38 February 28 • 2019
jn

TRANSPARENT PLANS AHEAD
A year ago, Jeffrey Tambor, now 74, the 
star of the Amazon series Transparent, 
was fired after accusations 
from other cast members 
that he sexually harassed 
them. Transparent creator 
Jill Soloway, 53, canceled 
the show’
s pending fifth 
season following the firing. 
After Tambor was let go, 
Soloway said she wasn’
t 
sure whether Transparent 
would continue in any form. 
Well, she’
s changed her 
mind: Transparent will return 
to Amazon with a two-hour 
final movie musical that will 
premiere sometime later this 
year. Soloway also plans to 
make a cast album of the 
musical version with an eye 
toward possibly bringing the 
musical to Broadway. 
Before the first TV epi-
sode aired, Jill and her 
sister, Faith Soloway, 54, 
an accomplished composer 
and lyricist, kicked around 
the idea that it could be a 
musical TV series. As the 
series aired, Faith tested out 
songs she wrote based on 
the series’
 themes and char-
acters before patrons of an 
artsy NYC pub. Transparent 
is partially autobiographical: 
The sisters’
 Jewish father, 
like Tambor’
s Jewish charac-
ter Maura, came out late-in-
life as transgender. Jill says: 
“The songs are coming from 
a deep place inside of our 
own family’
s history.”
The entire TV cast (except 
Tambor) was recruited for 
the musical movie. Soloway 
told Variety that Judith 
Light, 70, (who plays Shelly 
Pfefferman, Maura’
s Jewish 
ex-wife) will be the film’
s 
focal point, and the plot 
will take off from where 
the fourth season ended. 
Soloway says about Light: “[Light] was 
unbelievable singing and dancing, doing 
these kicks … She’
s more in shape, 

more energetic, more alive than every-
body on the set. We all just worship her 
... I love having Shelly have the lead and 
let her have her storyline. Because we 
got to cast so many people dancing, we 
cast a lot of women who are over 65 
and 70. Old Jews love the show, and I’
m 
happy to make television for 
them.”

LOWDOWN ON FOX NEWS
The documentary Divide 
and Conquer: The Story 
of Roger Ailes played a 
limited number of theaters 
last year and garnered 
mostly good reviews. It will 
premiere on TV on Sunday, 
March 3 (A&E cable, 9 p.m., 
many encore showings). 
Ailes was made head of 
Fox News when it started 
in 1996, and he remained 
head of the controversial 
conservative news outlet 
until he was fired in 2016, 
following many accusations 
of sexual harassment. He 
died in 2017. 
 The documentary traces 
his life, which included 
being a media adviser to 
Presidents Richard Nixon 
and Ronald Reagan. Ailes 
was the dominant force in 
creating the Fox News “us 
against them” sensibility. 
 The documentary was 
made by Alexis Bloom, 43. 
Born in South Africa, she 
moved to England in 1988 
for her education, and she 
earned undergrad and grad 
degrees from Cambridge 
University. She moved to 
the States in 2000, work-
ing first as a journalist 
and, later, a documentary 
maker. Her longtime partner 
is actor/director Fisher 
Stevens, 55. They have two 
young children and wed in 
2017. Stevens and Bloom 
together made the criti-
cally acclaimed 2016 HBO 
documentary Bright Lights: 
Starring Carrie Fisher and 
Debbie Reynolds. You may 
recall it aired just weeks after the sud-
den “back-to-back” deaths of Carrie 
Fisher and Reynolds. ■

NATE BLOOM

COLUMNIST

Carrie Fisher

Fisher Stevens

Jill Soloway

Judith Light

celebrity jews
arts&life

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