60 | MAY 11 • 2023 DANA BASH/JOHN KING & WOLF BLITZER, MORE BEL POWLEY AND FOOL ’S PARADISE On April 27, it was announced that CNN cor- respondent Dana Bash, 51, would take over as the anchor of Inside Politics, a daily CNN program. Bash wasn’t happy, however, when the Los Angeles Times headlined this news with this original headline: John King Exits CNN’s ‘Inside Politics’ for New Role. His Ex-Wife Dana Bash Will Succeed Him. She posted this Tweet: “Yes, John and I used to be married [2008-2011]. We are now friends and share a wonderful son together. In this context I am not an ‘ex- wife.’ I am a veteran jour- nalist with decades of expe- rience who worked hard for this role. Do better please.” The Times changed the second sentence of the headline to, simply, Dana Bash Will Succeed Him. As I have noted before, Bash’s mother was an author and educator, teaching Jewish studies. John King converted to Judaism before their marriage. I don’t believe that King has ever disclosed whether he continued to identify as Jewish after the divorce. CNN has not fired King, who has been battling mul- tiple sclerosis for years. He was given a new job as a traveling correspondent focused on reporting on the presidential campaign in the battleground states. On April 20, CNN streamed a 20-minute seg- ment about Bash and CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, 75. They were filmed as they visited Auschwitz. On the grounds of Auschwitz, they first talk- ed about their respective families. Blitzer’s parents sur- vived Auschwitz. However, his grandparents (all four), two uncles and two aunts on his father’s side were all mur- dered there. Bash’s maternal grandparents managed to leave Hungary in 1941 and got to America. But her maternal great-grandparents were killed in Auschwitz in 1944. Bash showed Blitzer a letter that her “great-grands” wrote to her “grands” in early 1944. Despite the war, this letter, mailed in Hungary, managed to reach her “grands” in America. In it, Bash’s great-grands con- veyed their dread that things were rapidly getting worse for Hungarian Jews. The pair walked around Auschwitz and, during the yearly March of the Living, they talked to Holocaust survivors and their children. They also talked to a histo- rian about the 80th anniver- sary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. (The whole seg- ment is posted, by CNN, on YouTube. The YouTube title is: CNN Anchors Tour Nazi Death Camp Where Their Relatives Died.) I previously wrote about A Small Light, an eight-episode series (Disney+/Hulu) about Anne Frank and her family. It began streaming on May 1 and concludes this month. I noted that Mies Giep, the Dutch woman who helped hide the Frank family, is played by British actress Bel Powley, 31, and I men- tioned that Powley’s mother is Jewish. Well, Powley dropped a few “Jewish nug- gets” in an April 30 Guardian newspaper interview. She referred to herself as “Jewish,” and she explained how her mother’s family set- tled in the U.K. Her great-grandparents left Lithuania for America. Their ship stopped in Dublin, Ireland (then a city in the U.K.) and her “great-grands” got off, really thinking they were in America! Her grand- mother was born in Dublin and, Powley says, “She spoke Yiddish with a heavy Irish accent.” Powley also stars in the British series Everything I Know About Love. This sev- en-episode series got very good reviews, and it began streaming on the Peacock channel last August (still available). I only recently caught up with this series, and I just watched the first episode. Until this week, I didn’t know that the lead character, Birdy, is supposed to be Jewish. In the Guardian interview, Powley, who plays Birdy, said: “I got amazing respons- es from the [U.K.] Jewish community. People were so happy there was a Jewish character on the show, but it’s incidental. I was adamant she’d wear her Star of David, like I did when I was young- er, but the show doesn’t focus on her Jewishness. It’s just a side point, which was kind of cool.” Fool’s Paradise, a satirical comedy, opens in theaters on May 12. The plot reminds me of Being There (1980), a hit film that starred Peter Sellers, another Brit whose mother was Jewish. He played a very simple man, mentally, whose way of expressing himself makes many think he is a sage, and he becomes a top presiden- tial adviser. In Fool’s, a publicist (Ken Jeong) discovers a man, Lotta (Charlie Day), who was recently released from a mental hospital. Lotta looks just like a top actor who refuses to act anymore. With the help of a top producer (Ray Liotta), the publicist makes Lotta a huge star. Kate Beckinsale plays a beautiful actress who mar- ries Lotta. The publicist and Lotta meet a lot of Hollywood biggies. They are played by Adrien Brody, 50, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco and John Malkovich. CELEBRITY NEWS NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST ARTS&LIFE HARALD KRICHEL Adrien Brody BY PATRICK L. Bel Powley GAGE SKIDMORE Dana Bash