Jewish actor Jeff Goldblum plays the great Wizard of Oz in the “Wicked” film which is coming out in theaters this week to much, much fanfare.
In an enchanting video with InStyle released this week, Goldblum shared that he’s been a “Wicked” fan from the beginning, and he revealed a special connection with the original wizard from the Broadway musical based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel, theater actor and director Joel Grey, also the original emcee from “Cabaret” and a star and director of Yiddish theater. That connection is all about Yiddish music.
In the video, Goldblum, who also recently starred as Zeus in the very enjoyable Netflix Greek mythology-inspired show “Kaos,” shared his most prized possessions, and as we say in Yiddish, he got pretty verklempt, overcome with emotion and tearing up on a few occasions, including while quoting “The Great Gatsby” line in which Gatsby recalls that his father told him that whenever he is tempted to judge people, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you have.” His copy of the book was one he read to his wife, Emilie Goldblum, on their first date.
Goldblum also shared drawings from his two sons, Charlie and River, a Rolex watch tailored for his “Jurassic Park” character Ian Malcolm and the glasses he purchased for his role in Wes Anderson’s “The Great Budapest Hotel.” He also brought a green piece of string that echoed the colors of the movie “Wicked,” but was actually one he got the first time he dabbled in magic for a movie, instructed by director Robert Altman for his role in the 1976 movie “Nashville.”
Many of Golblum’s prized possessions are connected to his family, like a set of musical notes that made him fall in love with jazz and the piano when his parents made him and his siblings take lessons. His parents, Shirley and Harold, both loved jazz and that love helped lead Goldblum to his second career as a jazz pianist in the Mildred Schnitzer Orchestra. A painting from his sister Pamela Goldblum is based on a childhood picture of him and his dog. And when he brings out the records he used to listen to as a child, he gets really emotional, especially when talking about the song “Mommy, Give Me a Drink of Water” by legendary Jewish actor and singer Danny Kaye, a song that played in his Jewish home in Pittsburgh and that he now plays for his two young kids.
The final item Goldblum shares in the video is a record from Mickey Katz, the 1958 “Katz Puts On the Dog,” an album that includes the incredible “16 Tons of Latkes.” Katz, a Jewish musician from Cleveland, Ohio, started out as a clarinet player at Jewish events and became known for his parodies of popular songs that featured Jewish lyrics and touches of Yiddish. As Goldblum describes it, “He did these songs that were popular songs and then made novel by changing them here and there into Yiddish.”
After Goldblum saw Joel Grey in “Wicked” as the original Wizard, he said the actor came over to his house once and the two got to know each other, and he eventually got to know Joel’s daughter, “Dirty Dancing” star Jennifer Grey.
“Do you know who his father was, and her grandfather was?” Goldblum asks his interviewer while holding up “Katz Puts on the Dog.”
Indeed, Grey’s father was none other than Mickey Katz.
“I would talk to Joel Grey and Jennifer about that,” Goldblum said, referring to their father’s music being a part of his childhood, “and they would know the songs and we would sing them together. It was a big thrill to me, a big, big thrill. If my parents ever would have seen me singing those songs with them, they would’ve gotten a big kick out of it,” he shared before wrapping up the interview, taking off his glasses and wiping his reddened eyes.
Goldblum’s father, Dr. Harold Goldblum, died in 1983 and his mother, Shirley, died in 2012. They raised Goldblum and his three siblings in a Jewish home in the West Homestead neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where Goldblum shared that they were the only Jewish kids at their school.
“I had many experiences that started to wise me up about what I was, the religion… about being Jewish. I became aware by and by,” he told Ari Melber in 2023 (he also shared some of his Yiddish knowledge in that excellent far-ranging interview). He shared that his family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah, but hid their Christmas tree in the basement and would light the menorah in the kitchen. While they weren’t a particularly observant family, Harold was a WWII veteran and the Goldblum kids grew up having conversations about the war. Harold was the great-grandson of immigrants from Russia. The kids got sent to Hebrew school at the local Homestead Orthodox synagogue, where his mom helped him face down a bully:
Goldblum had a bar mitzvah, an experience that in part helped expose him to his passion for the stage. As he shared in an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” it was the first time he felt his “professional calling,” learning lines, and getting an adoring reaction from the crowd, especially from his kvelling mom.
