Elon Gold is living proof that never in the history of television have the people of the book(store) had it so good.
Gold, a yeshiva student-turned actor, is the star of “Stacked,” the Fox comedy about two brothers who own a bookstore. The series co-star is a newcomer to the world of sitcom, a young lady by the name of Pamela Anderson, who has turned a corner in her career and is developing more of an interest in brains than bikinis.
The show had a six-episode run last spring and did well enough to get renewed. No surprise — the way Gold’s luck has been going, the show’s success was beshert.
Another actor, Tom Everett Scott, was cast in the part, but was let go just before filming began. (In fact, his name was inadvertently left on promotional material the network mailed to critics.) Gold was called in on Purim (this year also Good Friday) to audition for the show’s creator, Steve Levitan. Levitan liked Gold right away.
Because Gold, who is observant, wouldn’t meet with Fox the next day, Shabbat, Levitan taped him and showed the tape to the network execs. “I was actually sitting in shul with my manager when he leaned over and said, ‘They’re watching your screen test at Fox right now.'”
He adds: “It was my little Purim miracle.”
For the record, Gold read Playboy for the articles and as for “Baywatch,” he never saw the show. “I was one of the people who missed the whole ‘Baywatch’ phenomenon. I was busy, learning Talmud.”
But of course he knew of Anderson, who he says is unlike her public image. “She is very sweet and bright. She knows what she wants and has a great understanding of people and what they want from her and out of her life. I hear her on the phone, and one minute she’s talking to Steven Tyler asking him to appear on the show and the next she’s talking to her children. She’s a great mother and she’s a good person.”
Gold’s wife also knew who Anderson is and wasn’t the least concerned. “My wife wasn’t threatened at all, because her theory is that Pam is so beautiful I don’t have a chance. Her theory is that the more beautiful the actress, the less chance I have.”
For the moment, there’s no romance between the two on the show. “I’m glad of that,” Gold says. For one, “I don’t have to hear from my relatives about why I’m into shiksas.” For another, he feels it is “too soon” in the developing relationship between the two characters.
“We come from such different worlds [on the show]. She’s not my type and clearly the opposite is true, too. She goes for rockers and tough bad boys,” not Jewish bookstore owners.
Is his character Jewish? He has not yet been identified that way, “but I can’t not be Jewish. My name is Miller. I think it will eventually be explored.”
The phone conversation is interrupted when Chris, who handles food service for the show, comes in to take Gold’s order. The network and production company go out of their way to accommodate Gold’s religious needs. Chris makes a run every day to one of the kosher restaurants near the studio.
The studio has rearranged tapings from the traditional Friday nights to Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was one that couldn’t be switched, and Gold worked until Shabbat, his wife lit candles in his dressing room and, accompanied by his manager, the pair walked the roughly two miles to the Golds’ home.
Gold wears his Jewishness on his sleeve and is outspoken about his disappointment in other celebrities who don’t. For example, he admires “Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler, who is really proud of his Judaism. He wrote the Chanukah song and [Seinfeld] had episodes” that marked him as Jewish.
On the other hand, he was disappointed in Paul Reiser, who starred in “Mad About You.”
“It was as if he was almost shamefully hiding it. It did bother me that Reiser never discussed his Jewishness. At the same time, you never know what he went through in his childhood or as an adult, the parts he may have lost.”
That he chose show biz over numbers was no surprise to his parents, particularly his father. Dad dabbled in the business himself after he retired, managing young actors and investing in several Broadway shows.
“There was one show he didn’t put his money into, because he thought it was a little too Jewish. That was ‘Fiddler,’ which is why we lived in the Bronx all our lives.”