True crime and true love
The true-crime anthology series “American Crime Story” premiered on FX on Feb. 2. The first season is a dramatization of the 1994-95 O.J. Simpson murder trial. Frankly, if Simpson weren’t now imprisoned for robbery, I don’t think I could bear watching a series that ends with his astonishing acquittal. Many of the Jewish players at the trial are depicted, including prosecutor Marcia Clark, 62 (played by Sarah Paulson); Fred Goldman, 75 (Joseph Siravo), father of murder victim Ron Goldman; and defense attorneys Robert Shapiro, 73 (John Travolta), Barry Scheck, 66 (Rob Morrow, 53) and Alan Dershowitz, 77 (Evan Handler, 54). Defense attorney Robert Kardashian and his ex-wife Kris Kardashian are played by David Schwimmer, 49, and Selma Blair, 43.
“American Crime” was co-produced by Brad Falchuk, 44, who co-created “Glee” and “American Horror Story.” His mother, Nancy, was a former national head of Hadassah. Falchuk recently spent a long weekend with Gwyneth Paltrow, 43, and her daughter, Apple, 11. They’ve been quietly seeing each other since August 2014, but Paltrow raised the volume by posting Instagram pics of them cuddling on a Mexican resort beach. Like Paltrow, he has two young kids from a prior marriage.
Cuddling is what Daniel Radcliffe, 26, has been doing since 2013 with his girlfriend, actress Erin Darke, 29. Darke is a native of Flint, Michigan, where her parents still live. Radcliffe visited that “in the headlines” city in December 2014. The “Harry Potter” star toured the town, ate at local places and — oy, vey — presumably drank the lead-filled water (no comment about the Flint crisis from him, yet).
At the movies
“Hail Caesar!” is a comedy set in the 1930s that is reminiscent of the screwball comedies of that era. George Clooney plays a big star who is kidnapped, and Josh Brolin co-stars as the guy hired by the studio to find him. Tribe members with major supporting roles include Scarlett Johansson, 31, Jonah Hill, 32, and Alden Ehrenreich, 26, in what may finally be his breakout role. He co-starred in “Beautiful Creatures” (2013), a big-budget “sure hit” that turned out to be a big flop. The film, directed and written by Joel Coen, 61, and Ethan Coen, 58, opens Friday, Feb. 5.
Natalie Portman, 34, stars in the new Western film “Jane Got a Gun.” She plays a married ranch woman who has to enlist the help of a former lover whose heart she broke (Joel Edgerton) to protect her and her young daughter. Reviews say the acting is good, but the story is so-so. Portman does, however, join the select few Jewish actresses playing tough Western women: Shelley Winters in the great “Winchester 73” (1950), the late Lauren Bacall in “The Shootist” (1976), Hailee Steinfeld, 19, in “True Grit” (2010), Oscar nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh, 53, in “The Hateful Eight” (2015) and Frances Fisher in “Unforgiven” (1992), an Oscar-winning film directed by Bay Area native Clint Eastwood, with whom she has a daughter, actress Francesca Eastwood. I recently learned that Fisher’s father was Jewish after her father’s family tree was posted on Geni.com, an ancestry site, by attorney Randol Schoenberg, 49. Fisher played his mother in “Woman in Gold.” He’s a family history expert and Geni curator.
Super sports trivia
The Super Bowl is being played on Sunday, Feb. 7 at the new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Reasonably, you could say the stadium is named after a Jew — German-born San Franciscan Levi Strauss, founder of Levi Strauss & Co. (the clothing company is still owned by Strauss descendants). This appears to be the first time that a stadium or arena named after a Jew has hosted a major professional sport championship. Yes, Jacobs Field in Cleveland hosted a World Series. But the Jacobs family isn’t Jewish, as many think.
Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at [email protected].