When Michael Pressman was 12 years old, he faced a not-so-tough decision.
“Do I get my bar mitzvah, or do I be in a production of ‘A Thousand Clowns’ in Florida for two months?” he recalled during a recent visit to San Francisco with his wife, actress Lisa Chess. “I was much more interested in going to act, but I had to get the blessing from my grandfather.”
Pressman’s father, a New York actor, director and acting teacher, was fine with his son’s choice. So it was up to his grandfather to recognize the lad’s desire and talent.
All those afternoons that Pressman had cheerfully performed for his grandfather after school, singing along with the cast recording of “Fiddler on the Roof,” paid off: He got the OK to be in the play.
“I was the entertainer,” Pressman remembers.
But Pressman put his passion for performing on hold, turning to creating and developing entertainment, rather than acting. After studying drama and film in college, he began writing and directing movies. With quasi-successes such as “Boulevard Nights” and “Some Kind of Hero” to his credit, he segued into making movies of the week for television before gravitating to series TV.
Now a successful Los Angeles television producer and director who has worked for years with David E. Kelley on series such as “Chicago Hope” and “Picket Fences,” Pressman still calls the theater his first love.
And with his immensely likeable new film, “Frankie and Johnny Are Married,” he resurrects his performance career. The film, which opens Friday, June 18, at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco, re-creates the roller-coaster experience of directing his wife in a stage production of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” In addition to writing and directing, Pressman plays himself, as does his wife.
As he tells it, his career was flourishing, but Chess’ acting ambitions were stuck in neutral, so Pressman had spearheaded the two-character stage production as an affordable way to showcase her talents to the L.A. community.
But after weeks of rehearsal, the actor they’d cast left for another job. Pressman canceled the show, forfeiting his investment, but he was more upset that no one would see Chess’ performance. So he decided to step in and play Johnny — some 30 years after he’d last acted.
“It does have a little bit of a talmudic idea in it, which is the idea of finishing the job,” Pressman says. “When I was making my very little first film at film school, and I was thinking of abandoning it, my father said, ‘No, finish what you set out to do. It’s a very important lesson in life.'”
Chess and Pressman laugh at the suggestion that it’s a peculiarly Jewish notion to go public with a tale of tsuris, and share it with the world
“There are certain people that I know professionally,” Pressman muses, “who feel that we are a little nuts to take our personal life and put it on the screen … “
“And those would be our non-Jewish friends,” Chess interjects, breaking into laughter with her husband.
“Then we’ve got our Jewish friends who want to be a part of the party,” Pressman adds, venturing that the film is imbued with a spirit of celebration.
“I am not religious, and I believe my religion is in the creative process. I keep thinking about the opening line from ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’: ‘The theater is a temple and we are here to worship the gods of comedy and tragedy. Tonight I am pleased to announce a comedy.'”
Chess’ father was Jewish, and he taught her about not only Jewish tradition but Jewish humor.
“One of the things Michael discovered early on — and it might have been one of the things that created more dates — was that I can quote ‘The 2,000 Year Old Man’ chapter and verse,” Chess relates. “Mel Brooks brought us together.”
“Frankie and Johnny Are Married” opens Friday, June 18, at the Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Ave., S.F. (415) 267-4893, or www.landmarktheatres.com.