Arts & ertainment L..-F=f- FR C • ITALIAN GRILL Big Screen/Small Screen Fresh, Affordable, Italian dining. Enjoy our new Spring Menu. Drop by during Happy Hour our $2.99 appetizers. • Survivor's Story Children's Menu available for children 10 and under. Birmingham native Christine Lahti stars as Jewish doctor who helped save lives of death camp inmates in Showtime drama. Larco's restaurants - family owned for 50 years. the role. In addition to directing an Oscar-nominated 1994 short film and Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles a well-received first feature, My First Mister, starring Leelee Sobieski, she's n Showtime's Out of the Ashes, a carved a niche portraying complicated, Holocaust survivor steps off a embattled women. boat at New York harbor, impe- Lahti received an Oscar nomination riously hands her battered suit- for playing a scrappy factory worker in case to her American niece and Swing Shift and an Emmy as 1984's embarks on a shoe-shopping spree. power-hungry Dr. Kate Austin on The TV movie is the story of Dr. Chicago Hope. CBS's Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti), the To portray Gisella Perl, Lahti Hungarian gynecologist who saved studied numerous films and 1,000 women by performing books, including Perl's autobiogra- secret abortions in Auschwitz. phy, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz; "She was also a bit of a diva," she also interviewed survivors and Lahti said. perused videotaped testimonials at The actress (Chicago Hope, The Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the Heidi Chronicles) said she was Shoah Visual History Foundation. drawn to the film because of its Like The Pianist star Adrien unconventional depiction of a sur- . Brody, she dieted to achieve an vivor as less than heroic. emaciated look for the film: "I "Gisella had a very mixed repu- scared myself looking in the mir- tation," the tall, imposing Lahti ror," she recalled. said in .her cavernous Brentwood, The first day on the set in Calif., living room on a recent Vilnius, Lithuania, Lahti turned morning. to director Joseph Sargent and "In videotaped testimonials„ said, "This is much harder than I some eyewitnesses said she was the thought it would be." bravest person they had ever seen, Thereafter, she said, "I had anxi- risking her life every time she per- ety attacks and insomnia, and I formed abortions with her bare warned Joe that I might need to hands on the barracks floor. stop shooting at some point and "Others said she was elitist, call my husband." demanding bread as payment for Sargent said he was "waiting for medical services. She even had a Christine Lahti as Dr. Gisella Perl in Christine to break down, but that `maid' in .rhe barracks, a patient "Out of the'Ashes" never happened. Instead, she who made up her cot and sewed translated what was going on holes in her doctor's coat." inside her into an incredibly subtle, (The West director Thomas Schlamme Ashes also depicts how Perl volun- powerful performance. whose parents fled Berlin just Wing), teered, albeit under duress, to assist "That subtlety allowed us to exam- Kristallnacht. before the notorious Dr. Mengele, for which ine the morally complex areas that On an early outing, the couple sat she was initially barred from practicing haven't been explored so much in through the nine-hour Claude medicine in the United States. Holocaust films." I was Shoah. Landzmann documentary As such, it's the latest in a small but While Perl may have been a diva, horrified," Lahti said. Later, her growing body of films, including Tim Lahti nevertheless admires her. "As refugee father-in-law described enlist- Blake Nelson's The Grey Zone, that much guilt as she had and as much ing in the U.S. Army and helping to presents Holocaust victims not as mar- loss as she endured she was able to liberate concentration camps. tyrs but as complex human beings contribute so much," the actress said. The actress went on to read books forced to make excruciating, even "But she did have a sense of privi- and watch films on the Holocaust, but abhorrent, choices in order to survive. lege, even in hell." .0 says she encountered few from a The trend has troubled observers woman's point of view. Which is why such as Aaron Breitbart, senior she was riveted by a 1980s New York researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Out. of the Ashes premieres on Times article on Perl. Center, who worries that "viewers 8 p.m. Sunday, April 13, Showtime "I put it in a drawer, and 15 years don't have enough knowledge and 8 p.m. Thursday, April and repeats later I got the call from Jerry Offsay at sophistication about the Holocaust to ), 17; 10 p.m. Monday, April 21; Showtime," she said. "I couldn't absorb the nuances. and 9:30 a.m. Sunday, April 27. believe the coincidence." Lahti, however, believes more tradi- Lahti, 51, was a logical choice for tional depictions in high-profile films NAOMI PFEFFERMAN As always, we offer Complete Innovative, Gourmet, Italian Dining and Great Service. I Antipasto Plate, Salad or Soup and side of Pasta with every entrée. Reservations Always Welcome. 248.626.6969 6480 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD WEST. BLOOMFIELD • Just North of Maple , . „ , . . tr. eaeo 9te Ts-, . , coot, t03- I N ight stay at THE WESTIN n RNOi gi hTt - rDsEuT s al; D 0 ST0 h uUrsT HF rFi I E si 39 Includes: Breakfast For 2 at 1 Tango & $60 Dinner Gift Certificate to Musashi. 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Lahti, who grew up Lutheran in Birmingham, Mich., says her Holocaust education began when she met her Jewish husband of 19 years, ................. 4/11 2003 106 jewish.com l (giiiMfigarggROMVAMTANIMS: 4:M an gi. . 4 : 4 .