Film
Can non-Jews play Jews in movies? We pick out the best and the worst
A new film stars Richard Gere as a New York 'hondler'. We take a look back at some other great examples of non-Jews in Jewish roles.
May 4, 2017 16:14
A new film stars Richard Gere as a New York 'hondler'. We take a look back at some other great examples of non-Jews in Jewish roles.
May 4, 2017 16:14In Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, which opened to decent reviews this month, devout Buddhist Richard Gere has been praised for his performance as a typical New York Jewish character.
He told Page Six ‘“My character falls under that Jewish word hondler. Used a lot on New York streets, it means fast-talking guy who makes deals. A wheeler-dealer.”
Better yet, his rabbi is played by Steve Buscemi, who might just be Hollywood’s least Jewish actor.
Jewish actors play explicitly non-Jewish characters all the time, from Peter Sellers as Doctor Strangelove to..er..Peter Sellers as Doctor Fu Manchu. We’re not the kind of people to turn down perfectly good work.
It’s only reasonable after all, considering how many Jewish characters have been played by performers who don’t look, behave or feel like authentic Jews. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it really doesn’t.
Let’s take a look at a few actors who have popped on an experimental kippah for a role.
Charlton Heston in Ben Hur
One of the great Jewish heroes of fiction was brought to the screen by an actor whose name is almost synonymous with movie epics. Charlton (his real first name is somewhat unclear) brought a muscular decency to Judah Ben-Hur that brought him one of the film’s record-breaking eleven Oscars.
Verdict: טוּב
The Welsh actor said his research for the role of Moses led him to believe that the patriarch of Israel was ‘likely schizophrenic and …one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life”
Verdict: Schlub
Blond, blue-eyed Bond star Craig was actually pretty good as Tuvia Bielski in Edward Zwick’s 2008 war drama. And the film was OK too. But a list’s a list.
Verdict: טוּב
In American Pastoral, the dramatization of Philip Roth’s novel of the same name, Ewan McGregor directed himself as the former star athlete Seymour "Swede" Levov. It doesn’t work.
The Times’s reviewer, Kevin Maher, drew particular attention to McGregor’s "mangled Scots-American accent coupled with eerily blank delivery."
Verdict: Schlub
Once Upon A Time In America was Sergio Leone’s last, and arguably greatest, film. The sprawling gangster epic – some version are nearly four houses long – tells the story of a group of Jewish New Yorkers who became gangsters in Prohibition-era America.
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Harry Grey (real name: Herschel Goldberg) who DeNiro interviewed at length in order to get in touch with David "Noodles" Aaronson’s personality and mannerisms the film betrays its star’s assiduous, borderline obsessive, attention to detail.
Verdict: טוּב
Warren Beatty in Bugsy
The foppish, twinkly-eyed philanderer with a ready smile and a rumoured starring role in Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain seems an improbable choice to play Bugsy Siegel – a mob hitman who has been described as one of the most infamous and feared gangsters of his day.
But against the odds, Beatty shone as the character who was, after all, considered one of the most handsome and tabloid-friendly of his deadly profession. Bugsy won Beatty a Best Actor nomination in 1991’s Oscars and, perhaps more importantly, brought him together with his lifelong ‘leading lady’ – Annette Benning.
Verdict: טוּב
The complex world of Art Repatriation is a tricky subject to make a film out of. People poring over dusty bills of sale isn’t quite as visual as, say, a nice car-chase or a couple of superheroes punching lumps out of one another.
Woman in Gold is based on the true story of Maria Altmann who engaged in a long and complex legal battle to reclaim Gustav Klimt's painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which had been stolen from her family during World War II. The film, lacking as it did car chases or strong men in tights, received middling reviews. But Mirren’s performance as the elderly Jewish emigrée was singled out for particular praise.
Verdict: טוּב
Sir Walter Scott’s swashbuckling chivalric romance, as recounted in the 1952 MGM blockbuster, is big on the fight against antisemitism.
While the main plot is driven by the love quadrangle involving Robert Taylor’s Ivanhoe, the winsome Rowena (Joan Fontaine) Jewish heiress Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor) and George Sanders as the decent but doomed Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert there’s a theme of young jewish women being falsely accused of witchcraft etc that probably says more about social mores in the early 1950s than the early 1150s.
Through it all Liz Taylor smouldered softly, with those lambent violet eyes saying more than the clunky script ever could. She actually converted seven years later, which is method acting taken to the max.
Verdict: טוּב
There are dozens more to choose from; Jessica Tandy in Driving Miss Daisy, Robert DeNiro (again) in Casino, Laurence Olivier inThe Boys from Brazil , even Michael Chiklis as Bemjamin ‘The Thing’ Grimm in The Fantastic 4. Which is your favourite? Get in touch via our Facebook page and let us know!
Correction: An earlier versionof this article alluded to Meryl Streep's role in Sophie’s Choice as an example of a non-Jew plasyoing a Jewish part. Thanks to Glenn Bezalel ove ron facebook who pointed out that Meryl actually played a Catholic in that film. We meant to say Meryl Streep in Prime. But we didn't. Silly us.
