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

