When Jason Alexander, the veteran actor from the 1990’s hit TV series “Seinfeld,” met Shimon Peres at the Beverly Hilton Hotel Thursday night, it was, at first, as though he were channeling his old character, George Constanza. “Happy Purim!” he exclaimed, immediately launching into a comedy routine. Then, commenting on the heavy security on the…
Although she won’t admit it, Jill Soloway had a good year: She sold the scripts of three different pilots to three different networks; East Side Jews, the organization that she founded to foster a Jewish community in her corner of Los Angeles, is thriving; and the week before this reporter visited her attractive home, her…
Elissa Strauss hopes that a new remake of the movie “Dirty Dancing” keeps our beloved heroine, Baby, Jewish. In addition to preserving Baby and her family’s ethnic authenticity, which is important in grounding the film in a real milieu, I should add that I hope the remake keeps the essential, devastating abortion plotline, which is…
Comedy writer Janet Leahy was working on an episode of “The Simpsons” a couple of years ago, when her rabbi asked her for three jokes to punch up his Rosh Hashanah sermon. With this year’s High Holy Days looming, Leahy sat on the sun-drenched terrace of the Stephen S. Wise Temple and listened attentively to…
Jewess with much attitude (and talent) Roseanne Barr wrote in this recent New York magazine article about the rampant sexism that exists in Hollywood even two decades after she tried to take down those barriers with her television show “Roseanne.” Barr rightly takes credit for developing and starring in “television’s first feminist and working-class-family sitcom…
While we have been busy looking at women in magazines, Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University has been tracking the rather sluggish growth of women in Hollywood. The Center just released its annual report, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of…
Orly Adelson’s employees do not salute her when they report for work in the morning. “I would like that, but they won’t,” she said, laughing at the thought. Adelson is president of dick clark productions, the company that produces shows such as “So You Think You Can Dance,” “Shaq Vs.,” the Academy of Country Music…
Jews don’t run Hollywood, but it turns out an Israeli controls the Golden Globes — much to the dissatisfaction of some inside the entertainment industry. Judith Solomon, a writer for Israeli magazine Women’s World, has earned a long list of Hollywood enemies as the person responsible for seating at the pre-Oscars award ceremony. A new…
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