50 | MARCH 7 • 2024
J
N

ALL ABOUT PHIL AND
COCO CHANEL STINKS
Somebody Feed Phil, a
Netflix documentary series,
began its seventh season
on March 1. The host is Phil
Rosenthal, 64. He’s best
known as the creator of the
big hit series Everybody
Loves Raymond (1996-
2005). Rosenthal oversaw
the production of the
show and often wrote, or
co-wrote, the show’s scripts.
He won three Emmys for
his scripts alone.
In the new season’s
eight episodes, Rosenthal
travels to Mumbai (India),
Washington, D.C., Kyoto,
Iceland, Dubai, Orlando,
Taipei and Scotland. As
in past seasons, he looks
for local gems and makes
connections through
cuisine.
Rosenthal has another
premiere: On March
5, Just Try It, a children’s
book he co-wrote, was
released. The other author
is his daughter, Lily, 25.
She’s just begun an acting
career. Rosenthal’s other
child, Ben, is about 30.
Their mother is
actress Monica Horan,
61. She played Amy, the
girlfriend (later wife) of
Robert (Brad Garrett), the
older brother of Raymond,
the star character. She
had a Jewish grandfather
but was raised Catholic.
She converted to Judaism
before she married Phil
(1990).
In 2021, the Jewish
Journal of Los
Angeles covered a lecture
on Jewish roots and foods
given by Phil and Lily. The

lecture was at the family’s
L.A. synagogue. I hadn’t
realized “how Jewish” the
Rosenthal family was until I
recently read this article.
Phil told the Journal: “I
support the temple because
it is a place of good … My
wife attends services more
than I do because she
converted to Judaism, and
converts are always much
more into it. They chose it,
but I had no choice.”
Phil Rosenthal is the son
of two Holocaust survivors.
His parents were both born
in Germany. Max, his father,
fled Germany just after the
1938 Kristallnacht pogrom,
and he managed to get into
America. His mother, Helen,
moved to France and
survived time in a French
internment camp. Later, she
moved to Cuba, and then
on to New York. She met
Max in New York.
Fans of Somebody Feed
Phil know that Phil placed
a Zoom call to his parents
each season. It was a
popular, charming feature.
After the deaths of Helen
(2019) and Max (2021),
these calls ended. However,
celeb friends of Phil kind
of took over, and they do
the fun Zoom calls now.
No word on the celebs this
season.
Max and Helen happily
escaped death. But, if

you take a walk on the
dark side, you’ll find Coco
Chanel, the famous dress
designer. Apple TV+
has just foisted on us a
10-episode series entitled
The New Look. It purports
to be a biography of
Christian Dior and Chanel.
Most serious reviewers
(Variety, others) say that it
is a whitewash of Chanel’s
virulent antisemitism and
her cooperation with the
Nazis during the Nazi
occupation of France.
I thought that the
writers of the FX/Hulu
series Feud were “wrong”
when they invented a 1966
documentary, that was
never made, about Truman
Capote (see episode 3).
What Apple TV+ has done
is far worse.
The whole “Chanel loves
the Nazis” real story is
too extensive to lay out in
detail here. Respected critic
Nandini Balial, writing for
the rogerebert.com website
(Feb. 14), takes down this
travesty point-by-point.
Please read it. By the way,
Dior has an “honorable”
real background.
Balial says even when the
series touches on Coco’s
bad behavior, it distorts or
leaves out many facts. This
is true, she writes, when the
series covers Coco’s “worst
thing.”

In the 1920s, Chanel
entered into a contract with
the Westheimers, French
Jews who ran a prestige
perfume company. They
put up all the money and
Chanel, who didn’t have to
do anything, got 10 percent
of the profits. She got
greedy soon and issued
antisemitic statements
about her Jewish partners.
She thought she, an
“Aryan,” could get control
of the perfume business
during WWII. But the
Westheimers looked ahead
before they fled France.
They legally transferred
their company to a trusted,
non-Jewish friend. He
transferred it back after the
war.
In the late 1940s, the
family made the decision
not to take Coco to court.
They were afraid legal
action, in a public court,
would expose Coco’s
vileness and just destroy
the Chanel brand —
clothes and perfume. So,
they continued giving
Chanel a lot of money.
The Westheimer family
bought the Chanel fashion
house a couple of years
after Coco’s death (1971).
They still own the Chanel
Perfume lines and they still
own the Chanel fashion
house.

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Phil Rosenthal

IMDB

Monica Horan

LA TIMES, 1931

Coco Chanel