By Nate Bloom
Contributing Columnist
“No Good Deed” is an eight episode Netflix comedy/drama that premieres on Dec. 12. Ray Romano and LISA KUDROW, 61, co-star as the owners of a fabulous 1920s Spanish style villa in Los Angeles. They are empty nesters who decide to sell their house.
Three different families make a bid over the asking price. All three families believe that owning the house will solve their personal problems. The main supporting cast includes ABBI JACOBSON, 40, as Leslie Fisher. (LINDA LAVIN, 87, has a recurring role as “Phyllis.”) Jacobson is best known for co-starring in “Broad City,” a Comedy Central show.
“No Good Deed” was created by LIZ FELDMAN, 47, and she oversees the production of the series. Feldman co-wrote the first and the eighth episode of “No Good Deed.”
Feldman grew up in Brooklyn. She once said she got the showbiz bug after appearing in her synagogue’s Purim play.
Feldman won four Daytime Emmys (2006-2009) for her scripts for the Ellen DeGeneres talk show. She left “Ellen” in 2010 and went on to write for many sitcoms. Her talent was so admired that Netflix signed a deal with Feldman to create five new series. The first, “Dead to Me,” (2020-2022) a black comedy-drama, got very good reviews and it received several Emmy nominations.
Here’s a 2022 Feldman quote from the Hollywood Reporter. It makes me think that “No Good Deed” will be much deeper than the average sitcom: “I don’t feel like I have a choice not to be politically active — as a Jewish gay woman in 2022. I would have to be unconscious to not want to fight for my rights and the rights of every human being in this country. I’m a poster child of who the right is afraid of on some level — yet in my work, I tend to be pretty subtle. In my next show [No Good Deed,] I’m introducing themes that feel more relevant to what’s going on. But my job is to entertain, first and foremost. And sometimes subtlety is the strongest form of suggestion.”
In my last column, I said I would reveal a virtually unknown Jewish actor who prominently sang in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939). Here goes: under the name JACKIE GERLICH (1925-1960,) he was one of the three members of the Munchkin Lollipop Guild who danced and sang a short song welcoming Dorothy to Munchkin Land. Just about everyone remembers: “We’re the members of the Lollipop Guild…and we welcome you to Munchkin land!”
The three Lollipop Guild singers don’t have character names. But the three wore identical costumes in different colors and Oz fans often call them by the color they wore: Gerlich was in red clothes and he stood on the left as you look at the Guild members on a TV.
The Munchkin Land song and all the other “Wizard” songs were written by two great Jewish songwriters: E. Y. HARBURG and HAROLD ARLEN. BERT LAHR, who played the Cowardly Lion, was the only Jewish actor with a big part in “Oz.”
A few weeks ago, I stumbled on Wikipedia’s list of the Munchkins in the 1939 “Wizard” film. I saw a Munchkin entry for Jackie Gerlich and he had a separate Wiki bio page. His name, I thought, could be Jewish and, this Wiki article said he left Austria in 1936. Together, these clues made me think he was Jewish. Wiki was silent about that.
I found an article about Gerlich and his Jewish family on the website of the Leo Baeck (Jewish) Institute in New York. It was mostly about Jackie’s family. The primary source for the article were interviews with DAVE FOX, Jackie’s older brother. Sadly, I just learned that the Baeck Institute doesn’t post interview transcripts online. You have to read them in person. So, I can’t provide now, all the info that Fox gave about his brother.
However, Dianne Ritchey, an archivist, did review the transcripts and her Leo Baeck article (2022) is a good starting place. Jackie’s parents, ABRAHAM FOX and REGINA FOX (Ryfka, née Gerlich,) owned a small grocery in Vienna. They had three sons: Dave (born in 1917,) JAKOB (born about 1920,) and Jackie, born 1925 (who was a dwarf).
Jackie was the first to leave Vienna. LEO SINGER, a Jewish impresario, combed Europe for body proportional dwarfs who could look good as they danced and sang in his troupe, “Singer’s Midgets.” He recruited Jackie, then 10, and took him to America.
As you can tell, this story is getting long. So please read my next column for the conclusion (as I know it now) on Jackie Gerlich’s life, and a brief note about HARRY MONTY, another Jewish Munchkin.