52 | MAY 5 • 2022
BAYER TELLS A BIG FIB;
DR. STRANGE; STAR
TREK PREQUEL; ROBERT
MORSE, JEWISH (!)
I Love That for You is an
eight-episode comedy series
that premiered on Showtime
April 29. Vanessa Bayer,
40, co-created the series
and plays the star charac-
ter, Joanna Gold (as I write
this, it hasn’t been disclosed
whether Gold is a Jewish
character).
Bayer is best known as a
Saturday Night Live star cast
member (2010-2017). Jewish
viewers will vividly remember
her recurring SNL/Weekend
Update appearances as
Jacob, the bar mitzvah boy.
Bayer created this character
and wrote Jacob’s SNL skits.
When Bayer was 15, she was
diagnosed with leukemia.
Her experience with leu-
kemia, Bayer says, partially
inspired her new series.
As I Love begins, Joanna
gets her dream job —
hosting on a shopping
channel. But Joanna really
isn’t that good a host and
she knows she is about
to be fired. So, she tells
everyone at work that she
had childhood leukemia
(true) and it has returned
(a lie). Her colleagues rally
around her, but her par-
ents warn Joanna that this
lie will come back and bite
her.
Veteran actor Jason
Schwartzman, 41, plays
Joanna’s nice boyfriend.
Jason’s late father, a film
producer, was Jewish. His
mother is actress Talia Shire
(The Godfather, Rocky). Shire
is the sister of Francis Ford
Coppola. Jason was raised
secular.
Doctor Strange in the
Multiverse of Madness
(opens May 6) is a super-
hero movie based on the
Marvel comic hero Dr.
Strange (played by Benedict
Cumberbatch). The plot, as
with all “Marvel Universe”
films, is super convoluted, so
I won’t go into it here.
Here’s the Jewish angle:
the film is directed by
Detroit-area native Sam
Raimi, 62, who has a raft
of superhero film credits
(creator, director, produc-
er, etc.). Raimi’s wife of 29
years, Gillian, is the daughter
of the late Lorne Greene,
the Bonanza star; Michael
Stuhlbarg, 51, has a sup-
porting role as Nicodemus,
a rival of Dr. Strange; and
Elizabeth Olsen, who isn’t
Jewish, co-stars as superhe-
ro Wanda Maximoff. In the
comics, Maximoff is Jewish.
In the “Marvel Universe”
films, her Jewish back-story
has been “scrubbed-out.”
On May 5, Star Trek:
Strange New Worlds begins
streaming on Paramount+.
It is a prequel to the original
Star Trek series. ‘Trekkies’
know that the 1960s original
series had a failed pilot epi-
sode that was later “cut up”
and crafted into two “flash-
back” (original) Star Trek
episodes. Christopher Pike
was the Enterprise starship
captain in the “flashback”
episodes. Strange New
Worlds follows Pike’s adven-
tures during the decade
before Captain Kirk (William
Shatner) took command.
There are no Jewish
actors in the main cast, but
it’s interesting to note that
Ethan Peck, the grandson
of Gregory Peck, plays Mr.
Spock. The Jewish “contri-
bution” is behind the scenes.
The three series creators are
Jewish — Akiva Goldsman,
59, Alex Kurtzman, 48, and
Jenny Lumet, 55. All three
have many “Trek Universe”
credits. The series composer
is Naama “Nami” Melumad,
33, an Israeli who became
(2019) the first woman ever
to score a Star Trek episode.
Robert Morse died on
April 20, age 90. Primarily a
stage actor, he is best known
for roles that he played
during the beginning and
the end of his long career. In
1962, he won a Tony award
for best actor (musical) for
How to Succeed in Business
Without Really Trying, and
he reprised that role in the
film version of “How To…”
(1967). From 2007-2014, he
frequently guest-starred as
Bertram Cooper, the quirky,
but sharp founding partner of
Sterling Cooper, a big adver-
tising agency at the center
of the acclaimed series Mad
Men. Morse got five Emmy
nominations for this role.
Frankly, I never guessed
that Morse was Jewish. It
wasn’t “out there anywhere.”
Right after his death, a friend
“dug-out” Morse’s back-
ground in public records.
His father’s German Jewish
ancestors came over in the
mid-1800s, and one ancestor
(Leopold Morse) was the first
Jew to serve (1877) as a New
Hampshire congressman.
Morse’s mother’s parents
were Russian Jewish immi-
grants.
I was a bit amused that a
Jew played Bertram Cooper.
Cooper wasn’t a virulent
antisemite, but in the early
1960s (and before), New
York city ad agencies and
top law firms were either
“Jewish” or “WASP.” This
division persisted until circa
1970. In an early episode
(set in 1960), Sterling Cooper
was trying to get the ad
biz of a big Jewish-owned
department store and
they hunted frantically for
a Jewish Sterling Cooper
employee to attend their
first meeting with the store
owners. They finally found a
Jewish employee — a guy in
accounting.
CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
ARTS&LIFE
BY BEHIND THE VELVET ROPE TV
Vanessa
Bayer
BY SACHYN - OWN WORK
Jason
Schwartzman
BY DOMINICK D
Robert
Morse