making trouble

today i saw the best movie at the jewish film festival so far. i viewed the film "making trouble" directed by rachel talbot , presented by the jewish women's archive. the movie is about funny jewish women , featuring molly picon, fanny bryce, sophie tucker, joan rivers, gilda radnor , and wendy wasserstein. joan rivers, though not the youngest of the lot, is the only one still alive. the movie began with four younger comediennes -judy gold, jackie hoffman, and two others whose names escape me- sitting at katz's deli talking about being a jewish woman in comedy as well as introducing the legendary ladies of comedy. the first great lady of jewish comedy featured was molly picon. she grew up in philadelphia and started up in vaudeville and subsequently starred in many yiddish films and plays. to me she is legendary even though id never heard of her until i happened upon her 1980's autobiography at the library. after reading about her life i took out many of her films from the library and became a huge fan. the woman did somersaults eighty!! one of the most touching scenes presented was how molly went to the d.p. camps after the holocaust and performed for the survivors. in an interview she spoke of a mother who held out her small child and begged molly to perform saying "my child has never heard laughter, perform for her!" and she spoke of child survivors who she had performed for outside who insisted she perform even in the rain. and she did! it was also amazing to see film clips of and exuberant molly playing a teenager in yiddle mitn fiddle at 36 yrs old.
next up was fanny bryce who was quite a star in her time as well . my parents have always remembered her playing baby snooks. fanny bryce was so popular that a betty boop cartoon even features her in cartoon. fanny bryce was a beautiful woman , but since she didnt possess the blonde haired , blue-eyed look of the time , she became a comedic actress instead of the romantic lead. she even eventually got a nose job to look less jewish. to me , from the footage , she looked very jewish, but was not ugly. apparently she did not have a yiddish accent , but affected one when she performed.
sophie tucker , who id heard of, but knew the least about was also featured. she grew up in connecticut to a frum family and after a brief failed marriage and the birth of a son , she went off to become a performer at the tender age of 17. to me, she seemed the least jewish out of all of the comediennes featured, although her life was very much entwined in the jewish community. her father was a doctor and when he treated prostitutes they would say that they were actresses by trade. so when sophie embarked on a career in show biz you can imagine what her family thought! sophie's grand - niece was featured giving insight about her aunt. eerily this niece very much resembles her great aunt.
joan rivers was featured and when they showed a recent act of hers it was heartbreaking. she's done so much plastic surgery she looks more like jocelyn wildenstein than jocelyn wildenstein herself. ive seen old footage of joan rivers before, but this was the first time id seen old footage of her as an adult. she truly was funny from the start. the thing ive always liked about joan rivers is that she never denies her jewishness, in fact she owns it. upon viewing her pre-plastic surgery self, i realize she never needed any to begin with.
gilda radnor was always my favorite on saturday night live. i read a lovely book about her by alan zwiebel called 'bunny, bunny' years ago . alan zwiebel was featured in her retrospective in the film . they featured my personal favorite snl faux commercial for jewess jeans. i hadnt seen it in years , and it was just as funny now as it hadbeen then. they also featured a snl channukah skit with bill murray and john belushi where gilda lights the menorah and says one of the brachas over the candles. and of course they featured lisa lupner and roseanne rosannadan.
last but not least was wendy wasserstein. i admit that ive only read a few of her works , but she was truly amazing. it is so unfortunate that she died so young. i met her in person when she did a book reading at barnes and noble when shiksa goddess was published. wendy was such a regular person. she appeared to be the type of person you 'd want to be friends with. she was so real. her interviews for this film were taped right before her passing. in fact she passed away before the film was made. it was hard to watch those recent clips of her because she looked like she was in so much pain. thankfully there were other clips of her where she was more vibrant. its so sad that her life was cut so short. when the sisters rosensweig came out they wanted her to change the name because it sounded too jewish. they said that people in the boondocks couldnt relate to it. to which she replied "people in the boondocks dont have sisters?"
i wished the film would never end, but alas it did. it was perfection . i highly recommend it. it was a fabulous retrospective with an equal mix of facts i had already known and facts i was honored to learn.