44 | MARCH 19 • 2020 

DADS’
 CLUB
Council of Dads is an 
NBC drama that starts 
March 24 at 10 p.m. 
The lead character, 
Scott Perry, is the loving father of 
four. A serious health scare moves 
him to recruit three of his closest 
male friends to step in as “back-up 
dads” for every stage of his family’
s 
life. These men agree to devote 
themselves to supporting and guid-
ing Scott’
s family through thick and 
thin — just in case he ever can’
t 
be there to do so himself. 
The series is based on The 
Council of Dads, a best-selling 
2010 book by Bruce Feiler, 
now 55. He and his wife, Linda 
Rottenberg, 54, a prominent busi-
ness consultant, have identical twin 
daughters. In 2008, he was diag-
nosed with a rare form of cancer. 
Feiler wrote letters asking six men 
from all passages of his life to be 
present through the passages of his 
young daughters’
 lives and assist 
them. They all responded positively. 
Feiler is now cancer-free. Feiler’
s 
written about many topics, but he’
s 
best known for Walking the Bible, a 
best-selling book (2006) and very 
popular PBS series about Feiler’
s 
10,000-mile journey tracing the 
events and places mentioned in the 
Torah.

NEW ON NETFLIX 
Feel Good, a six-part original 
Netflix series, begins streaming 
on Thursday, March 19. It stars 
Canadian stand-up comedian 
Mae Martin, 32. Martin co-wrote 
this semi-autobiographical series. 
The main character, also called 
Mae, navigates a passionate new 
relationship with her formerly 
straight girlfriend while dealing with 
the challenges of sobriety. Lisa 
Kudrow, 56 (Friends), co-stars as 

Linda, Mae’
s mother. The producers 
sent Kudrow a pilot script almost 
as a joke. She shocked them when 
she accepted the part, telling mul-
tiple media outlets that “the writing 
was just so good.” 
 By the way, Kudrow and the rest 
of the original cast of Friends have 
agreed to appear in a reunion show 
that will be streamed by HBO Max, 
a new service. No date out yet for 
the premiere. 
Curtiz, which begins streaming 
on Netflix March 25, is a 2018 
dramatic film that played a limited 
number of theaters last year and 
several Jewish film festivals. The 
title refers to director Michael 
Curtiz (1912-61), who was born in 
Hungary and arrived in America in 
1926. He was known as a difficult 
man, and there was a famous line 
that his accent was so thick that 
he was “incomprehensible in five 
languages.” However, he was a 
very good director who turned out 
good films in every genre (including 
Casablanca, White Christmas and 
Mildred Pierce). 
The film covers the production 
of Casablanca, which was made 
just before and just after America 
entered the war in December 
1941. Curtiz had to fend off script 
interference from studio executives 
while coping with a dysfunctional 
relationship with his daughter. 
Yan Feldman, 46, born in Ireland 
and raised Jewish, co-stars as 
Julius Epstein (Julius and his 
identical twin brother, Philip, won 
the Oscar for writing Casablanca). 
Feldman is distantly related to 
the late, great comic actor Marty 
Feldman. 

NATE BLOOM 
COLUMNIST

The cast of Council of Dads

NBC.COM 

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