Nate Bloom blogs on this week’s Jews in the News

A Coppola Family Pic; New Series: Doc and Shifting Gears

“The Last Showgirl” opens in theaters on January 10. Here’s the basic premise: After a thirty-year run, Shelly, a seasoned Las Vegas showgirl (Pamela Anderson) must plan her future after the show closes abruptly. Showgirl revues (beautiful women who walk around the stage partially nude) have become passe.

The co-stars include JAMIE LEE CURTIS, 65, as Annette, a waitress and former showgirl and JASON SCHWARTZMAN, 44, as a director who doesn’t cast Shelly in another revue.

The extended Coppola family has connections to “Last Showgirl”: the film (which got pretty good advance reviews) was directed by Gina Coppola, the granddaughter of Francis Coppola; Schwartzman is the son of Talia Shire, Francis’s sister (Jason’s father is Jewish); KATE GERSTEN, 45, the “Showgirl” screenwriter, is married to producer MATTHEW SHIRE, 49. He’s the son of Talia and, her first husband, DAVID SHIRE, 87, an Oscar-winning composer.

Here’s a little catch-up on two new series that premiered this week. “Doc”, a medical drama, began on Fox on Tuesday, January 7 (9PM) and “Shifting Gears”, is an ABC comedy that began on Wednesday, January 8 (8PM). Episodes stream on Hulu on Thursdays.

“Doc” is based on a mega-hit Italian TV series now in its third season. In the Italian version, a supervising hospital doctor is shot in his head and, while he survives, he has no memory of the past eight years.

Here’s the “Doc” version: Dr. Amy Larsen (Molly Parker) serves as the Chief of Internal and Family Medicine at a Minneapolis hospital. She’s at the top of her career when an injury wipes out the previous eight years of her life. Not only does she forget patients and medical developments, but she also thinks of her 17-year-old daughter as being 9.

The main cast only lists four actors, including Parker. All play hospital doctors. Two more actors are listed as playing “recurring” roles. SCOTT WOLF, 56, is listed as “recurring”. He plays Dr. Richard Miller.

I checked: Dr. Miller appears in all the series episodes already filmed (11). I guess recurring, in a TV production, means something I don’t understand.

Wolf, a good-looking guy who was raised in a Reform Jewish home, has steadily worked in films and TV (mainly TV), for the last 30 years. Many older viewers will remember him playing Bailey Salinger, a lead character in “Party of Five” (1996-2000), a hit teen/family drama.

He has co-starred in three other series: “Everwood” (2004-2006); “V” (2009-2011); and “The Night Shift” (2014-17).

“Doc” was created by BARBIE KLINGMAN, 53. She’s wrote scripts for 14 series and she’s produced 13 series. She began as a writer (“Law and Order: SVU”) and she eventually combined producing with writing (“Magnum P.I.” and many others).

Klingman’s father, Dr. DAVID KLINGMAN, was a distinguished doctor and it’s likely that this connection drew her to the Italian series. His NY Times obituary (2009) is so moving that I urge you to read it. Here’s an excerpt: “Born in Romania, raised in Columbia, and educated in Canada…He was a General Practioner in Brooklyn for over forty years, a Medical Examiner for the city of New York, an Associate Professor at Downstate Medical College… He adored his family, the practice of medicine, [and] Israel…”.

Tim Allen stars in “Shifting Gears” as a curmudgeonly widower who owns a classic restoration shop. His life radically changes when his estranged daughter (KAT DENNINGS, 39) has nowhere to go following her divorce from a man her father never liked. She packs up her three kids and moves into her father’s house.

Dennings is best known as the co-star of “2 Broke Girls”, a hit sit-com (2011-17). She played a “salty-talking” waitress in a “diner-like” New York restaurant.

I first saw Dennings in “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” (2008), a clever, often funny, moving film. She played a smart and funny Jewish young woman.

About “2 Broke Girls” I thought, yes, Dennings is getting a big check (for 6 years)- but that show wasn’t very funny and I knew she could do better.

Dennings’ parents are Jewish, but she has little religious background. In 2008, she said she’s “proud” to be Jewish, but she wasn’t religious.