IsHollywood
?
been shot in Israel, he admitted
that he hadn't been back in the
30
years since he made that film.
7.;
It may have been the best
c.5 time Israel has had," he added.
"I'm not sure. There was a sense
of incorruptible individuality, of
a socialist state working in a way
that it hadn't worked before.
Now other things have come to
encroach upon that: militarism,
a larger control by conservative
religious parties, the forces of
acquisition and acquisitiveness.
"At the time, Ezer Weitzman
was 39 years old, the highest ranking
general in the Israeli Air Force, and he
was retiring. The air corps and the army
had a sense of esprit that was quite
extraordinary I will never forget it."
More magnanimous was Joanne
Woodward, Newman's gentile wife,
who joined him on location in Israel.
For me, it was an extraordinary expe-
rience, different from any experience
I've ever had, anyplace," she said. "It
WaS quite remarkable."
Hollywood is filled with children of
mixed marriages. Both of Patricia
Arquette's parents are Jewish, but does
that make her any more Jewish than
Joaquin or River Phoenix, who hap-
pen ro have had a Jewish mother, or
"
Clockwise from le
The "One of My Parents Is Jewish" Club:
Sean Penn, Stephen Dor
and Robert Downey Jr.
Jane Seymour and Kevin Kline,
whose fathers are Jewish?
Stars with one Jewish parent
include Barbara Hershey, Sean Penn,
Mimi Rogers, Jennifer Jason Leigh,
Mark Linn Baker, Phoebe Cates,
Harrison Ford, Stephen Dorff, Ben
Kingsley, Robert Downey Jr., David
Duchovny, Oliver Stone and Jamie
Lee Curtis.
Harrison Ford, like Leslie Howard
of a former era, could never be mis-
taken for being Jewish, but, according
to Jewish tradition, he is.
"I was never a religious person," he
once told me, but my mother was
Jewish, and my father was Catholic.
I'm neither one nor the other, and I
respect both."
Was he bar mitzvahed?
"I wasn't, much to the regret and
embarrassment of my mother and her
family," he said.
Which reminds me of the Victor
Borge story. When asked if he was
half Jewish, he replied, "Well, my
mother is Jewish, so I'm half Jewish on
my mother's side. And my father is
Jewish, so I'm half Jewish on my
father's side. So that makes me half
Jewish."
When I asked Jane Seymour the
favorite among her many roles, with-
Our Man In Hollywood
Jewish journalist Philip Berk has
served four terms as president of the
Hollywood Foreign Press
Association. Last year he was named
by the Los Angeles Business Journal
"one of the 25 most influential peo-
ple in Hollywood you never read
about."
As the former Hollywood corre-
spondent for the Argus Group in
South Africa, he contributed inter-
views for more than 20 years until
he was appointed Hollywood editor
of Big Screen.
Quotes from his interviews
appear in his book, Thank You for
Sharing, which is available on the
nternet.
He now works as a freelancer
and is internationally syndicated in
David Schwimmer: Generic.
Barbra Streisand:
Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the United
Kingdom, Japan, France and
Australia.
Berk was educated at UCLA,
where he studied film. Prior to that
he worked as a director-cameraman
for the Central African Film Unit
in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.
After earning a master's degree,
he taught at Los Angeles schools,
where he supervised award-winning
programs in cinema, forensics and
journalism.
Married for more than 40 years,
he and his wife have four children
and nine grandchildren.
Berk is the film critic for the Los
Angeles Jewish Times and served
twice as secretary of the Los
Angeles Film Critics Association.
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1/1
1999
Detroit Jewish News
67