Uncategorized
From Mel Brooks to Elaine May to Ethan Coen: Producer Julian Schlossberg writes memoir about working with Jewish stars over 6 decades
(JTA) — On a couple of occasions in Julian Schlossberg’s early life, he found himself in parts of the United States where some people he talked to had never met a Jewish person. The first was a stint in the Army, the second was while selling movies to rural television stations.
But over the next six decades — once Schlossberg embarked on a long and successful career that included stops as a Hollywood studio executive with Paramount Pictures and later as a prolific distributor of movies and producer of off-Broadway and Broadway shows — he was rarely the only Jew in the room ever again.
Schlossberg tells those stories and many more in his new memoir “Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life” (Beaufort Books). He writes about how he went from a child in the Bronx to an influential show business figure who mingled and worked with countless movie stars, having enjoyed a long career that shows no signs of being over at age 81.
Schlossberg was born in 1941, and grew up in what he describes as a middle class family, in a Bronx neighborhood that at the time was heavily Jewish and Irish. His father Louis played semi-pro baseball, but as Schlossberg writes in the book, turned down the chance to play for a team in Kansas City in part because “there were almost no Jews in baseball.” Instead, Louis spent most of his professional life working in Manhattan’s Garment District.
The family lived near the Kingsbridge Armory, then likely the largest of its kind in the world, which hosted conventions, car shows and rodeos that came through the city at the time. Those rodeos, in fact, were Schlossberg’s introduction to showbiz.
“I would go as a kid and just revel in the fact that I was meeting these incredible stars,” he said.
Schlossberg with Jewish star Michael Douglas. (Courtesy of Julian Schlossberg)
Meeting stars would eventually become commonplace. Before and after his time in the Army in the early 1960s, Schlossberg worked as a cab driver, a busboy, a waiter, a counselor, a typist and more while taking college classes at night. He got a job at the ABC in 1964 and worked his way up the company’s ranks.
“I had decided, as a very young man, that since I didn’t have a law degree or a dental degree or a medical degree, I was going to learn every aspect of show business that I could,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was going to do, but I knew that knowledge was power, and that if I had knowledge, maybe I’d get some power.”
He would live out that goal, working in just about every area of entertainment, from radio to movie distribution to theater producing. (He goes back and forth on which one he likes best.)
In the 1970s, he hosted an AM radio show called “Movie Talk,” for which he interviewed hundreds of movie stars. WMCA station executives wanted Schlossberg to use a different stage name, to sound less Jewish.
“They didn’t want it to be ‘a Jewish name,’ and I said ‘Wait a second — if I’m going to be on the air in New York City, I can’t be a Jew?’ So they gave in, and I kept my name,” he said. “You kind of want to remember the times you did stand up, I guess. Not that it was a giant standing up, but I would have not done the show if they had asked me to change my name, because it made no sense to me.”
Speaking of Jews, Schlossberg has worked with a virtual who’s-who of famous Jewish entertainers over the years, from Neil Simon to Lillian Hellman to Sid Caesar to Mike Nichols to Peter Falk to Ethan Coen. And the ones he didn’t work with, he hung out with socially. Barbra Streisand invited him to a famous birthday party (that ended up taking place at Liza Minnelli’s house), and Mel Brooks has always greeted him as “Schloss Berg,” as if his name were two words.
Schlossberg with Barbra Streisand, right, and Merryn Jose. (Courtesy of Julian Schlossberg)
Schlossberg’s film production credits range from the 1994 British mystery “Widows’ Peak,” starring Natasha Richardson and Mia Farrow; to the 1980 “No Nukes” documentary that filmed an anti-nuclear weapons concert with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne; to a revival of the long-buried version of Orson Welles’ “Othello.”
In 1995, Schlossberg worked with three prominent Jews on one off-Broadway production: a set of one-act plays performed together each night, called “Death Defying Acts,” written by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May. Schlossberg later produced the Broadway adaptation of Allen’s movie “Bullets Over Broadway,” while May, whom Schlossberg likens to a sister, contributed the forward to his book.
“Elaine is, as I’ve written, the smartest person I’ve ever met, and probably one of the most talented if not the most talented, because there is nothing that she cannot do,” Schlossberg said of the now 90-year-old Oscar, Tony and Grammy winner. “She’s a great actress, she’s a great writer, and she’s a great director. And she’s a hell of a friend.”
At one point in his career, as he details in one chapter, Schlossberg crossed paths with another Jewish producer: Harvey Weinstein. When Weinstein was young, the now-disgraced serial sexual harasser approached Schlossberg and asked him to teach him the movie business. The two men worked together for a time, although eventually they fell out.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought he would hit the heights that he hit, or the depths that he sunk to. Never,” Schlossberg said.
Another of Schlossberg’s mentoring experiences ended on a more positive note. Mark S. Golub, a rabbi, came to Schlossberg for advice in the late 1990s on learning the theater business. Golub, who died late last month at 77, went on to become a prolific Broadway producer and the founding president of the Jewish Broadcasting Service channel.
It was a fruitful partnership: Golub learned about the industry, and Schlossberg absorbed lessons about Judaism.
“It was a very interesting combination, of somebody who certainly knew a great deal about Judaism, and myself, who was learning a lot by that time about [Judaism],” Schlossberg said. “It was interesting to me to be partners with a rabbi.”
Schlossberg had several projects set to go at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but when the industry shut down, he wrote his memoir instead. Now he’s looking to rev up some of those projects. Next up on the docket is “Tales From the Guttenberg Bible,” an autobiographical, four-character play written by and starring the Jewish actor Steve Guttenberg. It is now set for its world premiere in April, at the George Street Playhouse in Rutherford, New Jersey.
“I think audiences will respond to it, because he’s so kind and personable and living… a nice Jewish boy,” Schlossberg said of Guttenberg.
—
The post From Mel Brooks to Elaine May to Ethan Coen: Producer Julian Schlossberg writes memoir about working with Jewish stars over 6 decades appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Jewish groups protest former California mayor appointed to lead local Rotary Club
A former California mayor who began posting conspiracy-tinged anti-Israel messages on her social media shortly after she left office has been tapped as a local goodwill ambassador in Orange County, infuriating Jewish residents who say their concerns about her appointment have been ignored.
Former Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan’s installation as president of the Rotary Club of Orange County L.A. last month came over the objections of the Jewish Federation of Orange County and other Jewish advocacy groups, including the regional chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Action Network (JCAN) and the local Israeli American Council.
Over the last 18 months, these groups say, Khan has spread unverified claims about the war in Gaza, making her a questionable choice to lead a public service-oriented club purportedly dedicated to promoting peace.
“This is somebody who’s a public figure who’s using a quasi-public account to spread blood libels,” said Julie Heiman, JCAN’s director of policy, legal and government affairs. “And a civil society organization, the purpose of which is to build goodwill, is kind of blessing this.”
Neither the Rotary International organization nor the Rotary Club of Orange County Los Angeles responded to inquiries. But Craig Livingston, governor of the Rotary Club district that includes the Orange County chapter, told the Forward in a statement that he did not have the power to make decisions regarding a club’s members or its leadership.
When Heiman initially raised the Jewish community’s concerns about Khan’s nomination, he discussed them with the club’s leadership, “including the potential implications for the club’s and Rotary’s public image should the matter receive broader public attention.” He added that the Rotary “values diversity and celebrates the contributions of people of all backgrounds.”
But critics say Khan — a Democrat and the first Muslim woman elected mayor of a large American city, in 2020 — does not reflect those values in her social media posts about Israel andw instead cross into antisemitism.
In one Facebook post, Khan responded to a report that Israel had bombed an Iranian girls’ school by writing that “the sick pedophiles/cannibals are doing what they do best.” Jewish groups said she was invoking antisemitic canards. Khan later clarified that she was referring to Israeli government officials and the military, not the general public, but Jewish groups were not satisfied with that response.
“It’s a proxy for saying ‘Jew,’” Heiman said. “Most of our community supports Israel, and therefore I think to the public writ large, if they’re reading that Israelis are cannibals and pedophiles, and then they see the Jewish community here flying an Israeli flag, saying we support our ethnic homeland, then we must be evil too.”
Other posts spread rumors and disinformation about the war in Gaza, including that handcuffed babies were found in a mass grave.
In another Facebook post, Khan wrote “the elite were caught with evidence worshipping evil, eating humans, engaging in rape and pedophilia…” but that “we continue to watch their movies, listen to their music, consume their products.”
Rotary International, founded in the early 20th century as a non-religious, nonpartisan service organization, has as its stated mission the promotion of service, integrity and peace. Its 45,000 clubs tend to fundraise for and organize volunteer projects around the world and in regular meetings host speakers, organize classes, promote volunteering and hold networking events.
Its credo is called the “Four Way Test”: truth, fairness, goodwill and general benefit.
When Jewish groups initially raised their concerns June 22, they wrote to the chapter’s past two presidents, Jenny Wang and Beth Fujishige, as well as Livingston, asking them to review whether Khan’s conduct aligned with the Rotarian Code of Conduct and the Four Way Test.
Wang and Fujishige did not respond to Heiman or to the Forward. Livingston told Heiman that he had consulted with Rotary International leadership, which told him the organization did not have policies governing what individuals say on their personal social media accounts when they’re not serving in a Rotary capacity.
Heiman said their choice to elevate someone who trafficked in antisemitic statements mattered because it at best normalized the behavior — at worst, it represented tacit approval. Rotary Club bylaws enable clubs to terminate membership “for good cause when they cease to have the qualifications for membership.”
“We have to be able to push this back into the dark corners where it belongs,” Heiman said. “We need for decent people to be willing to stand up and say this isn’t OK. I would have expected Rotary to be the front line of that, and it’s very scary to me that Rotary just is going along with this as if it were acceptable.”
The post Jewish groups protest former California mayor appointed to lead local Rotary Club appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
He was a shy, retiring, Jewish record store manager. How did he come to manage the world’s biggest rock band?
Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of The Beatles
By Philip Norman
Da Capo, $32.50, 368 pages
Brian Epstein was a most unlikely candidate to discover the Beatles playing in a subterranean music club in Liverpool and manage them toward becoming the biggest pop-rock band in the universe. The somewhat shy and retiring record store manager and classical music aficionado was convinced by an employee to join him during a lunch break to walk over from his family-owned NEMS record shop to the Cavern Club, where he stood out for his age (he was 27; the group’s oldest musician, John Lennon, was 21 and the crowd consisted largely of teenagers), his outfit (a formal suit and tie), and his mature deportment.
But despite being a fish out of water in the grungy club and with no experience working with musicians, within just a few weeks of getting to know the members of the Fab Four, Epstein signed them to a management deal for the purposes of getting them gigs, attracting a record deal, and freeing the foursome from business and logistical concerns. Along the way, Epstein cleaned them up, convincing them to trade their leather outfits for suits and ties, to all cut their hair in the same bowl-cut style that garnered them the nickname “mop-tops,” and to stop eating, smoking and cursing out the audience while performing.
Who was this character, and why did the Beatles put their trust in him?
The 5th or 6th Beatle
Brian Samuel Epstein was born on Sept 19, 1934, which happened to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, when Jews traditionally fast and spend the day in synagogue in an annual ritual of atonement. In some small but significant way, atonement would prove to be one of the themes of Epstein’s short, enigmatic life.
Brian’s paternal grandfather, Isaac Epstein, emigrated from Lithuania to Manchester, England, in 1894. He eventually moved to Liverpool, where he opened a furniture shop. The family expanded the business by taking over a nearby shop called North End Music Stores, which became the famous NEMS chain of furniture and record stores. Paul McCartney’s father once bought a piano from NEMS, and teenage Paul — along with his pals John Lennon and George Harrison — often went to NEMS to hear the latest pop and rock ‘n’ roll records from America.
Isaac Epstein’s son Harry married a woman named Malka Hyman (hence her nickname, “Queenie,” as “Malka” is Hebrew for queen), and the two became “prominent and popular members of the largest Jewish community outside London.” Brian and his younger brother Clive were raised in a household that kept a kosher kitchen and had weekly Shabbat dinners.
After briefly attending RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, in London, where he had hopes of becoming an actor, Brian Epstein returned to Liverpool and went to work for his father, managing the NEMS record outlet.
As Beatles biographer Philip Norman recounts in Mr. Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles, Brian led something of a double life from a young age. He was gay at a time when engaging in homosexual activity was against the law as well as frowned upon socially. Epstein lived his gay life mostly in the shadows, attracted as he was to anonymous trysts with “rough trade,” which could and often did wind up with him getting into trouble with the law as well as being beaten up, robbed, or blackmailed. To make things worse, Epstein was a heavy drug user and drinker who combined alcohol and sleeping pills, and he was hospitalized several times for depression and drug abuse.
Nevertheless, Epstein steered the Beatles to fame and fortune, first in England, then in America, and then all around the world. He was tenacious in trying to score them a record deal in London. Bringing them to the attention of Parlophone staff producer George Martin proved to be auspicious. Although Martin had previously specialized in recording comedy records, he saw something in the Fab Four (who, at least in their early years, were something of a comic group — or at least John Lennon fancied them as such) that was distinctive and showed promise. Martin convinced the upper brass at EMI, which owned Parlophone, to take a flyer on the group. The pairing of Martin and the Beatles would prove as significant as anything Epstein did for them, and when talking about “who was the fifth Beatle?” the only honest answer is both Epstein and Martin (or one was the fifth and the other the sixth — take your pick). Martin’s influence on the Beatles’ musical development and his support of their more experimental tendencies in the recording studio would prove to be an essential ingredient in their magical mixture.
A genteel and not-so-genteel antisemitism
In early 1963, a Jewish Londoner named Helen Shapiro was one of the biggest pop stars in England. Epstein got the Beatles attached to a nationwide tour headlined by Shapiro, which wound up laying the groundwork that would evolve into the full-fledged Beatlemania that would erupt by the end of the year. By early 1964, Epstein convinced American TV variety host Ed Sullivan to have the Beatles appear as guests on his weekly program for three consecutive weeks, lighting the fire of Beatlemania in the U.S., on their way to total domination of the world’s airwaves.
Epstein also worked with Jewish-American concert promoter Sid Bernstein to get the Beatles booked at Carnegie Hall in New York City and later at Shea Stadium, for two massive concerts in 1965 and 1966. In the meantime, Epstein hooked up the Beatles with Dick James (born Isaac Vapnick) for the purposes of creating Northern Songs, a publishing company for their original compositions. Epstein also midwifed the Beatles entrance into moviemaking, making a deal with United Artists to make several films, including A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, both directed by American-born filmmaker Richard Lester (born Richard Lester Liebman). Lester, like George Martin, had previously worked with Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, two of the Beatles’ favorite comedians.
For Epstein, it was not always smooth sailing. It was a time when a kind of genteel (and not-so-genteel) antisemitism permeated British life and culture, a time when the words “Jewboy” and “Yid” came tripping off the tongue. When Paul McCartney told his father that the Beatles were thinking of partnering with Brian Epstein, pere McCartney replied, “Jews are good with money,” leaving it to our imagination if this betrayed antisemitism or was meant as a compliment.
Even with his commercial and financial success, Epstein found certain doors closed to him. According to Norman, “As a permanent London base, [Epstein] favored the city’s two most exclusive neighborhoods, Knightsbridge and Belgravia, but for him, as he well knew, it wouldn’t be just a question of studying an estate agent’s brochure and requesting a viewing. Antisemitism flourished nowhere more vigorously than among those elegant white squares, many of whose ritzier apartment blocks made clear without stating explicitly they did not welcome Jews.” Brian recounted the anti-Jewish taunting he fell victim to in school in his memoir, writing, “even now [antisemitism] lurks around the corner in some guise or other.”
The godfather
No one was crueler to Epstein about being Jewish and gay than John Lennon, who, although perhaps best known for singing about peace and love, could be violent and cruel to those closest to him. Norman writes that Lennon treated Brian “abominably, at one minute sarcastically over-reverential, at the next blisteringly rude to his face about his clothes, his hair, his accent, his sexuality, even his religion.” When Epstein hired Tony Barrow to be the Beatles’ press agent, Lennon asked him (with Epstein within earshot), “If you’re not Jewish and you’re not queer, what are you doing working for Brian?” And when Epstein asked the band members what he should call his memoir, Lennon replied, “Queer Jew.”
Nevertheless, when Cynthia Lennon gave birth to Julian, the Lennons asked Epstein to be the boy’s godfather. And immediately following Julian’s birth, Lennon and Epstein went on holiday together for two weeks in Spain, where it has long been assumed the two of them had sexual relations of some sort.
When the Beatles decided to retire from touring in 1966, Epstein was left wondering what remained for him to do for them, since so much of his work had revolved around booking concert tours and negotiating deals. With the focus of the Beatles work now dedicated to the recording studio, Epstein spiraled. His drinking and drug use, as well as his expensive gambling habit, grew to epic proportions. He was found dead in his bed on August 27, 1967, at the age of 32. Surrounding him in bed were items of correspondence, the script for the Yellow Submarine animated film, and a novel called The Rabbi by Noah Gordon. Published in 1965, the American author’s debut was an instant hit, spending 26 weeks on The New York Times’ bestseller list.
An inquest ruled that Epstein died from an “incautious” drug overdose. On Oct. 17, a memorial service for Epstein was held at the New London synagogue in Abbey Road, attended by the Beatles, Cilla Black, George Martin, Dick James, and members of the Finchley Jewish Youth Club, for which Brian had served as president. Writes Norman, “The Beatles wore black paper yarmulkes which kept slipping off their shaggy hair.”
The post He was a shy, retiring, Jewish record store manager. How did he come to manage the world’s biggest rock band? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same.
Bruce David’s magnum opus is a psychedelic lithograph depicting practically the entire Torah. Over eight months, David filled it with a plethora of hidden symbols: If you look closely, you can see Joshua blowing a shofar, which hugs the Israeli flag. Squint even more and you’ll notice Joshua’s face is the flared end of an even bigger shofar that encompasses the Ten Commandments, a shofar made up of dozens of small people, seven of whom hold flames as if making a human menorah.
To understand every hidden image in just this one painting would take more words than I have space for. David gave me the “short version” of the piece’s story on Zoom — it still took six minutes.
Although David has now spent decades making Jewish art — prints, mosaics, stained glass and metal works — and exhibiting it across the country, it wasn’t what he had anticipated doing with his life. David doesn’t have any formal art training and for several years, he lost touch with his Judaism.
“Oftentimes I’ll refer to myself as a deeply flawed holy man wannabe,” David told me over Zoom from his house in Bloomington, Indiana. “But I always had this spiritual pull.”
David grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, with a Reform father and a mother from an Orthodox family. His Orthodox grandmother, Bess Harris — who he described as a force to be reckoned with — was a particular influence on him.
“I really learned my Jewish heart from her and her love of God,” David said. “She was involved with starting a Jewish day school, a Jewish nursing home, the synagogue, and she would lead trips to Israel.”
But traditional religious practice didn’t speak to him when he was a kid. He told me that one time he even climbed out of the window during Hebrew school to go play basketball.
Years later, his wife Diane was the one who helped him find new ways to connect with Judaism. Although she was raised Catholic, Diane was curious about Judaism. David needed to refresh himself on the answers.
“We started looking at the different aspects of Judaism and different things started to make sense,” David told me. “Shabbat made sense — you know, everybody needs a time to rest, recharge. Yom Kippur makes sense as a time to forgive and be forgiven. Rosh Hashanah to start again. Sukkot to get out and celebrate and get close to nature.”
When the couple met, David’s job was making deliveries for his grandfather’s wholesale store in Louisville. For David’s 30th birthday, Diane gave him a set of pigment pencils and the art started flowing out of him. Many of his pieces are concerned with biblical stories — like his mosaic of Jonah emerging onto the shores of Nineveh or his rainbow colored print of Balaam and his donkey — and he refers to them as “visual midrash.”
Unsure what to do with his art, David went to the Hillel at Indiana University Bloomington to see if the rabbi had any ideas. The rabbi connected him with art professor Mazelle Van Buskirk who was taken with David’s work. She arranged for an exhibit at IU’s School of Fine Arts, making him the first community artist to be given such an honor and kicking off his career.
He has presented his art at Jewish schools and exhibited it at events like the National Hadassah Conference, the Cincinnati Jewish Folk Festival, and the Coalition for Alternatives to Jewish Education. His work has been on the cover of books and Jewish publications. Many of the events that have had the greatest impact on David’s life were unplanned.
“We’ve always lived our lives on miracles,” David told me.
Among these, David said, was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, “the Singing Rabbi” who wrote hundreds of liturgical melodies in the 20th century, conducting a (planned) conversion for Diane and an (unplanned) wedding ceremony for the couple in the 80s.
“We went to the mikvah for the conversion,” David told me. “And then he tells us ‘Oh by the way we’re going to marry you Saturday night after Shabbat.’”
Another miracle happened when David met a couple looking for someone to manage 29 acres in Bloomington overlooking Monroe Lake. Nature lovers, the couple quickly took the opportunity to live somewhere they could connect with the earth. David’s admiration for natural forms can also be found in much of his art; the shapes tend to flow and bend.
Over the 46 years that the couple has lived on their property, they’ve turned it into a home base for their Jewish worship and educational group Light of the Nations, which conducts lessons at various synagogues and JCCs through art and music. They host parties for Sukkot and the solar eclipse on their huge lawn, welcoming dozens of visitors.
David said they wanted their home to be a “place where people come out and get close to nature in life and slow down.”
Seventy-five years old and battling blood cancer, David is now spending his time focusing on helping people connect to Judaism in a holistic way and see the beauty that brought him back to religion. He’s slowed down on exhibiting his art, instead working on making sure Light of the Nations’ mission can continue once he is gone and that his art will find a home.
David hopes that people recognize in his art “that there’s this amazing, incredible life force influencing all creation.”
The post He reconnected with Judaism as an adult. With his art, he hopes others do the same. appeared first on The Forward.
