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■■Mi THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE December 26, 1986 Page 23 • » *- • *.♦ v v * fa " «\«t Arts & Entertainment Photographer puts Yiddish in the Avid readers by Lionel Rolfe In the early'50s, a major Hol lywood publicist named Dave Golding hired a young and up coming Hollywood photographer. He was Phil Stern who had made a name for himself as a combat photographer and war hero in World War II. appearing both in Stars and Stripes and Life Magazine. Golding hired Stern to be the still photographer on the set of “Guys and Dolls,” and later many other pictures. One day Golding asked Stern a personal favor. He knew that Stern had grown up speaking Yiddish and reading the Forw'ard. His father. Max Golding, admit ted Dave, was the composing room foreman at the Forward, and Golding confessed further that his dad loved both the movies and movie stars. Could Stern, who was friends with so many of the stars, ask Marlon Brando to hold a copy of the Forward, snap his picture, and then get Brando to autograph the picture “To dear Max.” Phil asked Brando, who seemed tickled by the idea of pretending he was reading a Yiddish news paper. Thus began a series of photos by Stern of various stars reading a Yiddish paper, each of them seemingly reacting strongly to what they were reading—even though none of them could actu ally read Yiddish. It was sort of the first, “You don't have to be Jewish” ads that were popular for deli products, except for the fact that the pic tures Stern shot were not intended for publication. For years the photos Stern sent Max were tacked up on the bulletin board of the Forward's back shop bulletin board. Max was a hero to his co-workers. In 1981, the Forward finally got around to publishing a handful of the photos. Sometimes Stern put more effort into his obsession taking pictures for Max Golding at the Forward than he did with his regular work. He says he always carried a copy of the paper with him whenever he worked on movie sets, in case he ran into a likely and cooperative subject. J he idea behind the photos was simple. Stern wanted to shoot very unlikely people ap parently reading a Yiddish pa per-people such as Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart. Bob Hope and Spencer Tracy. “The only Jew I shot reading the For ward,” he says, “was w hen Eng lish actor Ron Moody was play ing the role ol a Saudi oil sheik, and was dressed up in the full regalia, including burnoose. Un less you want to say that Sinatra is Jewish because he’s related to Columbus or something,” he added. Despite, or maybe because of the fact that most of the celebri ties who posed with the paper were not Jewish, they almost all seemed anxious and even tickled to pose with Forward. He thinks this is because most people in the movie business, with a few nota ble exceptions, have a soft-spot for Jewish culture. Stern points out that he would not have asked James Cagney to pose with the paper, despite the fact that Cagney had the map of Ireland written all over his face, because it was known that Cag ney spoke good Yiddish. Stern was propelled by the idea of improbability. Normally, he points out, peo ple like Brando and Sinatra are quite resentful of people who w'ant to take their pictures for personal reasons or to plug a product. If they do such things, they want lots of money. Yet for his camera, the actors w'ere not only willing to go along with the gag, they pantomimed for the camera while reading the For ward. Actors, explain Stern, also do not usually enjoy having to act once they are no longer in front of the movie camera. To Stern’s mind, his little gag, which he carried on for more than three decades, was “theater of the absurd. Theater of the Absurd had to be invented by Jews," he says, “because Jews have the most grist and subject matter, the most pertinent human traumas to supply material for T heater of the Absurd, because of the nature of their historical predicament" In Steven Spielberg's wild comedy “1941” Christopher Lee was playing the part of a Nazi U-boat captain. Stern just couldn’t resist shooting this most unlikely character to be reading the For ward despite his own reserva tions. Remember, none of these photographs were meant to ever be printed, so regarding the bizarre juxtaposition of the swastika and the Yiddish news paper. Stern said, “Oh hell, it's all in the family” and shot the picture. One Jew ish crew member on the film set objected to this “bad taste” and tried to get Stern WABE-FM 90 presents ‘Voice of the Turtle’ On the first day ol Hanuka, the performing group. Voice of the Turtle, will present a live concert broadcast w hich includes stories about the holiday, art fully woven into a program ol traditional music. Listeners can hear Voice of the Turtle Satur- Bible stories Franklin D. Kreutzer, interna tional president of the United Synagogue of America, the or ganization of 850 Conservative synagogues in North America with a constituency of over a mil lion and a half members, has announced the availability of six classic Bible stories in video cassette form under United Syn agogue auspices, produced by the world-famous Hanna Barbera Studios. Applying their expertise to some favorite children’s Bible stories, Hanna Barbera Produc tions has captured the timeless message of the greatest stories ever told via televideo, the medium of today. Through the adventures of three contemporary children who become part of the scenarios dav, Dec. 27, from 8 to 10 p.m. on WABE-FM 90. I he stories come I mm w idely disparate traditions: the Ashke nazi world of Isaac Bashevis Sin ger. set in Eastern Europe; the world ol the Sephardim whose traditions preserved the fabulous by utilizing a time machine, the Bible is brought vividly to life for viewers of all ages. The action and excitement which are the hallmarks of these strikingly animated cassettes convey the values and concepts ol the stories in a way to w hich children respond best. According to Dr. Morton K Siegel, director of the Depart ment of Education of the United Synagogue, “the Greatest Adven ture Series provides a meaning ful and entertaining appreciation of Torah narratives and moti vates the viewer to turn to the text itself for further study. As a classroom tool, the series has maximum pedagogic impact.” Presently, the following six stories can be purchased through "Romancas.” epic sagas sung to hypnotic melodies, evoking the erasol Medieval and Renaissance Spain; and the modern world, where the traditions continue. The songs include those pre served with love and care through the centuries. The holiday music the United Synagogue: “Moses,” “David and Goliath,” “Joshua and the Battle of Jericho,” “Noah’s Ark,” “Samson and Delilah” and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den.” Charges per cassette (in VHF or Beta), which run approximately 30 minutes per tape, are $19.95, plus shipping and handling. Also available are colorful companion books for each story, handsomely illustrated and pub lished in hard cover. These books, at $5.95 each, complete the col lection. For more information, contact the United Synagogue Department of Education. 155 Fifth Avenue. New York, N.Y. 10010. will be sung in l.adino and Hebrew and will be accompanied by a variety ol Medieval and Renaissance instruments. The Voice of the Turtle is a quartet compi ised ol Derek Bur rows, Lisle Kulbaeh, Jay Rosen berg and Judith Wachs. Formed in 1977, the Voice of the Turtle has developed a unique approach to the performance of Medieval, Renaissance and traditional folk repertoire which includes the music ol Sephardic Jews. Because each member is able to perform on many instruments, their con certs evoke a wide variety of atmospheres and time periods. Research into the authentic tra ditions. from field recordings and notated sources, provides the seeds of imaginative re-creations. Presentations include voices, harp, psaltery, rebec, medieval dillle. Tul. Spanish medieval bagpipe, and many other histori- eal instruments. Voice of the I mile has per formed to audiences at B'nai B'nth Hillel at Harvard. Prin ceton, Rutgers. Brandeis. T ufts. Cornell, and many other colleges and sv nagogues through the New York and New England area. available in videocassette picture fired. The other Jewish crew members enjoyed the gag. Stern says he can well under stand how many survivors might be sensitiv e even to actors dressed up in Nazi uniforms, but he re mained to his sense of the princi ple that was driving him. Stern’s credentials as a Nazi- fighter were impeccable. Stern used to interrogate Nazi colonels and generals speaking Yiddish, a language most people w ho speak German can understand. Stern had distant relatives w ho died in the Holocaust, and more to the point he had been a famous war hero and combat photographer in the Darby’s Rangers, the combat unit that was not only the bravest, but also suffered the most casualties. Of the original 1.500 rangers, only 199 survived. After the war. Stern played himself in a movie about the Darby’s Rangers. As a genuine war hero, he was quickly accepted in Hollywood circles when he picked up his camera. He’s an intelligent and inde pendent soul, with a powerful photographic vision and a highly developed sense of craft. He still covers Hollywood sets with a war combat zone intensity. If there’s a dangerous stunt going on, for example. Stern will throw himself into the most precarious positions in order to record it. Some of Stern’s other photo projects are adding to his fame these days. People magazine early this month ran a four-page spread of his pictures of famous stars such as John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby and Jack Lemmon with their children—an obsessive project of his similar in intensity to the Forward pictures. His intimate photographs of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are collector's items worth hun dreds of dollars each. As the chief photographer for the great jazz impresario Norman Grantz, he shot most of the album covers of nearly every great jazz musi cian who ever appeared on Cirantz's Pablo records. When John Kennedy was inaugurated as president. Stern’s friend Frank Sinatra asked him to photograph the dinner backstage—he was the only photographer allowed to do so. Stern goes back to the begin nings of photo-journalism. When Life did an exhibit and a book called Life: The First Decade; 1936-1945, the first of the 300 classic black and white photo graphs w as a Depression-era Phil Stern photo, of a man and his family looking for work and a home. It was a haunting, power ful photo as many of Stern's photos are. The collection began with the works of three of its great photographers, Margarete Bourke White, Ansel Adams and Phil Stern. But anyone who has known Phil Stern is bound to quickly discover that his favorite photo graphic obsesssion has been those wonderful pictures of unlikely celebrities reading a newspaper written in “Jewish.” Lionel Rolfe, editor of the B'nai B'rith Messenger in l.os A ngeles. is also the author of two hooks, "The Menuhins: A Fam ily Odvssey” and "Literary LA." hath published by Panjandrum Books. V n~:i ';ir^mflLiiul-imAi ii i *ii ■! i tfurn i> n ii 1 '• 11 ^'” r