Jew Eat Yet?

Sixteen

Today is my daughter Leah’s sixteenth birthday. How the heck did that happen? I remember writing about her tenth birthday during the first week that I had this blog. She was just a little girl then hitting the double digits and now she seems (almost) a grown woman. Leah has matured so much during the past six years and yet she is still the same funny, sweet, crazy, smart, beautiful, creative redhead I’ve always known.

The biggest change for Leah at the moment is that she is in the process of “unschooling” herself. Although she loved her high school and was a straight-A student, she recently left the traditional educational system and is going off on her own. She takes the California High School Proficiency Exam in March and will be creating her own curriculum of classes, internships, traveling, reading, and learning. Another autodidact in the family! She created an extensive PowerPoint presentation for us a few months ago to explain her decision and to address all of our concerns and it was pretty impressive. Her teachers were surprised, sad to lose her, but very supportive.

Still, there’s a lot of criticism out there for people who want to push the envelope and do things a different way, and I give Leah a lot of credit for being able to withstand the pressure to conform to other people’s ideas of what is best. It takes a hell of a lot of initiative to do what she’s doing and I’m so proud of her. . There are people who think we’re nuts for allowing Leah to leave a great school where she was doing so well but I have every confidence in her abilities. Leah still plans to go to college in two years and I’m sure she’ll be a better candidate as a result of this experience. God knows I wish I took a break between high school and college instead of advancing from one institution to the other like a mechanized automaton without being able to take full advantage of the opportunities at my feet.

Leah recently appeared in what is at least her 35th musical, her second production of “Annie” in which she played one of the orphans. I recently found the footage I thought I lost when my computer was stolen a few years ago of Leah in the title role of that play from December 2005. Oh, how young she looks and how amazing it always is for me to see my daughter take center stage with such confidence and abandon. Forgive me, I can't help including a short clip here for posterity:

  

From the day she was born (literally!) I’ve been singing a certain song to Leah and it’s hard to believe the lyrics are finally accurate. This morning my daughter asked me with a bit of fear in her voice if I’d now be singing this song to her every day for the next year. The answer is…YES! Sorry! 

  

Happy Birthday, Leah! I love you!

“But Daddy, I Thought We Were Jewish!”

Forgive me, Chasidic ancestors, I couldn’t resist. Charlie and I were at the Grove shopping center a few days ago in the pouring rain and unlike the usual mob scene, there wasn’t a single person in line at Santa’s House. What could I do?

For weeks Charlie had enjoyed walking by Santa’s glitzy abode and waving to the animatronic bear hanging out the window. He also enjoyed talking to the life-sized Gingerbread Man on the roof and visiting the moving Snowman at the front door. My son was in a great mood that morning and I couldn’t wait to get the first photo of him alone on Santa’s lap.

But the minute Charlie met Jolly St. Nick in the flesh, my happy boy became hysterical, a reaction he never has to anyone. I didn’t feel I could duck out at that point and a line was forming at the door so I quickly sat down next to Santa and tried to explain to Charlie that this was a very nice man who loved children (the very opposite of “Stranger Danger” training!). This Santa Claus was very kind and professional (I’m sure he’s seen it all at the Grove) and kept gently trying to engage Charlie but my son was having none of it. Part of me was hoping to capture Charlie staring at Santa in utter terror (the perfect Christmas photo!) but as you can see he just looks a little shell-shocked. Notice Santa has stopped trying to reach out to his little Jewish friend!

What is the deal with parents (like me) who thrust their terrified babies into the arms of a total stranger—an obese old man wearing a crazy red suit that looks like it belongs on a fat pimp? Does that cause the same kind of trauma that the young children who were forced to kiss their dead grandmothers in their coffins used to experience? Oy, what have I done?

Despite Santagate, we had a lovely Christmas Eve at my mother-in-law’s house. Charlie spent most of his time playing on this killer drum set he got from our friend Leona. Check out his snazzy duds (including his very first tie!) that were a Hanukkah gift from his sister. Charlie really seems to have a knack for percussion. He may just give his cousin Spencer a run for his money.

Merry Christmas to all!

Over the Rainbow

My daughter Leah took this photo yesterday of the most amazing double rainbow over our house. It was so bright and vivid it seemed almost biblical. And God knows after six days of constant rain I was getting ready to build an Ark. Maybe the rainbow was sent to celebrate this week’s repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. About freaking time.

I know it’s crazy for southern Californians who enjoy perfect sunny days about 360 days a year to freak out about a six-day stretch of rain but one more day of wet weather and we may have started growing gills. At least that would have sent a message to the 40 percent of Americans who apparently believe evolution is just a theory.

Speaking of gays and rainbows, did you know that the American Film Institute voted “Over the Rainbow” the greatest movie song of all time? And the Recording Industry Association of America deemed it the number one song in its “100 Best Songs of the Century” list. And to think MGM boss Louis B. Mayer tried to cut the song from “The Wizard of Oz” because he thought it made that sequence in the film drag and he had an issue with an MGM star singing in a barnyard.

A reprise of the song later in the film, when Dorothy is locked in the witch’s castle, was shot and then deleted. I’ve heard a recording of it. Dorothy is sobbing her way through the reprise and finally ends with the line that is still in the film, “I’m frightened, Auntie Em, I’m frightened!” at which point the image of Auntie Em in the witch’s crystal ball turns into the cackling witch at her most terrifying. That’s the image that even Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the witch, later said was just too much. Children in theaters in 1939 regularly erupted into tears during that scene.

Here are the words of the deleted reprise:

Someday I’ll wake and rub my eyes
And in that land beyond the skies
You’ll find me.
I’ll be a laughing daffodil
And leave the silly cares that fill
My mind behind me.

Eh, no great loss. Keep those rainbows coming, Dorothy.

 

Lola Heatherton’s Love Spirit Christmas

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas and unlike past years, I haven’t written a single anti-Christmas post. What’s going on? Have I finally grown a human heart? I think that a) Charlie’s travails and triumphs over the past year and a half have made me more positive in general, and 2) I’ve completely removed myself from the part of Christmas that makes me nuts—the high-stress consumer orgy. I actually was in a mall this morning with Charlie (mostly to get out of the incessant rain) and it was like being in another world. Looking at the array of brand spankin’ new stuff, I felt like a recent immigrant from some Iron Curtain country, I was fascinated by the abundance (but still didn’t want to buy anything). But I'm glad for our economy that at 9 am the mall was already filled with real shoppers!

The truth is, even back when I was writing posts with titles such as “Stamp Out Santa,” it was clear that on some levels I've always been a sucker for the holiday—at least in terms of pop culture, the sappier the better. I feel lucky that I grew up during the heyday of Christmas-themed television, from the annual visits from the Crosby and King families to those Rankin-Bass favorites, Rudolph and Frosty, to the inspirational charms of Charlie Brown and the Little Drummer Boy.

Yesterday on Facebook, our friend Jane Wilson, herself a brilliant actress and incredibly funny woman, was kvelling over the talents of Catherine O’Hara, remembering the Christmas specials of her character, Lola Heatherton, on the 1980s classic, SCTV. It all came rushing back, not that it ever completely left me. Every year at this time, my friend Leslie and I can be found singing one of Lola’s Christmas hits:

Baby, baby, my heart’s freezin', boo-hoo-hoo,
I’m all alone I got no love this season, boo-hoo-hoo!
Boo-hoo-hoo, I’m cryin’ my eyes black and blue.
Ding-dong-ding, all I want’s a wedding ring!

But why am I blathering on? If you haven’t seen it, behold the magnificence that is Catherine O’Hara:

 

Did you catch a young Martin Short as one of the Juul Haalmeyer Dancers? I can’t mention SCTV Christmas without showing a clip from another Catherine O’Hara gem: Dusty Towne, based on the bawdy “adult” comedienne Rusty Warren (featuring John Candy as Divine!). Oh my God.

 

And while I’m at it, even though Hanukkah is over, I have to share a clip of O’Hara with my other favorite SCTV performer, the amazing Andrea Martin, celebrating the Festival of Lights on Libby Wolfson’s Hanukkah special. This clip features several lines that I’ve repeated every Hanukkah since the early 80s!

 

While SCTV’s production values were crude compared to today (in fairness, they were supposed to be simulating a low-budget TV network) the show was so consistently hysterical that it made the uneven SNL seem about as funny as The Oral Roberts Show.  

Many of the SCTV alums, including Catherine O’Hara, have been appearing in Christopher Guest’s wonderful films over the years, but I hope Jane Wilson fulfills her dream of writing a screenplay for the woefully underused O’Hara. 

Now don’t forget, Lola Heatherton wishes you such a merry Christmas, it’s SCARY! And, of course, she wants to BEAR YOUR CHILDREN! 

Farewell, Pink Panther and Miss EMERAC

Two more movie celebrities died this week, one more well known than the other, and if they don’t both appear in the Oscars tribute next year I’m going to storm the Academy.

My first thought upon hearing that director Blake Edwards died Wednesday at the age of 88 was of his wife of 42 years, Julie Andrews. I remember sitting in front of the two of them a few years ago at the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard and they were acting like real lovebirds. I just started reading Andrews' autobiography, “Home,” and while I didn’t think my admiration of her could go any higher, it has. “He was the most unique man I have ever known—and he was my mate,” Andrews said in a statement yesterday. “He will be missed beyond words, and will forever be in my heart.” Edwards and Andrews worked together many times from the badly received “Darling Lili” to the underrated “The Tamarind Seed” to the exquisite “S.O.B.” and “Victor/Victoria.”

Much has been written about Edwards' success with the Pink Panther films. I remember seeing the first (and best) one during its opening weekend at the Lakeshore Theatre in Chicago a million years ago. Of Edwards' early films, my favorite is “Operation Petticoat” starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtis (who also died this year). The wacky film starring a bevy of army nurses on a submarine (I only remember the beautiful Dina Merrill) was a precursor to some of his crazy funny films that would follow.

But while I admire many of the director’s comedies (it’s probably harder to pull off a truly funny film than an effective drama), my favorite Blake Edwards film is definitely “The Days of Wine and Roses,” a riveting, tragic, and no-holds-barred look at alcoholism starring Jack Lemmon (Edwards’ favorite actor) and a very young and powerful Lee Remick. I saw this film at the American Cinematheque recently and it haunted me for months. That same year Edwards made “Experiment in Terror,” also starring Remick—a gripping film but, in my opinion, less successful than "Wine and Roses."

  

Edwards’ “10” was one of the Big Movies of my teen years and it transformed Bo Derek into an instant cultural icon. But one of my other favorite Blake Edwards movies, one that I don’t think did very well, was the autobiographical “That’s Life,” one of the first films I saw after moving to Los Angeles in 1986. Jack Lemmon stands in for Edwards in the film, playing a neurotic man celebrating his 60th birthday while waiting for the results of a throat biopsy. Julie Andrews plays the wife, Edwards and Andrews' children and Jack Lemmon’s son play the kids of Lemmon and Andrews, and the whole film was shot at Edwards and Andrews’ actual Malibu film. Talk about life imitating art.

Did I mention Edwards’ “Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” A near-perfect film except for the outrageously offensive performance of Edwards’ former roommate Mickey Rooney as Audrey Hepburn’s Japanese neighbor. (Forgive me, Mickey—you’ll be happy to know that we introduced Charlie to several Andy Hardy films on Turner Classic Movies last night and every time Andy came on the screen, Charlie yelled “Da-Da!”)

We were also very sad to hear that actress Neva Patterson died on Tuesday at the age of 90. Patterson was a friend of Kendall and her family and I remember well when Kendall used to visit her regularly, especially after her husband, writer Jimmy Lee, died in 2002. Kendall and her mom meant to bring Charlie over to Neva’s for a visit but it unfortunately never happened. Most of Patterson’s obituaries focus on her role as Cary Grant’s fiancée in the 1957 tearjerker, “An Affair to Remember.” After a successful career on Broadway (she originated the role of the cynical wife in “The Seven-Year Itch”), Patterson was thrilled to get to kiss Cary Grant her first day on the set.

My first memory of Neva Patterson was as the nervous mother in the excellent and unusual film “David and Lisa” and in a bunch of TV appearances, from “The Patty Duke Show” to “The Waltons” to “Maude” and “St. Elsewhere.” She was a regular on one of my favorite if long-forgotten TV shows from 1970, “The Governor and J.J.” She played the hard-boiled secretary of Governor William Drinkwater, played by Dan Dailey. Anyone remember that show?

But my most vivid memories of Neva Patterson are from the wonderful, if dated, Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy movie “The Desk Set,” written by Phoebe and Henry Ephron (parents of Nora, Delia, and Amy). Patterson played the no-nonsense woman who is responsible for the room-sized computer called EMERAC (a parody of the early UNIVAC computers) that efficiency expert Spencer Tracy was installing at a TV network to replace the human-operated reference department led by Katharine Hepburn.

Here’s a funny scene of Patterson with her beloved computer, which probably cost millions of dollars and was less powerful than my old cell phone:

 

God, I love that film, also starring Joan Blondell, Gig Young, and, again, the lovely Dina Merrill.

Rest in peace, Blake and Neva. And Academy, if you know what’s good for you, do NOT forget either of these folks in your tribute!

Dreidels in the White House

I’m way behind on my Hanukkah celebrating—but I’m finally making a mountain of latkes and getting ready to squeegee the oil off the walls. Our usual Hanukkah festivities were derailed this year by our participation in the West Adams Holiday Tour and Progressive Dinner. We welcomed almost 500 people into our home on Saturday and Sunday. They enjoyed one of six courses (in our house a delicious brandied roasted carrot and beet soup) as they swarmed all over our three floors. I gave each group a shpiel about the history of our home (built by Henry C. Jensen in 1909) and they couldn’t have been more complimentary, even when an aborted fire in our basement fireplace sent people streaming out with minor smoke inhalation. We had people of all ages and all walks of life touring our house, glass of beet soup in hand. One standout was a 12-year-old boy with a Shakespearean haircut who told us he cried when he sat in our library because of how much he loved the house. He said he never wanted to leave and he never needed to—after having a 12-year-old boy tell us what a special couple we were, Kendall and I were fully prepared to take out adoption papers.

Kendall single-handedly decorated our house and while I initially scoffed at some of her unorthodox ideas, her unique flair for holiday design was a major hit with the tourgoers. Some people were riveted by our family photos that line the dining room walls and wanted to hear stories about every person, especially my great-grandparents, Itshe Meyer and Alta Toba. With some of Kendall’s Christmas ribbons entwined around my ultra-orthodox relatives, I’m surprised Itshe Meyer’s portrait didn’t fly off the wall in protest. Maybe he was placated by the small Hanukkah display I set up on the other side of the room.

  

Did you see the Hanukkah celebration that the Obamas hosted in the White House? Notice that they’re dressed in black—why does everything about Hanukkah have to be so somber while Christmas is drenched in color? Maybe Michelle and Barack are looking serious because they combined a few other tragedies with the event: the menorah is from a  New Orleans synagogue that was badly damaged in Hurricane Katrina and the Jennifer Aniston-lookalike whose family is lighting the menorah lost her husband on 9/11.

But let’s give Obama credit for even acknowledging the holiday. Unlike the many Christian holiday events that have been longstanding traditions at the White House, Obama is only the second U.S. President to hold a menorah-lighting ceremony there. George W. was the first, in 2001. Bush invited a bunch of Chasidic leaders to his annual Hanukkah party, most of whom just loved his so-called “faith-based agenda.” No matter that the White House chefs kept screwing up and mixing the kosher and traif food. It took until 2005 to make the event completely kosher.

The first President who officially acknowledged the holiday was the one who is now reviled by many Jews (but definitely not by me), Jimmy Carter, by lighting the “national menorah” in Lafayette Park. The first President to actually light a menorah in the White House was Bill Clinton. In 1993, he invited a dozen Jewish schoolchildren into the Oval Office for a brief ceremony. This occasion made headlines when a six-year-old girl’s ponytail caught fire from the flame and Clinton himself ran his hands through her hair to snuff out the smoke. Oy.

Past 20th-century Presidents not only didn’t acknowledge Hanukkah, they sometimes appeared especially insensitive to the nation’s Jews. In 1927, Calvin Coolidge, assuming that everyone in the country celebrated Christmas, proclaimed that “Christmas is not a time or a season, but a state of mind.” He explained that “there will be born in all of us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.”

Franklin Roosevelt, beloved by the Jewish community, sent Christmas cards to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and other prominent Jews, declaring that Christmas was a national holiday “because the teachings of Christ are fundamental to our lives.” Hello? Did Eleanor approve that message? Harry Truman gave a national Christmas address in which he called upon Americans to “put our trust in the unerring Star which guided the Wise Men to the manger of Bethlehem.” Even John F. Kennedy ignored the Jews when he told the nation in 1962 that that “Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, as well as Christians, pause from their labors on the 25th day of December to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace.” He said that “there could be no more striking proof that Christmas is truly the universal holiday of all men.” Yikes.

Happy Hanukkah y’all!