Arts & Fntertainment

Monroe's
Image
Endures

PBS special puts spotlight
on American icon.

Bill Carroll

I

Special to the Jewish News

is difficult to imagine what mid-20th
century icons like John F. Kennedy,
Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe
might have looked like at the age of 80
— especially Monroe, the blond sex god-
dess whose youthful beauty still endures
in images seen today.
Of course, we'll never know. President
Kennedy was assassinated at the age of
46; Presley, the famed rock musician,
succumbed to a heart attack at 42; and
Monroe died of a massive overdose of
sleeping pills almost 44 years ago, at age
36. She would have turned 80 in June.

Monroe was Jewish; she converted to
Judaism before she married Jewish play-
wright Arthur Miller in a civil ceremony
on June 29, 1956, followed by a religious
ceremony a couple of days later on July 1.
They were wed for less than five years.
In 2003, the Jewish Museum exhibi-
tion "Entertaining America: Jews, Movies,
and Broadcasting" featured Monroe's
mezuzah, and a Christie's auction in 1999
had other ritual objects belonging to the
movie actress up for bids.
The persistence of the dazzling Monroe
image is the key to a new PBS American
Masters documentary about her. Titled
Marilyn Monroe: Still Life, it is set to
air nationwide 9-10 p.m. Wednesday, July
19. It offers a unique take on one of the

world's first superstars by using still pho-
tographs that captured Monroe's beauty,
complexity and, ultimately, her own com-
plicated relationship with the star side of
herself.
Emmy Award-winner Gail Levin direct-
ed the film. "The vast archive of Marilyn
Monroe photographs cemented her in the
public conscience like no one before or
since:' said Levin. "We are telling her story
through the iconography of the 20th cen-

tury. Her relationship with the lens was
probably her greatest and most successful
love affair."
The documentary includes interviews
with Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer and
Gloria Steinem and photos by Eve Arnold,
Elliott Erwin, George Zimbel, Phil Stern
and Arnold Newman, ranging from the
1949 nudes — she posed because she
needed the money — and the classic
subway-grate photo from The Seven Year

Jews

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

5.31:33

Premieres

Scheduled to open Friday, July 14, at
the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak
are A Scanner Darkly, a big-budget
ISTEI
sci-fi mystery and the first really big
flick that Winona Ryder has made
since her notorious shoplifting trial,
and Strangers with Candy, a movie
based on the Comedy Central TV
series of the same name that starred
Amy Sedaris as a strange middle-
aged woman who goes back to high
school at 46.
Cand)'s large cast
includes child actor Jonah
Bobo, 9, and veteran char-
acter actor Dan Hedaya,
as Sedaris' father. Hedaya,
who is of Syrian-Jewish
background, has played
many roles, including
Dan Hedaya
Alicia Silverstone's father

38

July 13 2006

in Clueless. Sarah Jessica Parker and
her hubbie, Matthew Broderick, have
small roles in Candy.

Uma And Amalia

Actress Uma Thurman recently made
a four-day trip to Israel to attend the
wedding of her friend Amalia Dayan
at a Jerusalem synagogue. Thurman
also visited the Western Wall, the
Dead Sea and a nature preserve.
Dayan, 33, is the granddaughter of
the late Moshe Dayan, a hero of the
Six-Day War. Amalia, a beauty herself,
earned her undergraduate degree in
art in Israel and worked at an Israeli
art gallery. She went to New York
for a graduate degree in art and
remained after graduation.
According to a New York maga-
zine profile, she is one of the hot-
test art dealers in Manhattan and
opened her own gallery, Bortolami
Dayan, last October. She met Uma's

and Amalia Dyan

father, Columbia
Professor
Robert Thurman,
through her work
and became
friends with Uma
through Robert.

Amalia married Adam Lindemann,
44, a handsome Yale-educated law-
yer who comes from a very wealthy
Jewish family. Fluent in Spanish
and French, Adam founded Mega
Communications, a now very hot
Spanish-language radio network.
Both Adam and his father also are
important art collectors.

Lisa E.

The very attractive Lisa Edelstein
finally exited the desert of short-lived
TV shows when she got the role of
Dr. Cuddy on House, the hit Fox show.
Here are comments from a recent TV
Guide interview:

"I love doing animation. For an
American Dad [animated TV show
episode that is airing] next season, I
play a crazed woman from JDate [the
online dating service for Jewish sin-
gles]. Cuddy was on JDate, too. JDate
is haunting me!" (Note: The JDate
reference is the only clue,
so far, that the Cuddy
character is Jewish.)
About changing her
name for her career:
"It's not very glamorous,
and I lost out in the past
because it was too 'eth-
nic.' But most of my par-
ents' family were killed
Lisa Edelstein
in the Holocaust, and it
would be denying my family line. It
didn't stop me. I have a great career."
In the mid-1980s, Edelstein was well
known as party girl Lisa E., dubbed
New York's Reigning Queen of the
Night." When asked how a nice New