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MICHAEL ELKIN
Special to The Jewish News
R
WISH EVERYONE A
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NEW YEAR
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1991
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140
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1991
Palm Beach Jews:
A TV Trilogy
ising at sunrise,
Sunset Gang author
Warren Adler puts in
a full day at his desk before
most office coffee machines
are percolating.
But then, says the writer,
his chosen profession is more
perk than work. "I can't
wait to write," says Mr.
Adler of his 5:30 a.m. daily
wake-up ritual. "It's
wonderful to do what I do —
a joy, a vacation."
Pack up the bags and don
the sunglasses because
Warren Adler's at it again.
His Private Lives just went
public, and Senator Love,
another novel ideal is out this
summer.
But perhaps Mr. Adler's
most ambitious past project
was all about a Yuppie cou-
ple caught in the crossfire of
greed and a marriage-run-
amok. War of the Roses pro-
ved a major success as a
novel and as a movie with
Michael Douglas and
Kathleen Turner as the cou-
ple turned on to mayhem.
It was a dark film for Mr.
Adler, who has found his
own 40-year marriage one
continuous tunnel of love,
compared to the Roses'
riotous ride through hell.
"I seem to specialize in
writing about wrecked rela-
tionships," muses the author
about his thorn-field Roses
and the story of "Yiddish,"
one of a number of short
pieces that made up his 1976
novel, The Sunset Gang.
Three stories from Sunset
—including "Yiddish,"
about an older Jewish man
who seeks divorce after
decades of marriage — have
been adapted for film.
Sunset Gang is no mere
Miami nice. The trilogy is
gentle yet hard- hitting in its
look at Jews who settle in
West Palm Beach, a retire-
ment city by the sea.
Writing about the Jewish
experience hits home for the
writer, whose parents' move
to a retirement village in
West Palm Beach 20 years
ago served as inspiration for
the Sunset Gang stories.
But then, Yiddishkeit
yanks at Mr. Adler's sen-
sibilities. The Brooklyn-
born "Depression baby"
grew up in an immigrant
home, "raised in my grand-
Michael Elkin is the enter-
tainment editor of the Jewish
Exponent in Philadelphia.
parents' house. That culture
seeps into everything I do. I
loved my childhood."
He also loved the idea that,
for the first time on network
TV, a program will use Eng-
lish subtitles to explain the
Yiddish spoken on screen.
Not that "Yiddish" is lim-
ited to Jewish audiences.
"There is a universality in
all these stories," says Mr.
Adler. "Old age has no eth-
nicity."
But it does have its prob-
lems, as does the language
in which they are described.
Dismissing contentions that
Yiddish is rebounding after
years of disuse, Warren
Adler says, "It is a dying
language in the Diaspora.
People may take it up out of
interest as an artifact, but to
survive, a language has to be
spoken."
The language of success is
spoken at the Adler home.
Prior to his popularity with
War of the Roses, Warren
Adler was a journalist,
'There is
universality in all
these stories."
Warren Adler
editor and advertis-
ing/public relations agency
owner — not to mention a
publicity writer for United
Jewish Appeal and public re-
lations director for the Jew-
ish War Veterans.
Sixteen years ago, he join-
ed his wife, Sonia, and son, <
David, in publishing the
Washington Dossier, a must-
read for the capital's social
set. The Adlers sold the
publication five years ago,
with husband and wife
heading for Hollywood.
With such heady success,
Mr. Adler's feet are firmly
on the ground. "Now that
I'm over 60, it doesn't thrill
me," he says of his pop-
ularity. "If I had been 22 and
this happened, well, I'd be
exhilarated."
He may be calm about his
current accomplishments,
but Hollywood is wildly en-
thusiastic. Mr. Adler has
seven projects headed for the
screen, including Cries of
Laughter, about the Catskill
Mountain men who made up
Murder Inc. The book will be
published next year; the film
will be produced by Joel (Die
Hard) Silver.
"Well, the pain in life has
been balanced by what I've
enjoyed. I'm very happy. I'm
doing what I want."