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A Jewish Warthog
1 ewish actor Ben Lipitz gave up
a role in HBO's The Sopranos,
the popular television Mafia
series, because The Lion King,
Broadway's most popular musical, made
him an offer he couldn't refuse: playing
Pumbaa, the young lion king Simba's
comic warthog pal, in the national road
company
That's a pretty good role for an enter-
tamer whose career almost ended when
he once walked out on stage without his
pants.
Lipitz, 39, grew up in a Conservative
Jewish home in New Jersey, where he
was active in AZA and B'nai B'rith.
In Cleveland once, the California
Institute of Arts graduate, appearing in
Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor,
waited in his dressing room with his
pants off to preserve the crease.
"Then I forgot to put them on when I
rushed on stage on my cue," he says. "It
was really embarrassing, but most of the
audience thought itwas part of the show."
Lipitz landed a recurring role as gang-
ster Don Rictora Jr. on The Sopranos.
"But the show went on hiatus for 15
months, and you never know when you
might get whacked anyway," he said,
"so I switched to Lion King. It's a privi-
lege to be in the show. My heart always
has been in live theater."
In another recent onstage mishap,
Lipids heavy Pumbaa animal costume
snapped and half of it fell off, leaving
13
him a bit bare.
"The audience
just laughed and I
kept on going," he
says.
He's been on
tour for one year
Ben Lipitz
and expects to go
at least another
year. "It gets sort of lonely; I see my
wife (a former actress) in New York
every three weeks. I observe the major
Jewish holidays in whatever synagogues
•
I can find," he says.
Joining him is Jewish company man-
ager Alan Kosher (formerly Kosher),
who has observed the High Holy Days
in towns as small as Harlingen, Texas,
with 50 Jewish families.
"When I was in Lubbock, Texas, they
held a baby naming on Rosh Hashanah
for every Jewish child born there in the
past year in order to fill the shul," recalls
Kosher, who was raised in an observant
home in Scranton, Pa.
A.Temple University graduate, Kosher,
57 and single, has been a theater compa-
ny manager for 25 years, handling the
business, financial and logistical part of
several hit shows, including many that
have played in Detroit.
"I take care of the real-world needs
and problems of the performers to help
make their artistic job . easier," he
explains. H
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53