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46

January 12 • 2017

jn

arts&life

celebrity jews

NATE BLOOM
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

ON CARRIE AND DEBBIE
As I write this, it is just a week after
the sudden deaths of Carrie Fisher
and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Amid
the massive media coverage, I was
most struck, in a positive way, by a
TV commentator whose name I didn’t
catch. He made me smile when he
said, “It would have been great to hear
Carrie’s commentary on this event.”
He’s right, of course: The witty and
insightful Carrie would have said
something memorable about the back-
to-back passing of two Hollywood
icons.
Two items of Jewish interest came
back to me in the past week. First, I
recalled that Reynolds had a recur-
ring role as Grace’s Jewish mother on
the TV series Will and Grace . In one
episode, the script had Reynolds spout-
ing off several Hebrew and/or Yiddish
words. I distinctly remember that
she pronounced them perfectly and I
thought, then, “Well, two Jewish ex-
husbands and a lifetime in Hollywood
certainly shows. Many Jewish actors
couldn’t pronounce these words as
well.”
I also remembered a 2008 Carrie
Fisher interview in a San Francisco
Jewish paper. Most of it was about
her then-touring one-woman play,
Wishful Drinking, but there was a brief
exchange about her relationship to
Judaism. She said that early memories
of her father, Eddie Fisher, singing
in synagogue had a “big effect” on
her. She added that she and her then
16-year-old daughter, Billy Lourd,
often attended Friday night services
and Shabbat meals with Orthodox
friends. Carrie told the paper: “There’s
such a loveliness to lighting candles
and saying what you’re grateful for
that week. It’s beautiful.”
Billy, she said, had “more exposure
to Judaism than any other religion.”
Finally, Carrie sang a bit of “Hearts
and Bones,” a song her ex-husband,
Paul Simon, now 75, wrote about
them. It includes the lyric, “One and
one-half wandering Jews/Free to wan-
der wherever they choose.”

ANOTHER NEW
NETFLIX RE-MAKE
Remember One Day at a Time, the ’70s
sitcom produced by Norman Lear,
and starring the late Bonnie Franklin
as the single working mom of two teen
daughters? Well, Lear, now 94, and
others, have re-booted it, with some
changes. The first 13-episode season
began streaming on Netflix on Jan. 6.

Fisher, Reynolds and Lourd

Fisher and Reynolds

Tobolowsky

The family is now Cuban-American.
The series centers on Penelope, a
recently separated former military
mom who is raising a teen daughter
and a tween son with the aid of her
old-school Cuban-born mom (played
by Oscar-winner Rita Moreno) and her
building manager.
Veteran character actor Stephen
Tobolowsky plays Dr. Berkowitz, a
widowed doctor whom Penelope works
for. She keeps his office in order and
sometimes his personal life, too. It’s
also hinted that Berkowitz may become
a love interest for Penelope’s mother.
Tobolowsky may be best remem-
bered as the pushy insurance salesman
in the film Groundhog Day (1993).
But he’s compiled a huge resume since
then. In the last few years, he has
guest-starred as Jack Barker, the short-
lived head of the Pied Piper Company
on Silicon Valley and he plays the
frequently seen Principal Ball on The
Goldbergs. •