversation I heard, as God is my witness: “...oh yeah, honey, King Vidor directed me in that picture. I always thought he kind of had a thing for me.” Oy. I loitered long enough to find out that the elderly ladies were former Goldwyn Girls and had both dated half the male stars of the 1930s and 40s. What was this, some kind of “Twilight Zone” episode? At least I had my manuscript and non-Hollywood life to return to. But not for long. I’ll be leaving my current job at the end of March after seven years. My main responsibility has been developing our social studies books and my company has made the decision to refocus its resources in other areas. We won’t be doing any more social studies books so I’ll be out on the market. Gulp. Will I soon be found panhandling in front of "Nate n'Al's" holding a sign that says "Will Blog for Food?" Should I take a meeting with the icy milk guy? How the hell are ya, buddy?

Oh well, at least our house has a job. We’ve had the incredibly talented art department from Touchstone Pictures in residence all week transforming our first floor into a seedy London pub, circa 1900 for a movie shoot next week. Here are some photos of their handiwork but they’re not yet finished dressing the set. Leah is in heaven, spending her evenings behind the bar working on world-weary bartender monologues and begging everyone who comes over to do scenes with her. She’s serving up faux whiskeys and every time I walk into our former living room I can’t stop myself from singing:

It’s a quarter to three,
There’s no one in the place
’cept you and me
So set ’em up Joe
I got a little story
I think you should know
We’re drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road.

It’s amazing how much work goes into creating a set for just one day of a film shoot. Our scenes will be shot on Monday and there will be over 100 people in our house including the film’s stars Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johannson, Michael Caine, and David Bowie. What a cast--I can’t wait to see the film. It's about two rival magicians (Jackman and Bale) in turn-of-the-century London who keep trying to one-up each other. David Bowie plays real-life inventor and electrical wizard Nikola Tesla. Oh, and Andy Serkis, aka Gollum from “The Lord of the Rings,” is also in the film. Kendall and I will be upstairs on Monday hoping that the chain-smoking extras don’t set our house on fire.