Fran Drescher was just cast to play the mother of Timothée Chalamet’s character in the upcoming “Marty Supreme,” helmed by “Uncut Gems” director Josh Safdie, who also recently directed Adam Sandler’s “Love You” standup special.
“Marty Supreme,” at least the part of it that Fran will take part in, takes place in 1952 New York, five years before “The Nanny” star was born in another borough of the city, Flushing, Queens. Drescher will play the mother of legendary ping pong star Marty Reisman, a winner of 22 table tennis titles, including five bronze medals at the World Table Tennis Championships, two US Open titles and one British Open title that he won at age 19. He is considered one of the best American table tennis players of all time.
Sarah, Marty’s mother, was a Russian immigrant who gave birth to Marty in 1930 when she was 20 years old. She was married to Morris, Marty’s father, a cab driver and compulsive gambler who lost more than he won, until 1940. After their divorce, Marty stayed with his mother for four years before moving in with Morris, who was wholly supportive of the teen’s table tennis career. By then, he had already become city junior champion. Marty, a young teen who was fascinated with science, first found his love for table tennis as a teen at the Eddie Cantor-backed Educational Alliance on the Lower East Side. He became the “Seward Park Champion.” Like his father, he started hustling for money at New York’s Lawrence Broadway Tennis Club. As his New York Times obituary stated, the athlete known as “The Needle” for his svelte figure won in his lifetime “enough to become a three-time millionaire” and lost “enough to be a three-time former millionaire.”
“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” he said.
Reisman was a character, a hustler, a storyteller, known also for his trademark hats — Borsalino fedoras and panama hats. He infused magic and intrigue into the sport of table tennis, making people laugh and gasp with tricks as the opening act of the Harlem Globetrotters. 1952 was indeed a year that changed everything for Marty. He lost the world championship to Hiroji Satoh, who used a new type of tennis paddle to beat him, and Marty became an evangelist for his type of bat, the hardbat, and would remain so for the rest of his lifetime. Unfortunately, the new model that Hiroji used became the game’s standard. Like any loud Jew, Reisman also liked the sound of the hardbat, much louder and more boisterous than its almost silent new counterpart. “Before, there was a dialogue between the two players, wherein a 6-year-old child could understand the difference between offense and defense,” he told the New York Times in 1998. “Today a point is made or lost with an imperceptible twist of the wrist.”
It was in the 1950s that Reisman also opened the Riverside Table Tennis Courts at 96th Street and Broadway, or as Matthew Broderick called it on the David Letterman Show, “the Marty Reisman gym.” Aside from Broderick, the gym was frequented by the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Kurt Vonnegut, David Mamet and Bobby Fischer. Marty’s signature trick was to “put a cigarette on the table and hit it with a ping pong ball and split it in half,” Broderick fondly recalled on that Letterman appearance, before the talkshow host surprised him with the famed player himself, who demonstrated the trick while wearing stylish red sneakers and red fedora.
The movie itself is based on Marty’s story, but is ultimately, according to A24, a “fictional work set in the world of 1950s ping pong culture.” But like Reisman, Marty Supreme’s protagonist will be Jewish — leaked photos from the set of the film show a somewhat unrecognizable Chalamet with a stylish mustache, wire-rimmed glasses, dressed in 1950s garb and donning a Star of David necklace. Chalamet has played plenty of historical fictional and non-fictional Jewish roles, including Bob Dylan in the upcoming “A Complete Unknown” and Elio Perlman in “Call Me By Your Name,” though younger viewers know him best for his roles in the “Dune” saga and for playing a younger version of Roald Dahl’s and Gene Wilder’s Willie Wonka in “Wonka.”
i’m going insane pic.twitter.com/Wa2pkRzfJ9
— ٍ (@chxlametcinema) October 7, 2024
The film also recreated the shops of New York’s Lower East Side for the set of the movie, with Jewish tailor shops like “Waldman & Silverman Haberdasher.”
The movie will be Drescher’s first film after the SAG-AFTRA strike she led as the union’s president. Drescher is also set to star in an upcoming “Spinal Tap” sequel. It’s exciting to think of her going back to play a Jewish New Yorker after all this time. And she isn’t the only Jewish actress to star in the film. Apparently, “Marty Supreme” was special enough to draw Gwyneth Paltrow out of acting retirement. There’s still quite a bit of mystery surrounding this project. but Tyler the Creator, Penn Jilette, “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary and “Grand Army” star Odessa A’zion (daughter of the great Pamela Adlon) are also set to star in this project.
Here’s hoping that “Marty Supreme” is as accomplished, fascinating and uniquely Jewish as “Uncut Gems” and Safdie’s other projects.
