Jewish Playgirl
Model and Internet icon Cindy Margolis poses for a good cause.
Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News
C
indy Margolis grew up in
a Reform Jewish family in
California, attended Hebrew
school, had a bat mitzvah and was an
all-around "nice Jewish girl." She went
to college, later married the owner of
10 delicatessens, became the mother
of three children and affiliated with a
synagogue.
So why did the smart and beautiful
Margolis — now a "nice Jewish woman"
and the "Most Downloaded Woman
on the Internet" who once made the
Guinness Book of World Records for
having her picture downloaded 70,000
times in a 24-hour period — agree to
be on the December cover of Playboy
magazine and pose nude for a 10-page
spread inside?
"I wanted to give girls in their 20s a
run for their money;' Margolis said from
-her,Tarzana, Calif., home. "I wanted to
show them I'm as hot as ever. And I read
where actress Sophia Loren recently
posed nude for a magazine, and she's
much older [72] than I am. Besides,
I'm not just one of the Playmates who
does this all the time. After all, I'm over
40." (She is only the third over-40 cover
model the magazine has used since
its inception. The others were Farrah
Fawcett and Christie Brinkley.)
Margolis enthusiastically noted that
she's "receiving overwhelming support
from my husband and the rest of my
family:' but admits "my mother would
have killed me if I had done this when
I was younger." But, she pointed out,
"my father recently had hernia surgery,
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Xi Romantic Comedy
Asik
Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal
recently described Nancy Meyers
as "money in the bank" in terms
of creating hit romantic com-
edies for adults. Meyers, who has
called herself "a nice Jewish girl
from Philadelphia," wrote Private
Benjamin, Baby Boom and Father
of the Bride with husband Charles
Shyer (they are now separated).
Meyers finally got to direct in
2000 and had a hit with What
Women Want.
She followed up
in 2003 with
the charming
Something's
Gotta Give, which
she wrote and
directed.
Meyer's new
Nancy Meyers
film, The Holiday,
opens Friday, Dec.
8. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz
play women who've had romantic
breakups and decide to change the
scenery and swap homes for a while.
Winslet gets involved with Jack
56
December 7 2006
and he told me he would rather go
through that than see me on the cover
of Playboy." Margolis has appeared in
13 previous special issues of Playboy,
but always in polite lingerie ads. She's
refused all other offers from Hugh
Hefner to appear nude.
"At this stage of my life, it's empower-
ing," she said. "I told Mr. Hefner I hope
this will be the magazine's best-seller
this year."
Margolis explained she is "posing for
a purpose" with her pictorial spread,
arranging with Playboy to give a portion
of the publication's sales to her char-
ity, Resolve, sponsored by the National
Fertility Association. She's the main
spokesperson for Resolve, "and I travel
around describing my struggle with
infertility issues when my husband and I
tried to start a family:' she said.
Black, and Diaz hooks up with Jude
Law.
Meyers must like old Jewish men;
she hired three of the oldest work-
ing Jewish actors today for Holiday
supporting parts: Eli Wallach, 91,
Shelley Berman, 80, and Bill Macy,
84 (he is best known for playing Bea
Arthur's husband on TV's Maude).
Super Senior
Estelle Reiner, 92, the wife of come-
dian Carl Reiner and the mother
of actor-director
Rob Reiner, is
still performing.
Every December
for 27 years, she
has drawn crowds
to hear her sing
popular songs at a
Los Angeles night-
Estelle and
club. This year's
Carl Reiner
"all-new show"
features tunes
from Mel Brooks movies and the
theme song from her husband's 1970
film, Where's Poppa?
Estelle and Carl, 84, have been
married for 62 years. Just about
everybody knows Estelle from her
role as a restaurant patron in the
Rob Reiner-directed 1989 film When
Harry Met Sally. She's the one who
responds to Meg Ryan loudly faking
an orgasm with the classic line, "I'll
have what she's having."
Gee, performing at 92? I'll have
whatever Estelle is having.
Sparkler
The term "blood diamond" refers to
diamonds that were mined in war-
torn parts of Africa in the 1990s and
then sold to support gangster-like
rebel leaders. Blood Diamond is
also the title of
director Edward
Zwick's new film,
opening Friday,
Dec. 8.
A South
African merce-
nary (Leonardo
DiCaprio) and
Jennifer Connelly a black fisher-
man from Sierra
Leone (Djimon Hounsou, who got
his start in Steven Spielberg's
Amistad) join forces to retrieve a
huge diamond that the Hounsou
character hid while working as a
slave diamond-miner. Joining them
on the hunt is an American journal-
"Web Goddess" Cindy Margolis posed for
Playboy in part to help infertile women.
ist (Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly,
whose mother is Jewish).
The blood diamond problem has
almost disappeared; the end of some
conflicts and industry and consumer
monitoring has severely reduced
the number of such stones on the
market.
Still, Blood Diamond, which has
good advance buzz, can be a warn-
ing about how we spend our money
this holiday season: Try to buy gifts
that aren't tainted by human misery.
Kenny Kosher
Seinfeld star Michael Richards'
public relations honcho, Howard
Rubenstein, created a tempest by
telling the media (including black
community papers) that Richards
was Jewish and that reports to the
contrary were wrong. The PR guy
did so to turn the heat down on
the story that Richards made anti-
Semitic remarks on stage well before
his recent anti-black remarks.
Finally, on Nov. 28, Rubenstein
clarified matters, saying that
Richards isn't Jewish "by blood
or conversion" but that he "feels
Jewish" because of "some important
Jewish mentors" and because he