Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories (5 page)

He’s not a doctor, but his bedside manner for ten years on
ER
as Dr. John Carter makes him the numero uno doc in our book. Noah Strausser Speer Wyle was born on June 4, 1971, and raised in Hollywood, California, one of six children born to a Jewish entrepreneur and an Episcopalian orthopedic head nurse who were not avidly religious. The school he attended at the age of thirteen was predominately Jewish, and Wyle’s education in Judaism at that time was rather bumpy because he was being educated by other thirteen-year-olds. After he got over the bruises, physical and mental, Wyle went to high school, where he aspired to become a basketball player but, lacking height and ability, decided that acting would be a safer bet.

In high school, he was encouraged by his stepfather, James C. Katz, a film restorer, and acted in several high school plays and attended a theater program at Northwestern University. Wyle opted against college and stayed in Hollywood to study with renowned acting coach Larry Moss. He got his first part at age seventeen in the NBC series
Blind Faith
in 1990. His first feature film role was in the drama
Crooked Hearts
in 1992. He then spent time waiting tables before appearing in
A Few Good Men
in 1992. After that, Wyle returned to the restaurant scene and worked the tables again, and then, after three auditions for
ER,
Wyle started his new career as a doctor, where he stayed for ten years. Although he left
ER
as a regular in 2004, Wyle remains connected to the medical field and works with the nonprofit group Doctors of the World.

He is the artistic producer of the Blank Theater Company in Los Angeles, where young playwrights can showcase their work, and now has the Second Stage Theater in his portfolio, which has produced many successful shows.

Noah Wyle is married to Tracy Warbin and the couple has two children, Owen and Auden. He still plays basketball, only not professionally.

NOAH WYLE CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR

I was raised fairly nondenominationally. My father is Jewish and I’ve been to temple and I’ve been to my mother’s Episcopalian church on Easter and Christmas. That was about the extent of my religious training growing up. I did not have a bar mitzvah, but it was a significant part of my life because all my friends did, and boy, did that have a huge impact on me.

I think, because of that exposure to Judaism as a boy, I now have a certain sense of spirituality. I don’t know that I would attribute it to any of the major religions. I think I believe in a higher power. I do believe in grand design. About ten years ago I met a rabbi at a dinner, a fund-raising dinner for Benjamin Netanyahu. And we struck up a conversation at the dinner table. And he was about as unorthodox as an orthodox Jew could be. He broke all my preconceived notions. He was very argumentative. And he was very cynical in some ways and certainly understood my doubts and really enjoyed the debate. And he said, “Well, if you’re really curious, why don’t you give me a call? And once a week we’ll just study together for as long as you want to.” I said, “Okay, great!” I spent about three years learning with the rabbi. I was here, he was in Israel. But we’d work on the phone. And he took me in baby steps through the foundations of the religion and the concepts of the higher self and the lower self. At that period in my life, it really made quite a bit of sense to me. I consider those conversations to be the basis of my religious philosophy.

At this point, I haven’t spoken to him for a couple of years. But it’s one of those comfortable relationships where he’s left the door open to me to ask him questions. It’s interesting. I got away from it, and it wasn’t until I had kids that it came up again in my life. I’m going to have some more questions coming pretty soon. And while I don’t think that everything I learned was only about Judaism, I do embrace a lot of aspects of Judaism.

So, unlike a lot of bar mitzvah kids, I learned about my religion as an adult in his twenties. That’s a prevailing theme in my life. Most of my expensive education was wasted on me as a youth. I would’ve appreciated it a lot more now than I did then, that’s for sure.

ARE YOU RAISING YOUR CHILDREN TO BE JEWISH?

Well, they’re very young. My son’s three. My daughter’s ten months old. So my wife and I—she’s not Jewish, by the way—are just starting to have conversations about that. At this point we’re leaning toward a philosophy of tolerance and appreciation for all the world’s religions and all the best aspects of each of them.

THIRTEEN CAN BE AN AWKWARD AGE. WHAT WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU?

As a little kid, I was pretty skinny. And then those awkward years came around: eleven, twelve, thirteen and fourteen. I went from being long and lean to short and squatty. As far as my clothes sense went, my favorite thing to wear was those elastic-waist pants.

And then, when I was fifteen, I grew six inches in a summer. And I went back to being built like Abe Lincoln again. But for that period of time, at around thirteen, which I refer to as my dark period, I was a pretty chunky little kid.

At that time, I went to a private school in North Hollywood, called Oakwood, that was probably ninety-nine percent Jewish with the exception of me. For about two years straight, every Saturday I was at a bar mitzvah. I remember the first bar mitzvah I ever attended. I was sitting next to my friend Michael Ehrlich, who was a practicing Jew. And we were in the service part of the bar mitzvah. He said to me, “You’re not a practicing Jew, are you?” And I said, “No, I’m not.” And he said, “Is this your first bar mitzvah?” I said, “It is.” And he says, “Okay, well, it’s really easy. There’s not a lot you need to know. But if you’re not a practicing Jew, when they take the Torah out of its cabinet and they bring it around the congregation, all nonpracticing Jews have to close their eyes and hum. And I said, “You’ll let me know when that is?” And he said, “Oh, absolutely.” So at a certain point in the ceremony, the rabbi goes to the locker and brings out the Torah. My friend gives me a very solemn nod and I closed my eyes and started humming. And I realized, Oh, I must be the only nonpracticing Jew in the whole room. So I heard this little snicker from around me and then I realized I had been had.

It was during that great period of time where break dancing was coming into fashion. And I fancied myself a break-dancer, as chubby as I was. Between the limbo contests, the lip-synching to Bob Seger’s songs and break dancing, I definitely had a reputation. I was not a very popular kid. But I vividly remember the time, at Jed Weitzman’s bar mitzvah, that I got up and lip-synched to that Bob Seger song “Old Time Rock and Roll,” like Tom Cruise did in
Risky Business.
Everybody went nuts. It was one of the first performances in front of my peers I ever gave. And that was a real confidence booster. It actually was a seminal moment. That really was. There were a few of those during my adolescence, although I was a pretty shy kid. But I did have a couple of moments when I shocked myself by doing something that normally would have made me totally panic-stricken. I would get up and do some public speaking or a little skit or sing a song and have it go over really well. And those definitely contributed to my thinking later on that I could do this for a living. That is, as long as my career didn’t involve break dancing.

It was at a bar mitzvah where my break-dancing career was cut short. It was because of the worm, a break-dancing move that you really can’t fake, unlike some other moves, like spinning on your back. Only one guy in the school could do it well. He was a friend of mine named Mitchell Butler. And I remember it was at Louis Pozen’s bar mitzvah party which he had at Chasen’s Restaurant. The old Chasen’s in Los Angeles. And I was down in the bathroom, in the men’s room, and I decided that I was going to break out the worm—and try it that night.

And so I practiced on the bathroom floor. And it went surprisingly well. But then something happened on the actual dance floor. You’re supposed to drop down hands first. Then you hit the floor with your chest and then, you know, you kind of roll your way down. Then you flop across the floor. I ended up in a headstand with my legs akimbo over my head. I had no leverage. And it was then, during one of the most panic-stricken moments of my life that I realized that my worm was about to collapse out from underneath me. And it really hurt my back. Then I think I crawled to the side of the stage in shame and hid the anguish I was in.

IS IT TRUE THAT THE WORM DANCE CAUSED YOU TO BREAK YOUR NECK?

Tell me if you can hear something when I move my neck…. Okay? That sound was my neck. Whatever I did to my neck on the dance floor at Louis Pozen’s bar mitzvah party, I still feel the repercussions of it today.

YOU’RE THIRTY-SIX NOW, TALL AND SLIM, QUITE THE HOTTIE, AND YOUR NECK IS IN ONE PIECE, THANK GOODNESS. LOOKING BACK, TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO, WHAT WERE THE CELEBRATIONS IN BEVERLY HILLS LIKE THEN AND WERE THEY AS LAVISH AS THEY ARE NOW?

I don’t know what they are like today. But I know that in the late eighties, they were extremely extravagant. Certainly from my view of birthday parties—and my frame of reference was limited to what kind of party a thirteen-year-old could have. But the bar mitzvahs were in these huge restaurants with professional DJs, guys that were icons in Los Angeles. Radio guys like Frazier Smith would come and be the DJ for the party. There was always unbelievable catered food, and while I’m sure that they are more extravagant today, in some ways they were over the top. Even the invitations alone could be very, very impressive.

And then, of course, there were the gifts. You know, when you’re thirteen, you’re not really thinking about the spiritual aspects of the bar mitzvah. You’re looking at the goods. You’re thinking that you’re thirteen years old and you just got ten grand from your grandmother for memorizing half a page of Hebrew. That sounded damn good to me. Also, I have a lot of fond memories of sucking helium from balloons and sipping Manischewitz out of those little plastic cups. Bar mitzvahs rocked!

With his trademark cleft chin, gravelly voice and rugged good looks, Kirk Douglas is one of our more revered actors, making a name for himself playing, as he once put it, “sons of bitches.”

Kirk is also a writer, and he has completed his ninth book,
Let’s Face It
, which he dedicated to his grandchildren.
Let’s Face It
is a reflection not only of his life, but also of his views on the world today.

Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch in 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. His parents, Belarusian Jews, were poor. He went to St. Lawrence University on a wrestling scholarship and took summer jobs wrestling in carnivals. It was a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts that turned his sights to acting. In his debut on Broadway he played a singing Western Union boy in the show
Spring Again
. In 1942, his show business career was interrupted when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After his stint in the war, Kirk Douglas returned to acting, and during his vast career he has received three Oscar nominations for his powerful roles in
Champion, The Bad and the Beautiful,
and
Lust for Life
(as Vincent van Gogh). But certainly, two of his most memorable films were
Spartacus
and
Paths of Glory,
in which Douglas powerfully played Colonel Dax, the commander of a French regiment during World War I.

In 1996, Douglas received a special Oscar for “50 years as a moral and creative force in the motion picture community.” That was also the year the beloved actor suffered a stroke, partially impairing his speech. But that did not stop him from his work on or off screen, most recently devoting his time to special projects like the restoration of four hundred neglected playgrounds in Los Angeles schools, as well as building playgrounds in Israel for both Arab and Jewish children. Also in Israel, the Douglas Foundation has built a theater close to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, in addition to funding the Anne Douglas Center for Homeless Women on Skid Row in Los Angeles. In 2004, the three-hundred-seat Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, California, opened and included among its offerings programs for children and teens.

For his many contributions to this country, Douglas has received many honors. In 1981, he received the highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and four years later in France he became First Officer and then a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. In 2001, he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts. Douglas also has a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame, and there is even a street named after him in Palm Springs, California, called—what else?—Kirk Douglas Way.

Douglas, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, is the father of four sons, actor Michael Douglas and producer Joel Douglas from his first marriage. And in 1954, he married Anne Buydens, his wife of more than fifty-two years. They are parents of producer Peter Vincent Douglas and actor Eric Douglas, who died in 2004. He also has seven grandchildren who call him Pappy.

Never one to say never, Kirk Douglas celebrated his second bar mitzvah on December 9, 1999, at age eighty-three, a day he recalls with great fondness. A hundred ninety-six of his closest friends and family gathered together at the Sinai Temple in Beverly Hills, California, for this momentous occasion.

KIRK DOUGLAS BARUCH ATAH IS LOVELIER THE SECOND TIME AROUND

Last week I went to my theater, the Kirk Douglas Theater. They have a workshop production of a musical for teens. The musical was done by kids around thirteen years of age, so that reminded me of my first bar mitzvah in New York. Like all boys at that time, I was more interested in the presents than I was in the bar mitzvah. I don’t know if my first bar mitzvah made me a man. But my second bar mitzvah was at eighty-three, well after I became a man. Actually, I like to think that it made me a better man, seventy years after my first bar mitzvah, to have a second bar mitzvah.

If there is an afterlife, and if my mother is in heaven, she will look down and she will smile. That’s why I had my second bar mitzvah, for my mother. And, just exactly like I ended my first bar mitzvah, I promised to be a good boy. For me, that’s the key. It wasn’t about religion. All my study about religion has made me less religious. Because I think the goal of religion is to make you a better person.

DID YOU HAVE TROUBLE LEARNING THE HEBREW AGAIN AT EIGHTY-THREE? WAS IT HARDER THE SECOND TIME AROUND?

I didn’t have any trouble learning it. I had enough time to study with the rabbi.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN AN EMOTIONAL AND TOUCHING DAY FOR YOU, YOUR SECOND BAR MITZVAH.

Oh yes, and I was so excited, because so many people were there. All of my sons: Michael and his beautiful wife, Catherine; Joel, Peter, and Eric. Dear friends Larry King, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Sidney Sheldon, Angie Dickinson, Tony Curtis, Norman Lear, Karl Malden, Monty Hall, Tony Martin, Cyd Charisse, Don Rickles, George Schlatter, Jack Valenti, Barbara Sinatra, Jennifer Jones Simon, Ray Stark, Walter Matthau, Tita Cahn, L.A. mayor Richard Riordan, and Steven Spielberg’s mother, Leah Adler, were there. All of the people who were able to be there made me happy. It was a beautiful day.

WERE YOUR SONS BAR MITZVAHED?

No, they were not Jewish because my two wives were not Jewish, and in Judaism the mother must be Jewish for the children to be Jewish. The religion is carried through the mother, not the father. So I decided that they can be whatever they want to be. Because as I said, my philosophy is first to be a good person.

WHY WAS IT SO IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS AT THIS STAGE IN YOUR LIFE?

I did it to honor my mother.

DID YOU GET UP AND DANCE, DO A LITTLE HORA?

Of course!

AND DID YOUR FRIENDS BRING YOU ENVELOPES OF CASH, OR ANYTHING ELSE?

Not a cent. Some caviar. But no money.

HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN SAY THAT THEY HAD A BAR MITZVAH LATER IN LIFE? YOU COULD BE A TRENDSETTER, KIRK.

I have had people tell me, “Oh, my grandfather wants to have a bar mitzvah because of you.” So I have influenced a few people who now plan to have a bar mitzvah. But I don’t think it’s very common.

WHAT’S THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR TWO BAR MITZVAHS?

At my first bar mitzvah I was pleased with all the presents. As far as the service itself, at the age of thirteen, it didn’t have the same significance as my second bar mitzvah had at the age of eighty-three. At thirteen I was too young to appreciate it. At thirteen you say “Today I am a Man.” But are you really?