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ASK ABOUT OUR DELIVERY SPECIAL 29702 SOUTHFIELD RD. AT 12 1/2 MILE (In Southfield Plaza) 557 - 5990 Open Monday thru Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. JN J .NN 60 FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1988 activist and actor who has ap- peared on many network series, agrees. "So many television writers and producers are Jewish," he says. "I call them 'closet Jews.' Occasionally, they would feed some Jewish con- tent into their programs, but only occasionally. "But now they feel they don't have to hide anymore, that audiences accept ethnici- ty in their programs." Years ago, recalls Brand, "when there was a Jewish man on a TV show, he had to be portrayed as little and fun- ny. What's refreshing is how we're able to get away from stereotypes." "We've come a long way," agrees Brian Winston, dean of sociology and professor of communications at Penn State University in Universi- ty Park, Pa., and Emmy Award-winning writer for his work on television's "Heritage: Civilization and the Jews." But, he wonders, who deserves the credit? Certainly not television: "TV is to creativity what Xerox is to writing," says Winston. No, the credit, he feels, should go to movies, where people such as Woody Allen "have demonstrated that it's acceptable to be a sensitive Jewish male." But is sensitivity enough? Is Woody Allen, with his wild- ly neurotic screen persona, really the proper prototype for television's Jewish male? Isn't he a stereotype unto himself? And hasn't television, with such edgy and three- dimensional characters as Dr. Fiscus ("St. Elsewhere") and Bubba Weisberger ("Frank's Place"), gone a step beyond the movies? In the battle against stereotypes, Steven Bochco is a one-man army. The celebrated creator of "Hill Street Blues" (1981-1987) and with Terry Louise Fisher, creator of "L.A. Law," both NBC shows, Bochco has arm- ed his Jewish male figures with a disarming mix of mox- ie and muscle. The popular character of "Hill Street," Detective Mick Belker — a dedicated, sen- sitive Jewish son and rough- hewn tyrant in his battle against street crime — was such a mix. Bruce Weitz, the actor who played Belker, thought of his television alter ego as "a gentleman. He's an efficient policeman who has a tender heart of gold." And, says Weitz, that heart of gold was buffed and shined by a Jewish upbringing. Nowhere, however, has the development of television's Jewish male been more evi- dent than in "L.A. Law," the show that won last year's Em- my Award winner for "best drama." Stuart Markowtiz, the Jewish dumpling of "L.A. Law," has helped dump the video image of the obsequious Jewish husband, an image that television had long loved. Instead, Markowitz has become an unlikely sex sym- bol, thanks, in part, to his ability to lay claim to mastery of the Venus Butterfly, a startling sexual technique that has proved so seductive- ly powerful, "L.A. Law" ex- ecutives won't reveal its premise. (In truth, they made it up, which is what they had to tell thousands of viewers who called demanding infor- mation after a show about the Venus Butterfly was broadcast.) The role has done wonders for Michael Tucker, the actor who portrays Markowitz. But it was another role, Tucker claims, that helped him change his own self-image. As Tucker has said, "I'd always suck in my stomach, tighten up my cheeks, try to lose weight. I couldn't admit to myself, 'This is who I am.' But when I was getting ready to do 'Concealed Enemies' " — a PBS miniseries about Alger Hiss — "I just decided that I was going to accept that I have a double chin." It was a revelation. Recalled Tucker, "It was very liber- ating to me to admit that, and I think this is the source of Stuart Markowitz's appeal on `L.A. Law.' He admitted his limitations, and that's freed him." But that sense of freedom has come out in other ways, too, ways in which Markowitz shows his dedication to his heritage. In one episode, when confronted by anti- Semitic comments made by his prospective mother-in-law and her friends at a party, Markowitz turned the table on them, literally turning over a china closet full of dishes. Gaining their attention, he stood up for himself and his Judaism, denouncing their small-mindedness and pre- judice. It was a rather remarkable scene for a medium whose history has been one of not making waves. Indeed, rocking the boat has been anathema for the development of Jewish male characters on television. For so long, it seemed that televi- sion executives were willing to cruise along, to get by disregarding reality. If the way Jewish men were depicted on television cried more of wimp than wunder- kind, who was going to com- plain? Certainly not viewers, who readily accepted what television dished out. The late Herschel Bernardi, who por- trayed Lt. Jacoby on "Peter Gunn," once remarked. "There is the belief on the part of Jewish producers and writers not to make waves" in the business, not to portray "real" Jews. But that was in the '50s and '60s. In today's television en- vironment, the Jewish male's ship has come in. Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator, direc- tor and writer of ABC-TV's "thritysomething," is one television executive who has taken oar to water to make sure of this. If Herskovitz feels a certain closeness to the character of 30-something ad executive Michael Steadman, it is no accident. Like himself, Her- skovitz says of Steadman, "he's Jewish, intense, confus- ed, sensitive, self-doubting?' Nowhere has the development of television's Jewish male been more evident than in "L.A. Law." There is no doubt such a character would not have got- ten air time as little as 10 years ago. "Since its incep- tion, Hollywood was created and run by Jews," says Her- skovitz. Those moguls, through "some sort of self- effacement, created a fic- tional gentile neighborhood for their characters to live in." Herskovitz has helped move some Jews into that neighborhood. Nevertheless, Herskovitz is not about to buy up all the homes. "Look," he says, "if I made this [`thirtysomething] as a 'The Adventures of Michael Steadman, Jewish Person,' then it's possible I would scare off part of the au- dience — and we are appeal- ing to a mass audience." Nevertheless, Herskovitz has weathered some studio concerns about how Jewish he was going to make his Michael character. "The studio was concerned somewhat that I had Michael put on a yarmulka" during the series' opening episode.