60 | AUGUST 11 • 2022 

Mack & Rita, which opens 
in theaters on Aug. 12, has a 
very weird plot: Mack Martin, 
a woman, is a 30-year-old 
buttoned-up homebody. 
She reluctantly goes to Palm 
Springs with her best friend. 
In Palm Springs, Mack is 
“magically” transformed into 
Aunt Rita (Diane Keaton), a 
70-year-old version of herself. 
At 70, Rita feels free of con-
ventional norms and says and 
does what she wants. Her 
candid talk turns her into a 
social media sensation.
Simon Rex, 47, has a large 
supporting role as Luca, but 
advance publicity doesn’t 
spell out who Luca is. What 
is clear is that this film marks 
the second step in Rex’s 
amazing career comeback. 
In 2000, he was a top model 
and the co-star of the TV 
series Jack & Jill. His career 
had faded away to nothing 
when the director/writer of 
the film Red Rocket contacted 
him in 2020 and asked him 
to play the lead in his film — 
about a washed-up porn star.

Red Rocket won a major 
award at the 2021 Cannes 
film festival and Rex got great 
reviews for his performance 
(see Rocket on pay-per-view 
services). He has big roles 
in two more “mainstream” 
films that will open this year 
or next.
A League of Their Own, 
(1992), got great reviews and 
was a huge hit. It is a com-
edy/drama movie about a 
(real) all-female pro baseball 
league founded during WWII. 
In 2017, Abbi Jacobson, 
47, and Will Graham began 
“pitching” the idea that a 
reboot of the film as a TV 
series would work. In 2020, 
Amazon “greenlighted” an 
eight-episode first season. 
League of Their Own, the TV 
series, begins streaming on 
Friday, Aug. 12. 
Jacobson was the co-cre-
ator and co-star of Broad 
City, the hit Comedy Central 
series. She has a leading 
role in the League series as 
Carson Shaw, a top pitch-
er. Jacobson and Graham 

co-wrote the pilot episode. 
The TV series will dif-
fer from the film in several 
respects. The movie cen-
tered on a male team coach 
(memorably played by Tom 
Hanks). The series will focus 
on the players, not the coach-
es. Also, unlike the film, the 
series will pay attention to 
the lives of lesbian and black 
players. 

The recurring cast includes 
Molly Ephraim, 36 (Last 
Man Standing on ABC), 
as Maybelle Fox, a player, 
and Nat Faxon, 46, in a yet 
“unclear” role. 
The premiere of League, a 
sports series, and a just-pub-
lished article that gave an 
update on last year’s “scan-
dal” involving well-known 
ESPN sportscaster Rachel 
Nichols, has prompted me to 
(finally) write up the following 
item. It has a “Jewish sur-
prise” not in any other article.
Here’s a brief Nichols bio: 
Now 48, Nichols was born 
Rachel Alexander. She grad-
uated from Northwestern 
University’s top-notch jour-
nalism school. In 1996, the 
Washington Post hired her 
to cover hockey, but pretty 
soon she was covering varied 
sport stories, including the 
Olympics.
In 2004, she was hired by 
ESPN. She was given import-
ant assignments and became 
a fan and TV critic favorite. 
CNN lured her away in 2013. 

For CNN (and its affiliates 
TNT/TBS), she reported on 
“marquee” sports and did 
tough, informative interviews. 
In 2016, she returned to 
ESPN where, among other 
jobs, she hosted The Jump, 
a highly praised basketball 
program.
In 2001, she married Max 
Nichols, now 49, in a Jewish 
ceremony in a historic Venice, 
Italy, synagogue. The couple 
have twin daughters. Max 
is the son of the late Mike 
Nichols, the highly respected 
film and stage director. 
In July 2020, while in her 
hotel room, Nichols made 
a private cell phone call to 
a sports agent. Someone 
working for ESPN intercepted 
and recorded her call (which 
was illegal under the relevant 
state laws). Here’s the gist 
of what Nichols said: She 
was upset that ESPN report-
er Maria Taylor, an African 
American with far less experi-
ence, got a reporting job she 
(Nichols) wanted. Taylor got 
it, Nichols believed, because 
ESPN was on a “diversity 
push.”
An edited version of the 
recording was released in 
July 2021. A flood of media 
coverage led ESPN, which 
had a spotty diversity record, 
to fire Nichols. Nichols sued, 
got a big settlement and left 
ESPN in January 2022. Taylor 
went on to a big job at NBC. 
Nichols was replaced 
(July 2021) as the host of 
The Jump (now called NBA 
Today) by Malika Andrews, 
now 27. Andrews is black, 
and Jewish and had a bat 
mitzvah. 
I wonder if ESPN thought it 
politic to hire a black Jewish 
woman to replace a white 
Jewish woman fired for 
privately criticizing a black 
woman. Barring more illegal 
call taping, we probably will 
never know. 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

Rex’s Kingly 
Comeback, League 
of Their Own (the TV 
Series), Rachel Nichols

Simon Rex

WIKIPEDIA

WIKIPEDIA

WIKIPEDIA

Abbi Jacobson
Rachel Nichols

