Celebrity Jews

from DJN February 25, 2021

by The Detroit Jewish News

Like Floating on a ‘Cloud

ARTS&LIFE

CELEBRITY JEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

PUNKY BREWSTER REBOOT; RASHIDA JONES

A reboot of Punky Brewster, the popular ’80s sitcom, will begin streaming on the Peacock Channel Feb. 25. (All 10 episodes will be released at once.) In the original, Punky (Soleil Moon Frye) was a warm and funny 7-year-old who was abandoned by her parents. Luckily, she met a kind old man who eventually became her legal foster parent. In the new version, Izzy, a young girl, is suffering in the foster system when she chances to meet Punky Brewster (Frye, again), now the harried single mother of three. Izzy reminds Punky of her younger self and she takes Izzy in.

Since the original ended, Frye, now 43, has continued to act, mostly in voice parts. She also had four children with her TV producer husband, Jason Goldberg, 48. Sadly, they separated last year. Like their mom, their kids have colorful names (all have the last name Goldberg). Here they are: (daughter) Poet Sienna Rose, 15; (son) Jagger Joseph Blue, 12; (son) Lyric Sonny Roads, 7; and (son) Story, 4.

Actress Rashida Jones, 44, was interviewed (Feb. 11) by Terry Gross, 69, the host of Fresh Air (NPR). She mostly talked about costarring in the 2020 film On the Rocks and about the birth of her first child (2018) and the death (2019) of her mother, actress Peggy Lipton. (Rashida’s life partner, and the father of her son, is Ezra Koenig, 36, a successful rock musician).

She also talked about her African American father, Quincy Jones, a legendary musician and music producer. Her father, she said, grewup poor, in a rough Chicago neighborhood. But, she said, he beat the odds and survived and thrived.

Later in the interview, Rashida told Gross that she went to the Latvian village where her Jewish great-grandparents came from while a guest on the ancestry TV show Who Do You Think You Are? Everybody (meaning the Jews), she said, were killed during the war. She then said: “And I just think about how ridiculous it is that I exist because the lineage on both sides, the probability that I would exist, a Black Jew in 2021, and succeed and thrive is a miracle. And it’s something I do not take for granted. I think about it constantly every day. I don’t understand why I was chosen, but I feel like I have to make good on my dad’s survival and my family’s survival.”

Soleil Moon Frye as Punky Brewster

SCREENSHOT FROM TRAILER