68 | JULY 13 • 2023 

ARTS&LIFE
FILM

it,” he adds. “I wanted to be 
up on the bimah and take 
part in the ceremony.”
Retired Rabbi John 
Rosove, who is the former 
spiritual leader at Temple 
Israel of Hollywood — 
before recently moving to 
New York, the Armstrong 
clan resided in Los Feliz, 
California — remembers the 
family very well. Lily even 
went to the temple’s Briskin 
Elementary Day School.

 “He took his conversion 
seriously,” says Rosove of 
Armstrong.
And just like that, 
Armstrong was part of 
the People of the Book. 
Although, figuratively speak-
ing, one could make the 
claim that Armstrong had 
already been one for years.

A VISIT BACK HOME
A serious book collector 
and bibliophile who says 
some of his “hero authors” 
include Charles Dickens, 
Arthur Conan Doyle and 
P.G. Wodehouse — one of 
Armstrong’s closest friends 
from Berkley High School 
who he still keeps in con-
tact with, Elliott Milstein 
of Ferndale, is the former 
Biopelle President and CEO 
who won the Wodehouse 
Society’s Norman Murphy 
Award last October — 
Armstrong and Milstein 
co-authored the 2018 
book, A Plum Assignment: 
Discourses on P.G. 
Wodehouse and His World.
The 69-year-old actor even 
bid on and purchased two 
of Conan Doyle’s pipes at an 
auction once.

“I was doing Moonlighting
at the time, and making 
some serious money,” says 
Armstrong, who kept the 
prized mementoes up until 
2022, when he sold most of 
his collection.
Three years before that, 
in 2019, Armstrong proved 
what a mensch he is by 
donating 20 boxes of scripts, 
photos, contracts and diary 
entries to his alma mater, 
which he often visits. “I’ll go 
back and talk to the cinema 
students there,” he says. “I 
owe them a lot.”
It is a mutual admiration 
society. This past April 29, 
at Oakland University’s 
commencement ceremonies, 
an honorary doctorate was 
conferred on Armstrong, 
who says he “couldn’t have 
imagined anyone making 

a gesture like that. It was 
a startling and wonderful 
gesture on the part of the 
university.”
Dr. Ora Hirsch Pescovitz, 
president of Oakland 
University, referred to the 
actor’s long-running rela-
tionship with its Academy of 
Dramatic Art and generosity 
as reasons he received the 
degree. “Curtis is a cultural 
ambassador for Oakland, and 
we are proud of his distin-
guished career and that he 
serves as a mentor to many 
young actors,” she said in a 
statement to the Detroit Jewish 
News. “He embodies Oakland’s 
value of ‘giving back’ and is a 
champion of the arts.”

 Forty-three years after 
hiding out in that shtiebel, 
Curtis Armstrong is finally 
the talk of the town. 

continued from page 67

 

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