the American century

 

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Last week when I had read some Comments on the Lipstick Alley site, it was a little while before I figured out "yt people" stood for white people.

        At first I wondered, "Y-T...You Tube people...?  Like -- You Tubers?"

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Jerry Adler.  An American actor with such an interesting, expressive face.  Born in 1929, he is 94, and lives with his wife of 29 years on New York City's Upper West Side.

[from his Wikipedia page] ----------- Adler was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Pauline and Philip Adler, who was a general manager of the Group Theatre....

Adler began his theatre career as a stage manager in 1950, working on such productions as Of Thee I Sing and My Fair Lady before becoming a production supervisor for The Apple Tree, Annie, and I Remember Mama, among others.

He made his directing debut with the 1974 Sammy Cahn revue Words and Music and also directed the 1976 revival of My Fair Lady, which garnered him a Drama Desk Award nomination....

Other credits include Drat! The Cat! and a 1976 revival of Hellzapoppin' starring Jerry Lewis ("Awful, terrible man")....

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        In my viewing experience, I encountered Mr. Adler in the '90s sitcom Mad About You, in the 1993 Woody Allen movie Manhattan Murder Mystery, and -- surprise! -- in The Sopranos.

        He's been in quite a few other modern shows, too -- Northern Exposure, The West Wing, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and more....  A long, busy career.  I think that's very cool.

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In one episode of The Sopranos, they're all at a funeral gathering.  Several of the men are standing together with snacks and drinks, quiet, with subdued attitudes.  Jerry Adler's character "Hesh" cuts into the gloom, telling a story:

"...Comes to the point in the service -- where the rabbi's supposed to extol the virtues of the deceased.

        The rabbi says, 'Alas, I did not know this man.  I'm new here.  You all knew him.  You say something good about him.'

Dead silence.

Goes on for about a minute.

Two minutes.

Finally, a voice from the back -- 'His brother was worse!'"

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Jerry Stiller had been looked at for the part of Hesh, first, but a scheduling jam-up made him unavailable when casting was happening, and the part was offered to Jerry Adler, whom Sopranos writer and producer David Chase had worked with on Northern Exposure.

        Mr. Adler was glad to accept the offer, but he told Chase, "I've got to warn you, I can't sing."

----------------------- Jerry Adler.  Jerry Stiller.  Jerry Lewis.  Was every man from the early-to-mid 20th Century named Jerry??  Well, not all of them....

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