OCTOBER 24 • 2024 | 47
J
N

CRYSTAL, SPRINGSTEEN, 
HARRIS AND TWO NOBEL 
PRIZE WINNERS
Before is a 10-episode Apple 
TV+ series that begins on 
Oct. 25. Here’s the “official” 
premise with an asterisk: Eli 
(Billy Crystal, 76) is a child 
psychiatrist who, after losing 
his wife, Lynn (Judith Light, 75), 
encounters Noah, a troubled 
young boy who seems to have 
a haunting connection to Eli’s 
past.
The asterisk is the official 
trailer released last week. This 
trailer makes it clear that this 
series is a spooky, sometimes 
violent thriller. 
I am not surprised. The end 
of October is prime time for 
Halloween/scary thriller series. 
I believe that it’s the first time 
that Crystal starred in a dramatic 
thriller. 
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen 
and The E Street Band, a 
documentary, begins streaming 
on Hulu on Friday, Oct. 25. 
The advance publicity says it’s 
“the most in-depth look ever 
at the creation of legendary 
live performances featuring 
unprecedented behind-the-
scenes access to their 2023-24 
world tour.”
The release goes on to say 
that fans get a real look at the 
creative process of Springsteen 
and his band and there’s lots of 
interviews with Springsteen and 
his band members.
Over the years, Springsteen’s 
connection to the Jewish 
community has been the subject 
of several, probably too long 
articles in Jewish newspapers. 
Here are the five most repeated 
topics in these articles: (1) The 
name “Springsteen” “sounds 
Jewish,” but he’s not Jewish. 

His ancestry is Italian, Irish and 
Dutch, and he was raised in a 
practicing Catholic family; (2) 
Two Jews have been with the 
E Street Band since 1974: Roy 
Bittan, 75, and Max Weinberg, 
73. Weinberg plays drums 
and Bittan plays organ, piano, 
accordion and synthesizers; (3) 
Bruce has had two manager/
music producers during his 
pro career: Mike Appel and 
Jon Landau. Appel did score a 
record contract (1972) for Bruce 
and the band. But he and Bruce 
had a “falling out,” and he was 
replaced by Landau, now 77, in 
1975. Landau worked creatively 
with Bruce for decades. 
Appel is described as Jewish 
in all the Jewish newspaper 
articles. However, in a 1992 
memoir that Appel co-wrote, 
he said he had a Jewish 
grandfather, but he was “three-
quarters Irish” and was raised 
Catholic; (4) Many Springsteen 
songs have biblical imagery; 
and (5) A “bit” of the “fun” stuff: 
Springsteen has often played 
Hava Nagila at his concerts 
(usually around a Jewish 
holiday). 
The World Series began 
this week and, for real fans, 
here’s some baseball stuff I just 
discovered. I saw a Western 
film in which the song “Streets 
of Laredo” was played. It’s a 
beautiful lamenting song about 
a young man’s death and the 
lyric reprise is bang the drum 
slowly (for the dead young 
man). It reminded me of Bang 
the Drum Slowly (1973), one of 
the best baseball movies ever 
made. It follows the friendship of 
a top pitcher (Michael Moriarty) 
and a much-less talented 
catcher (Robert DeNiro), who is 
also much mentally slower than 

the pitcher. 
The catcher is the butt of 
jokes by his teammates. But 
when they learn he has a fatal 
disease, the joking ends, and 
the team jells on the field. The 
film ends with the catcher going 
home to die and the team in the 
World Series. 
I looked up the film. It was 
based on a 1956 novel written 
by Mark Harris (1922-2007) and 
Harris wrote the screenplay for 
the 1973 movie. He was born 
Mark Harris Finkelstein in a New 
York suburb. He was a novelist, 
journalist and college teacher. 
Bang the Drum Slowly was one 
of five novels he wrote that 
featured “the pitcher.” Bang was 
the most popular of the five and 
the book is always in lists of the 
top sports books of all-time.
Another thing I didn’t know: In 
1956, Paul Newman starred in 
a TV production of Bang Slowly 
and, amazingly, a video of that 
production can be viewed on 
YouTube. Just search for “Bang 
the Drum Slowly” and you’ll find 
it. 
I was surprised that two 
American Jews won 2024 Nobel 
Prizes, and I couldn’t find this 
information in American Jewish 
papers (it was in two Israeli 
papers/websites). Of course, I 
didn’t check every paper. 
For the record: David Baker, 
62, a biochemist, was one of the 

three chemistry Nobel winners, 
and Gary Ruvkun, 72, a molec-
ular biologist, was one of the 
three medicine Nobel winners. 
If you Google their names, you’ll 
find better summaries of their 
work than I can provide here. 
Here’s a “fun” bio thing. Baker 
was born in Seattle, got his B.A. 
at Harvard, and he got his doc-
torate at UC Berkeley. Ruvkun 
was born in Berkeley, went to 
UC Berkeley undergrad, and got 
his doctorate at Harvard. Both 
schools can kvell! 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

ARTS&LIFE

GAGE SKIDMORE

Billy Crystal

Jon Landau

COURTESY IMAGE

