84 | APRIL 27 • 2023
ANNE FRANK FROM
ANOTHER ANGLE,
WATERGATE PLUMBERS,
& BUPKIS, A COMEDY
Starting on May 1 is A Small
Light, an eight-episode
series. New episodes air
first on the Nat Geo channel
on Mondays and stream the
next day on Disney+ and
Hulu.
Light is based a memoir
by Miep Gies (1909-2010), a
Dutch secretary employed
by Otto Frank (Anne
Frank’s father). Gies risked
her life to hide the Frank
family from the Nazis, as
did Elisabeth “Bep” Voskuijl
(Sally Messman), a Frank
company typist. These two
young women found and
hid Anne’s diary after the
Nazis discovered the Frank
family’s hiding place and
ransacked it in August 1944.
Liev Schreiber, 55, plays
Otto Frank (1889-1980),
the only member of his
immediate family to survive
the Holocaust. Bel Powley,
31, an English actress,
plays Gies. Powley’s most-
seen film is King of Staten
Island (2020). She played
Pete Davidson’s on-and-off
girlfriend. Powley’s mother
is Jewish. My sense is that
she’s secular.
Anne Frank (1929-March
1945) is played by Billie
Boulett, who I’m virtually
sure is not Jewish. French
actress Amira Casar, who
plays Anne’s mother, Edith,
is not Jewish.
Hiding with the Franks
was the (Jewish) Van
Pels family. British Jewish
actors Andy Nyman, 57,
and Caroline Catz, 52,
play Mr. and Mrs. Van Pels.
(Nyman played a Warsaw
Ghetto fighter in the 2001
film Uprising.) Another
Brit, Rudi Goodman, 20,
plays Peter Van Pels. I
couldn’t find much on his
background.
Ashley Brooke, 19,
who plays Anne’s sister,
Margot (1928-March 1945),
is Jewish. Brooke has
performed on Broadway,
been in a few films and
has had some TV guest
roles. With some difficulty, I
found out that her “real”
last name is Eisdorfer. Her
father is Jerry Eisdorfer, a
New Jersey attorney. The
bar mitzvah notice of her
brother, Adam, now 15, is
online.
I relayed this info to a
friend, and he found a very
moving Facebook post
(June 2022) by Ashley’s
mother, Barbara Schwartz-
Eisdorfer. She noted that
Ashley, her daughter,
would play Margot Frank.
Then she related that
Ashley’s paternal Czech
Jewish grandmother,
Esther Eisdofer, was a
Holocaust survivor. Like
Anne and Margot, Esther
was a teen when she and
her sister were sent to a
concentration camp. Unlike
the Frank sisters, these two
sisters survived.
Esther wouldn’t talk to
family about the camps,
but she consented to
have her Holocaust
memories videotaped by
the University of Southern
California (USC) Shoah
Foundation. Ashley viewed
the tape and thought of
turning her grandmother’s
story into a screenplay
some day. As Ashley’s
mother put it, Ashley was
“primed” when an audition
for A Small Light came up.
Ashley now attends USC.
Here’s a Frank family
story that always haunted
me. Otto Frank served in
the German Army during
WWI. He saw combat in
an artillery unit and was
promoted to the rank of
lieutenant. He took his
WWI army trunk with him
when he and his family fled
Germany and moved to
Holland. The SS-led police
who raided the Franks’
hiding place were — for
lack of a better term —
quite rude when they broke
into the hiding place. But
then one noticed a stencil
on the trunk. The stencil
said that Otto was a (WWI)
German army officer. The
SS raiders then turned more
polite — but they didn’t lift
a finger to help their former
“brother-in-arms.”
White House Plumbers is
a five-episode HBO series
that begins streaming
on May 1. It follows
the activities of agents
(nicknamed “plumbers”)
who were directed by
President Nixon, and his
aides, to spy on political
rivals. The operation came
to an end when several
plumbers were caught
(1972) trying to break into
a Democratic Party office
within the Watergate office
building.
David Mandel, 52,
directed the series. Ike
Barinholtz, 46, co-stars
as Jeb Magruder, a Nixon
re-election “honcho” who
directed the plumbers.
Ashley Brooke has a small
role as the daughter of G.
Gordon Liddy, a plumber.
Jewish Matchmaking,
an eight-episode reality
series, will begin streaming
on Netflix on May 3. The
official description says:
“When Jewish singles
are ready to get serious,
they call on Aleeza Ben
Shalom to find their perfect
romantic match from across
the U.S. and Israel.”
Bupkis is an eight-
episode comedy series
that, in the words of the
publicity release, “provides
a heightened, fictionalized
version of Pete Davidson’s
real life.” Davidson plays
himself. Edie Falco (The
Sopranos) plays Pete’s
mother. Bupkis (which
means “nothing” in Yiddish),
begins streaming on the
Peacock channel on May 4.
Brad Garrett, 62
(Everybody Loves
Raymond), is listed high
in the Bupkis credits, so I
guess his part is big — he
plays “Roy.” Another series
regular is Simon Rex, 48.
He plays a character named
“Ice Pop.”
CELEBRITY NEWS
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
ARTS&LIFE
MARTIN KRAFT/WIKIPEDIA
Liev
Schreiber
IMDB
Ashley Brooke
GREG2600/WIKIPEDIA
Ike Barinholtz