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BERKLEY AND BLAIR UPDATE; GREAT PLAY: MANY JEWS; REMEMBERING ADRIENNE SHELLY

Over the years, I have written about Selma Blair and Elizabeth Berkley, two wellknown actresses who grew up in the Detroit area. In the last few weeks, I happened to come across a number of items related to the pair. Berkley, 47, grew up in Farmington Hills. She became famous playing Jessie Spano, a lead character on the hit NBC high school comedy series Saved by the Bell. In its original version, Saved ran from 19891993.

After Saved, Berkley’s hopes of having a major film career derailed when she co-starred in Showgirls (1995). The director, Paul Verhoven, was coming off a series of hits when he made Showgirls, so you can’t blame Berkeley for accepting the role of Nomi, a Las Vegas showgirl who was frequently less than fully clothed. Critics hated the film and Showgirls was a film career killer. Otherwise, her life went well. In 2003, she married Greg Lauren, now 51, in a lavish Jewish wedding. The couple has one child, a son now 9. Greg’s father, Jerry Lauren, now 87, is a very wealthy man. He long headed-up the menswear division of Ralph Lauren (Ralph, 82, is Jerry’s brother).

In 2020, a re-boot of Saved by the Bell began streaming on Peacock and got good reviews. A second season began streaming on Nov. 24. Berkley again plays Spano, who now is a high school counselor with a doctorate. Also, in 2020, You Don’t Nomi, a documentary defending the growing, “positive” cult status of Showgirls, was released.

I didn’t realize that Berkley and Selma Blair were friends until Blair disclosed in 2018 that Berkley, after hearing about Blair’s medical symptoms, insisted that she see her brother, Jason Berkley, a Los Angeles neurologist. He confirmed (2018) that Blair had Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Blair, 49, a Southfield native, had built a strong film and TV acting career when she first got MS symptoms in 2011. She went public with her diagnosis in 2018 and a Discovery+ documentary about her struggle with MS, Introducing Selma Blair, began streaming in October. The documentary revealed that actress Jennifer (Dirty Dancing) Grey, 61, contacted Blair when she heard about her condition. Grey didn’t know Blair then but convinced her to seriously look into a stem cell treatment Grey had heard of. The treatment has really helped Blair.

Meanwhile, on Amazon Prime, a “new” Selma Blair movie, Far More, began streaming (free) this month. Blair plays the caring wife of a great guy who is dying from cancer. Adrian Grenier (Entourage) co-stars as her husband’s brother. Really strong acting by the two leads makes up for some script weaknesses. I dug out that Far More had a one-theater opening in 2014 (under another title) and never saw the light of day again until Amazon began showing it. It’s worth your time.

Also worth your time is The Humans, a film that had a very limited theater opening last week and, at the same time, began streaming on Showtime. It is based on a one-act play by Stephen Karam that won (2016) the Tony for best play. The film was written and directed by Karam, a Scranton native of Lebanese Christian background.

Very basic plot: Brigid Blake (Beanie Feldstein, 28), a musician, and her boyfriend, Erik (Steven Yuen), live-in a run-down Manhattan apartment. Brigid’s parents, Richard (Richard Jenkins) and Deidre (Jayne Houdyshell), drive in from Scranton to celebrate Thanksgiving with Brigid. They are joined by Aimee, Brigid’s sister (Amy Schumer, 40), who is a lawyer in Philadelphia, and Momo (June Squibb, 82), Erik’s grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. Gradually, a lot of family secrets and problems are exposed.

On Dec. 1, HBO began streaming the documentary Adrienne, about the life of actress/writer/director Adrienne Shelly (19662006). Shelly’s death was the subject of headlines when it became clear that she did not commit suicide, as the police first thought, but that she was brutally murdered by a construction worker in her building. Her husband, Andy Ostroy, 62, directed the HBO film, and he is a major character in the film. He pushed the police to re-investigate Shelly’s death; he raised their daughter, Sophie, now 17; and he founded a big arts foundation bearing Shelly’s name.

Shelly was born Amy Levine and grew up on Long Island. She gained some fame as the star of several well-received indie films in the 1990s. However, she’s best remembered for Waitress, a film that she wrote and directed that was released just after her death. This feminist comedy/drama got very good reviews and, in 2015, a musical version of Waitress opened. It ran on Broadway for four years.

VWILSONROBERTS VIA WIKIPEDIA

Elizabeth Berkley

LG ELECTRONICS VIA WIKIPEDIA

Semla Blair