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Charles Grodin was a curmudgeon with a gooey center
It’s fair to say Charles Grodin, star of stage, screen and radio, had a reputation for being difficult. At times he seemed to relish it.
A new documentary, Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause, contends that his disruptive behavior went all the way back to Hebrew school days. Young Chuck was reportedly ousted from the classroom for having the temerity to ask what the Hebrew words they were singing meant. Thankfully his grandfather was a Talmudic scholar — so an authority on arguments — and coached him for his bar mitzvah.
“But at the bar mitzvah something happened that might have had a lot to do with what triggered a show business career,” Grodin recalls in an archival interview: He got a round of applause.
It’s perhaps a canned bit of mythmaking, but it also flies in the face of his public persona.
Grodin often seemed to chase jeers, playing a string of eminently unlikeable leading men (Elaine May remembers people booing him in a Q&A for The Heartbreak Kid, a film that produced the headline “You’ll Hate Him, Love the Movie”). He later earned the enmity of late-night audiences for being a combative guest on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. He carefully honed the curmudgeon shtick, even as he made a socially conscious pivot to journalism on MSNBC and 60 Minutes 2.
But the documentary by longtime Grodin fan James L. Freedman, his third after one on Carl Laemmle and another on sportscaster Marty Glickman, makes a compelling case for the actor as a softie, who teared up between takes when he had to be cruel to his co-stars, and a crusader for criminal justice reform who spent nearly every weekend in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility meeting with women convicted under the draconian Rockefeller drug laws. (When the law was reformed, Governor George Pataki personally recognized Grodin’s work on the matter.)
This is a kind of unapologetic hagiography. The film begins with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy about “ripples of hope,” then announces that “Charles Sidney Grodin, inspiring, cajoling and annoying people every step of the way unleashed a tidal wave of hope.” But the proof Grodin’s mensch credentials emerges with the interviewees, many of whom are gets for anyone.
Elaine May sat for an interview (Freedman produced Cybill, with Cybill Shepherd, Grodin’s co-star in May’s Heartbreak Kid — interestingly Shepherd herself does not appear). Alan Arkin zoomed in and Robert De Niro — whose reputation as a difficult interview is not just an act — was happy to reminisce about Midnight Run. Steve Martin, Martin Short, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Marc Maron, Ellen Burstyn and Carol Burnett — over the phone — all sing the praises of the man who brought his lawyer on Letterman.
Letterman, sadly, is absent, perhaps keeping the bit of their troubled dynamic going.
Grodin was prickly. His Hebrew school challenge to authority didn’t end there. He would later ask Uta Hagen why so much of her instruction emphasized invisible luggage and, in his first role in a major film in Rosemary’s Baby, he questioned Roman Polanski’s direction. (Grodin was a director himself, and there’s an interesting section on his work for the 1969 Simon and Garfunkel TV special, which southern markets objected to because it showed school integration.)
The film, which goes to great lengths in voiceover to explain things the target audience likely already knows — Gene Wilder was a major movie star; Nichols and May were a legendary comedy duo; a telegram was “kinda like a hand-delivered text” — is at its best as a highlight reel.
Grodin’s all-too-composed or just-on-the-verge performances still impress, and learning how many moments he improvised (e.g. asking De Niro if he ever had sex with an animal) will give you a greater appreciation for his craft.
The film’s departure into Grodin’s social justice work, beginning in the 1990s, is moving, if overscored to make you weepy. (One of the talking heads on the subject of the unjust felony murder rule could have done better without the chyron “social activist / producer The Hangover movies.”)
His advocacy for the unhoused and the wrongfully convicted are an important part of Grodin’s legacy, but Freedman, who divides his film with uninspired title cards like “I’ll never forget that,” could better connect this impulse with that of Grodin as gadfly.
Given the film’s inclusion at Jewish film festivals, you’d think someone could make explicit that at Grodin’s core was a Jewish tendency to argue, refusing to remain silent when he felt something was wrong — be it a directing choice or a systemic miscarriage of justice disproportionately affecting people of color.
With this documentary Grodin, ever a kochleffel, possibly a tzadik, can be appreciated as a humanitarian, but it’s perhaps a better tribute to pop on Clifford, Real Life or even Beethoven. Wherever he is, he’ll surely hold for applause.
James L. Freedman’s Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause is playing at the New York Jewish Film Festival beginning Jan. 14. Tickets and more information can be found here.
The post Charles Grodin was a curmudgeon with a gooey center appeared first on The Forward.
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Downed Planes Raise New Perils for Trump as Tehran Hunts for Missing US Pilot
Traces of an Iranian missile attack in Tehran’s sky, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 3, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Two US warplanes were downed over Iran and the Gulf, Iranian and US officials said on Friday, with two pilots rescued and a third still missing and being hunted by Tehran’s forces.
The incidents show the risks still faced by US and Israeli aircraft over Iran despite assertions from US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that their forces had total control of the skies.
The first plane, a two-seat US F-15E jet, was shot down by Iranian fire, officials in both countries said.
The second plane, an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft, was hit by Iranian fire and crashed over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, two US officials said.
Two Blackhawk helicopters involved in the search effort for the missing pilot were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace, the two US officials told Reuters.
The degree of injuries among the crew of the aircraft remained unclear. The status and whereabouts of the missing F-15E crew member was not publicly known.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was combing an area near where the pilot’s plane came down in southwestern Iran and the regional governor promised a commendation for anyone who captured or killed “forces of the hostile enemy.”
Iranians, who have been pummeled by American air power for weeks, posted gleeful messages celebrating the plane downings. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that the U.S. and Israel’s war had been “downgraded from regime change” to a hunt for their pilots.
Trump has been in the White House receiving updates on the search-and-rescue operation, a senior administration official told Reuters. The Pentagon and US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NO SIGN OF END TO WAR
The prospect of a US service person being alive and on the run inside Iran raises the stakes for Washington in a conflict with low public support and no sign of an imminent end.
Iran has officially told mediators it is not prepared to meet with US officials in Islamabad in coming days and that efforts to produce a ceasefire, led by Pakistan, have reached a dead end, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The US and Israel opened the campaign with a wave of strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28. The war has killed thousands and threatened lasting damage to the global economy.
So far, 13 US military service members have been killed in the conflict and more than 300 have been wounded, according to the US Central Command.
Iran has rained down drones and missiles on Israel. It has also taken aim at Gulf countries allied to the US, which have so far held back from joining the war directly for fear of further escalation.
In a security alert on Friday, the US embassy in Beirut said Iran and its aligned armed groups may target universities in Lebanon and urged US citizens in the country to leave while commercial flights are still available.
Israel has been waging a parallel campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after the militant group fired at Israel in support of Iran.
TRUMP THREAT TO STRIKE BRIDGES, POWER PLANTS
On Friday, as Trump threatened to hit its bridges and power plants, Iran struck a power and water plant in Kuwait, underlining the vulnerability of Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination plants for drinking water.
On Thursday, Trump posted footage on social media showing dust and smoke billowing up as US strikes hit the newly constructed B1 bridge between Tehran and nearby Karaj, which was due to open this year, and said more attacks would follow.
“Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” he wrote in a subsequent post.
On Friday, a drone hit a Red Crescent relief warehouse in the Choghadak area of Iran’s southern Bushehr province.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery had been hit by drones. Other attacks were also reported to have been intercepted in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Missile debris landed near the Israeli port of Haifa, site of a major oil refinery.
Oil markets were closed after benchmark U.S. crude prices gained 11% on Thursday following a speech by Trump that offered no clear sign of an imminent end to the war.
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US-Iran: Diplomatic Push Falters as Qatar Steps Back and Pakistan Talks Stall
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
i24 News – Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran appear to have reached an impasse, as key regional mediators pull back and broader talks stall.
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Qatar has informed US officials that it does not wish to take a central role in mediating between the two sides. Officials familiar with the matter said Doha has made clear it is “not willing” to lead negotiations or act as the primary broker.
At the same time, Pakistan-led efforts to bring Iranian and American officials together have also stalled. Mediators say Tehran has refused to attend proposed meetings in Islamabad, calling Washington’s conditions “unacceptable,” further underscoring the widening gap between the two sides and the growing difficulty of restarting dialogue.
Despite the deadlock, diplomatic channels have not fully closed. Turkey and Egypt are continuing parallel efforts to revive talks, with discussions underway about potential alternative venues, including Doha and Istanbul.
US President Donald Trump downplayed the impact of recent military developments on diplomacy, including the destruction of a US fighter jet during operations in Iran. Speaking in a brief exchange with an NBC News journalist, he said: “No, not at all. It’s war. We are at war.”
He further fueled speculation with a cryptic social media post on Truth Social, writing: “Keep the oil, anyone?” criticising international allies on Friday over rising fuel prices. Trump appeared to mock allies such as the United Kingdom, writing that they should “keep the oil.”
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Report: Iran Retains Significant Missile Capability Despite Weeks of US-Led Strikes
Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 31, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Despite weeks of sustained airstrikes by the United States and its allies, Iran has reportedly managed to retain a substantial portion of its military capabilities, particularly its ballistic missile arsenal.
According to a report by The New York Times citing US intelligence assessments, Tehran has developed methods to mitigate the impact of the strikes, allowing it to preserve and restore key parts of its missile infrastructure.
While the Pentagon has claimed responsibility for striking more than 11,000 targets over five weeks and reducing the rate of Iranian missile fire, intelligence officials now caution that the actual damage may be more limited than initially assessed. Iranian forces are reportedly able to rapidly repair or reactivate missile launchers stored in heavily fortified or underground facilities, sometimes within hours of being hit.
Analysts also point to the widespread use of decoy sites, which may have drawn strikes away from operational assets. Many of the targeted locations are believed to have contained dummy installations, complicating efforts to accurately gauge the degradation of Iran’s ballistic capabilities. Combined with deep underground bunkers and dispersed storage networks, this approach is seen as enabling Tehran to maintain a higher level of readiness than publicly estimated.
US intelligence officials assess that this resilience reflects a deliberate strategy: preserving a credible long-range strike capability as both a deterrent and a bargaining tool in any future negotiations, while ensuring regime survival and continued regional influence.
Despite sustained air dominance claimed by Washington and its allies, Iran’s adaptive tactics continue to complicate battlefield assessments, leaving the true balance of power in the conflict uncertain.