Arts 1; Ente tainment
Big Screen/Small Screen
He began performing stand-up at
age 15; by 1991, he was a regular on
Saturday Night Live, although the
show's 100-hour work week and rock
`n' roll lifestyle almost killed him.
"After four years, I found myself in
the hospital with kidney stones, a bro-
ken ankle, staples in my throat from
thyroid surgery and tubes everywhere,"
the 40-year-old said. "I had to make
sure to get out of bed in time to get
into the wheelchair to make it to the
toilet."
Promoting Tolerance
Rob Schneider: 'I know for a fact
Deuce Bigalow is circumcised —
because I am."
Half-Jewish, part-Filipino comic Rob Schneider's "Deuce" is wild again.
NAOMI PFEFFERMAN
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
I
ni
8/25
2005
40
n his grossout-doofus comedies,
Rob Schneider plays the ultimate
shlimazel He gets pummeled,
maced, urinated on and tossed about
like a hirsute rag doll. Expect no
reprieve in his return as America's
favorite prosti-dude in Deuce Bigalow:
European Gigolo, now in theaters and
the sequel to 1999's sleeper success
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
Besides the requisite physical abuse,
the "he-ho" will again service "Janes,"
such as a giantess who dresses him in a
diaper and an accident victim with a
male appendage in lieu of a nose.
It's the kind of raunch-fest made
famous by Schneider's mentor and pro-
ducer, Adam Sandler, although
Sandler's persona is more class clown
than class wimp. Both performers have
been lambasted for their juvenile,
belch-ridden films, but Schneider also
has been attacked for turning himself
into a human punching bag. Yet, like
Sandler, he is among a handful of
comics (think Mike Myers) who star in
their own name-above-the-title films.
As to why he plays a shlimazel, a
loser who's the butt of every joke, the
actor — who is half-Jewish and part
Filipino — said he relates to the
underdog.
"I love how directors used Jimmy
Stewart as an Everyman, • so I like to
play a guy who's slightly less than the
Everyman," he added.
He identifies with Deuce because
"things just end up happening to him
and he thinks it's going to be great,
and it's always horrible," he said. "He
imagines his life would be better if he
just had this or that, but the way he
tries to get it, he makes his situation
way worse, and he has to struggle and
scrape to barely get back to where he
was in the beginning."
Jewish Humor
The self-deprecating, affable Schneider
could be describing his own life — at
least until Bigalow grossed more than
$100 million.
Even Schneider's forebears experi-
enced Deuce-worthy humiliation: His
maternal grandfather, an Army private,
was unceremoniously shipped off to
the Philippines after bedding his cap-
tain's wife. There, he married a native
woman. Their daughter, Pilar, eventu-
ally moved to San Francisco; as presi-
dent of a club for single parents in
1961, she snatched up and wed the
group's only male member, Marvin
Schneider, a real estate broker.
Because Marvin was a secular Jew
who loved comedy, the Judaism in
Rob's childhood home focused prima-
rily on humor: Mel Brooks' comedy
albums and joke-telling at Uncle
Norm's.
The Jewish humor provided a sur-
vival tool for Rob, an anxious child
with a stammer that made the girls
snicker.
"One day, the kids were laughing at
me, and I told a stupid joke but it
killed, and I've been the funny guy
ever since," he said.
Four months later, he quit the show;
his new work — playing repulsive side-
kicks in bad movies — placed him, fig-
uratively, "in the career toilet," he said.
"I was the least likely person you'd
ever expect to become a movie star," he
said.
That was until his Saturday Night
Live buddy Sandler cast him in nine of
his own highly successful films and
bankrolled Deuce in 1999. The film
was inspired by Paul Schrader's
American Gigolo, wherein supermodel
Lauren Hutton hires an escort, "which
was ridiculous," Schneider said.
'Any woman can walk into a bar and
get a guy. So I thought, `If there were
women who truly needed gigolos,
they'd have gigantic feet or have
uncontrollable swearing syndrome, and
it would be nice if there was a sweet
guy who tried to make them feel good
about themselves.'"
The sequel takes Deuce to
Amsterdam, where prostitution is legal,
but all the "high-class" gigolos are
being murdered. During production
there, Schneider peeled off his magenta
threads to visit the Anne Frank house,
a sober pilgrimage he makes every time
he's in Amsterdam.
"To me, Anne Frank is the human
face of the Holocaust," he said.
While critics have denounced his
films as demeaning of unattractive
women, Schneider insists he uses
laughter to advocate tolerance.
A Los Angeles Times reviewer agreed
in 1999 when he wrote that Deuce
"encourages adolescents to respect the
dignity of all persons, even the height
and weight challenged."
Schneider said his persecuted charac-
ter couldn't help but have Jewish
blood. He added, laughing: "I know
for a fact Deuce Bigalow is circumcised
— because I am."
❑
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, is
playing in area theaters.