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GWYNETH PALTROW is a lucky girl, royally descended from thousands of years of Belorussion rabbis!

"While the actress hasn't kept it a secret, neither has she talked a great deal about growing up half-Jewish: Her father, producer-director Bruce Paltrow, is Jewish. (Her mother, actress Blythe Danner, isn't Jewish.) Her father's Judaism isn't of a common garden variety. "I come from a real rabbinical dynasty," Paltrow proudly declares, "and it The Paltrowitch family tree goes back to 17th-century Russia.

In fact, Paltrow can count a whopping 33 rabbis among her ancestors. Her great-great-great grandfather was Rabbi Tsvi Paltrowitch, the Gaon of Nitzy-Novgorod in South West Russia. His three sons, all rabbis, emigrated from Russia in the l9th century. One Simcha Paltrowitch served as rabbi in Buffalo, New York from l890 to l914. Another son emigrated to England and founded the Old Central Synagogue in Leeds.

Rabbi Nachum Paltrowich, of the Leeds Paltrowitch's, is an enthusaistic genealogist, and he reports that Gynweth Paltrow is a direct descendant of Rabbi David Ben Samuel Ha-Levi, a famous 17th-century authority on Jewish law. The movie star recently showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills looking thoroughly unPaltrow-like and more like a friendly, down-to-earth Jewish girl.

You had to look twice to make sure it really was her. Gone is the shoulder-length golden blonde, Grace Kelly-like hair. Instead, her locks are dark brown (for her role in "Bounce," a movie she has just finished shooting with her on-again-off-again boyfriend Ben Affleck.)

"I think the director of 'Bounce' was sick of the whole Blonde Gwyneth person. And so was I," she confesses.

Wearing virtually no makeup, Paltrow nevertheless looked tremendously elegant in an ankle-length black leather skirt and matching top, set off with dazzling diamond earrings which are believed to be a gift from Affleck. Following the breakup of her engagement to Brad Pitt, (who isn't Jewish) Paltrow's life had begun to settle down when along came Oscar and the paparazzi went on red alert.

"I became a prisoner in my house because after a while I just didn't want to go out," she recalls. "One day, I ran out of gas, and there are [published] pictures of me walking down the street with a gas can looking for the nearest service station. The paparazzi didn't have the decency to give me a ride. They just wanted those demeaning pictures. I wanted to go hide somewhere. I felt I couldn't sustain all of the energy that comes with all that attention."

The whole media obsession seems to have been exacerbated by the fact that her acceptance speech became fodder for late night comedians. Not since Sally Field's "You love me, you really love me" acceptance speech for "Norma Rae" in l979, had so many had so much fun with so little.

At Oscar time, Paltrow's father was ill, her much beloved grandfather was dying, (he has since died, and she still can't mention his name without tearing), and her brother, Jake, (who, according to the London Jewish Chronicle had a traditional Bar Mitzvah) was also having his own health problems. Not surprisingly, the actress broke down in front of the world's largest audience.

"The nightmare about that evening was that I had one of the most personal moments of my life in front of the whole world. I felt so terribly exposed," she confesses. "Of course, I'd like to go back and change some things, but that's impossible. It's there for posterity."

Paltrow countered in the only way she knew how by turning inward and taking stock of her life and career and drawing on her beliefs and background. But she doesn't like to deal with these questions in the formula celebrity interview way.

"Judaism is something you can't brush off with a quick answer," she explains. "It's part of who I am and what I've become. It's something you need to sit down and talk about for a long time to really let you understand how much it meant to me in shaping my life."

TATUM O'NEAL will be playing the lead role of Camille in the forthcoming film THE SCOUNDREL'S WIFE, set in southern Louisiana circa 1942, along with Julian Sands and Tim Curry. The film is directed by Glen Pitre, who grew up in them there parts. The movie will put you in the mood to eat boiled crawfish and pecan tarts. Michelle Benoit, the director's wife, is co-scriptwriter! Don't throw a fit like John McEnroe, simply pay up the ten bucks and enjoy the flick [McEnroe admitted in October, that Tatum was right all throughout their marriage ... "yes ... i did need a therapist terribly and now i finally have one"]. If you have a friend as messed up as Basquiat, pay his or her entrance too!

We have to admit here and now, our favorite film of the 1900s, was CIRCLE OF TWO, aka OBSESSION, in which two Scorpios showed the world what ecstatic levels sexual communion can reach, even without doing it. This was perhaps Tatum O'Neal's and Richard Burton's finest performance ever together. We give this Jules Dassin film [the most admired director of Francois Truffaut], who also directed NAKED CITY and RIFIFI, two arms up touching the clouds in salute to a very fine ass film.

NEVER ON SUNDAY.


Can you identify the two dancers in this photo?


Sketch ABOVE by BILIANA KRAPTCHEVA, a Bulgarian-Canadian artist currently living in Toronto, Canada / email address:
biliana@honson.com [she needs new projects, did you get the hint?]

Disney's and "Hello Kitty's" Cultural DE-CONSTRUCTIONISTS came to Historic NYC Times Square ... and made it into an EMPORIUM OF VULGARITY, rivaled only by the ancient markets of the victors over the sadly defeated Argos nation, unfit for Playwrights and human habitation! [but fit for the late Mayor Giuliani's only "constructive" legacy, which Money Bags Mike Bloomberg, first billionaire to just buy the few voters left in NYC's voting booths on election day, their billions of unsightly and useless scaffolds -- stuck like vertical dog turds all over the main pedestrian NYC strolling areas, disfiguring nearly every doorway and building face in town!

Have you EVER seen anything so REALLY UGLY as the "new" Times Square, and the scaffolding all over Manhattan!!!

Soon, the capital of Uzbekistan will have more charm [and better theatre too].



Manhattan Theatre Club [MTC], long a holdout against the commercial theatre money pit system, ... long loved for bestowing succor for decades to serious playwrights and actors, is now in bed with the Times Square Redevelopment Agencies, and probably the Edison Schools System too.

Watch out serious writers and actors! Get ready to land on friendlier territory, after you free fall from MTC, which is at this moment selling you out ... give us that pretty swan dive as you free fall to the pavement from the roof of the Westin Hotel! Watch out for those Edison School System Franchise bankers and lawyers toadying up behind Money Bags Bloomberg and his feind Joel Klein, as you try valiantly to pull yourself back up from the streets!

click here for Retrospective on STANLEY KUBRICK and a review by Bryan Adrian of EYES WIDE SHUT

Bryan Adrian's Off-Broadway Theatre Review:

CALISTA FLOCKHART Returned
to the NEW YORK STAGE in a New Take on MEDEA,

of the Greek Tragedies, or

Akadia??

click here for full review by Bryan Adrian