Celebrity Jews

From the sacred to the profane

Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, 81, and Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner, a youngster at 78, have teamed-up for a pilot for an MTV animated show called "Hef's Superbunnies." Hefner told the Hollywood Reporter: "Stan and I go back a long ways, and he simply felt it was time for me to reveal my secret identity. You all know me as ... publisher of Playboy. But late at night when everyone assumes I'm in the grotto living the good life, I'm out there with the Superbunnies fighting evildoers."

We don't expect the pilot to contain scenes like Hef stopping every 10 minutes to catch his breath while alternately pursuing evildoers or "Superbunnies."




More important than winning

As noted in the Sept. 3 j., the Baseball Hall of Fame recently hosted a salute to Jewish major league players. Among the attendees was Ken Holtzman, who won three World Series games for Oakland. In February, Holtzman received an award at the annual Hank Greenberg Sportsmanship Awards banquet.

Holtzman told the banquet audience that he refused to pitch in a 1973 play-off game against the Baltimore Orioles that fell on Yom Kippur, and the A's had no problem with his decision. He was, however, surprised when a huge limousine appeared in front of this Baltimore hotel on Yom Kippur morning to whisk him away to a local synagogue for services. As reported by the Forward newspaper, "He then was escorted to front row center of the synagogue, where he was offered a handshake by a distinguished-looking man standing near his family. 'Ken, let me introduce myself,' the man said. 'I'm Jerry Hoffberger, owner of the Orioles.' For Holtzman, the moral of the story was simple: 'Jews stick together.'"

In a related vein, the August online issue of Lubavitch.com has a fascinating article about Rabbi Moshe Feller, who has been meeting with Jewish baseball stars and presenting them with tefillin since he heard that Sandy Koufax was about to sit out a '65 World Series game that fell on Yom Kippur. Feller describes how, with a lot of chutzpah, he managed to meet with Koufax during the Series and he gave him a set of tefillin designed for a lefty. Sandy, he says, was very moved by the gift.




No more second banana

Jeremy Piven is finally achieving big notice with his co-starring role on the hit HBO series "Entourage" and his upcoming bar mitzvah-theme film, "Lucky 13." The actor has been playing mostly second banana to childhood friend John Cusack in films going back 15 years. Piven recently told Newsweek that he "loves" Cusack, but "those days [of being Cusack's co-star] are over." He also mentioned that he only has an "entourage of one." Newsweek responded, "But you did have a bar mitzvah." To which Piven replied: "The highlight was getting my Torah portion right and having Melissa Bruce touch me. She was, to me, the hottest girl in school, and maybe because I was the bar mitzvah boy or maybe I had a little something going on, but I'll always remember it."




Roberts returns

Tanya Roberts will return to "That '70s Show" this season on a recurring basis, thus re-forming a Jewish troika that includes co-stars Mila Kunis and Laura Prepon.




Columnist Nate Bloom, an Oaklander, can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).