Miami Life —Lois Whitman-Hess Www.thethreetomatoes.com
If you are a “NBC Dateline” fan then you will want to meet my friend Gloria Winkowski who lives a few blocks away from me in Miami Beach. She was actually involved in solving a 40-plus year murder mystery that took place in Rochester, NY. She appeared on Dateline on Friday, January 20 to discuss the case with NBC news correspondent Andrea Canning.
When Gloria first told me about the murder of her girlfriend in Rochester and how she was working with Dateline to tell the nation about what happened so long ago, I couldn’t believe my ears. My husband Eliot and I became huge Dateline fans during the Covid-19 pandemic when we were shut-ins. After a while we realized that most of the cases were about small town, husbands and wives, who killed their spouses to collect on life insurance policies.
That wasn’t the case with Gloria’s friend Kathy Krausneck who was murdered February 18, 1982. Gloria said her husband killed her because she was planning to leave him. Jim Krausneck was very abusive. He wasn’t going to let her go on her terms. He took an ax and plunged it into her head before he went to work that day at Eastman Kodak.
If that wasn’t bad enough, he also left his three year old daughter home alone while his wife was stretched out dead in her bloody bed. The little girl, who is now 40 years old, said she has no recollection of being by herself without food, water, and adult supervision. Her father wanted to make the scene look like an intruder busted into his home and killed his wife. He claimed that when he returned home that evening he was shocked to see what took place in his absence.
Gloria didn’t believe a word he said because Kathy had been telling her that she was basically living a life totally being controlled by her husband Jim. He didn’t allow her to talk on the telephone when he was home because he wanted her totally devoted to him. He also kept her captive at home everyday because he refused to buy a second car for her use. Kathy often relied on Gloria to drive her daughter to school, the doctor, and food shopping. Gloria said Jim was generally very nasty to Kathy.
It took 40 years and several marriages later for Jim to be convicted and sent to jail for the rest of his life. It sickens Gloria to think it took the Rochester police all those years to gather enough evidence to put him away. Smaller cities just do not have the investigation resources as bigger ones.
Gloria was also upset with Dateline. She felt they didn’t tell the true story of Jim Krausneck. They just gave the highlights to fit the two hour slot and never gave Kathy the justice she deserved. “She was a sweetheart and he was disturbed. Jim was under investigation at Eastman Kodak for claiming he had a PhD when he never finished the program. They kept asking him to see his documents but he never produced it. He was about to be fired. Dateline, with all of their resources, also never covered that fact and that the Krausneck dog was locked up in the basement for the day. That was something Kathy would never do.”
Gloria realizes that Dateline produces a shows for TV entertainment. She just wishes they showed more facts why Jim was the killer. It was bad enough that Gloria had to tolerate Jim being free for four decades while her girlfriend’s life was cut short.
Gloria lives with her husband Bill, a retired pharmacist, in Miami Beach. They have a beautiful life filled with their four adult children and 11 grandchildren.
Dateline is a newsmagazine that has been an airing staple since in 1992. Cases involving murders and missing people are frequent topics on the series that has won multiple Emmys in the news and documentary category.
Leigh McGowan launched PoliticsGirl as a way to help people reconnect with politics. She started the YouTube channel in 2015 as a way to inform and inspire because she said, “when you understand you care, and when you care you vote”. After watching the fallout from the Trump years, Leigh relaunched the project on TikTok in September of 2020 doing rants in her kitchen as a way to engage the younger generation whose participation, she believed, was essential to the future of the country. People loved her no-nonsense, casual approach and the way she was able to break down complicated issues into everyday speak. As her numbers grew so did her popularity and influence. People like her because she’s smart in a way that doesn’t make them feel dumb.
William Shatner kicks things off with a compliment.
We’re talking via Zoom — he’s beaming in from the sprawling kitchen of his Los Angeles home, which overlooks the San Fernando Valley. I’m dialing in from the living room of my walkup apartment in Brooklyn, a much more modest setting. But Shatner is impressed by the over-stocked bookcase behind me, as well as the paintings, a seascape and an impressionist pastoral scene that I inherited from my grandmother, that line the wall around it.
“You have terrific taste,” Shatner exclaims with the kind of brio that Captain James T. Kirk, his most famous alter-ego, approached his mission “to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, [and] boldly go where no man has gone before!”
But Shatner isn’t just here to talk about “Star Trek,” though his time commanding the Starship Enterprise invariably comes up. Instead, he’s discussing “You Can Call Me Bill,” a new documentary that covers Shatner’s career highlights — from the “Star Trek” films and series to “T.J. Hooker” and “Boston Legal” — as well as his acting idols (Brando and Olivier) and love of nature. The film, which is directed by Alexandre O. Philippe and which premieres at SXSW, is also a meditation on mortality, something that the 91-year-old Shatner has been thinking a great deal about these days.
Why did you decide to make the documentary?
I’ve turned down a lot of offers to do documentaries before. But I don’t have long to live. Whether I keel over as I’m speaking to you or 10 years from now, my time is limited, so that’s very much a factor. I’ve got grandchildren. This documentary is a way of reaching out after I die.
Did you learn something about yourself that you didn’t know before you made this film?
Time and time again, I’ve come across some interesting thought or idea. That can be because of a thoughtful interviewer sparking something in me. In the movie, I didn’t just want to go on about I did this or that when I was 7 or this is my favorite color . I’m trying to discover something I’ve never said before or to find a way to say something I’ve said before in a different way, so I can explore that truth further. I read all the time — newspapers and books. I’m feeding my mind. The sad thing is that the older a person gets the wiser they become and then they die with all that knowledge. And it’s gone. It’s not like I’m going to take my ideas or my clothing with me. Today, there’s a person going through some of my clothes in order to donate or sell them, because what am I going to do with all these suits that I’ve got? What am I going to do with all these thoughts? What am I going to do with 90 years of observations? The moths of extinction will eat my brain as they will my clothing and it will all disappear.
That’s sad. What about your legacy?
When Leonard Nimoy died a few years ago, his funeral was on a Sunday. His death was very sudden, and I had obligated myself to go to Mar-a-Lago for a Red Cross fundraiser. I was one of the celebrities raising money. That event was on Saturday night. I chose to keep my promise and go to Mar-a-Lago instead of the funeral, and I said to the audience, “People ask about a legacy. There’s no legacy. Statues are torn down. Graveyards are ransacked. Headstones are knocked over. No one remembers anyone. Who remembers Danny Kaye or Cary Grant? They were great stars. But they’re gone and no one cares.” But what does live on are good deeds. If you do a good deed, it reverberates to the end of time. It’s the butterfly effect thing. That’s why I have done this film.
Your decision not to attend Leonard Nimoy’s funeral was controversial . How did the backlash feel? Do you regret your decision?
Who cares? I know what I did was right. So it doesn’t matter. We’re criticized when we lift a finger. I don’t read that stuff. I try to not to indulge in the evil that’s out there.
Everyone thinks about dying, but actors actually get to act out what it’s like to die on stage or on film. Does that change your perspective on death?
There was a time when actors, and I include myself in this, would portray death by falling to the ground and your eyes would flicker and you’d slump around and then you’re dead. That’s not how you die. This is how you die [Shatner’s eyes go wide abruptly and his breath stops] . See? I’m dead. Ever put a dog down? When I have to put a dog down and I’m at the vet, I cup my dog’s head and I say, “I’m with you baby, I’m with you.” And the injection goes in and the dog looks at me with love, and that’s it. You don’t know they’re dead. That’s how you die. It’s abrupt. My wife’s brother walked out of the living room and into the bedroom. There was a thud. His wife walked in, and he was dead. Death comes anew to all of us.
In “Star Trek: Generations” you got to have some say in how Kirk died. In that scene , he approaches his last moments with wonder. Why was that something you pushed for?
I’m of the opinion that you die the way you live. I thought Kirk would die with a “Wow, look at that coming at me. There’s a guy with a scythe. Holy shit!” He’d seen all these weird aliens before. Here comes death and he meets it with awe and a sense of discovery.
You’ve been touring the country doing sold-out screenings of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” a movie that came out in 1982. Danny Kaye and Cary Grant aside, some of your movies are going to outlast you. Is that comforting?
They’ll be good for another 10 years, maybe five. I’ve made all these films that are popular, so I’m sure they’ll pop up every so often. But I don’t need validation from a film I made in 1982. I get pleasure in talking to you right now.
In “You Can Call Me Bill,” you talk about thinking frequently about how you’re 91-years-old and you won’t get to see the people your grandchildren grow up to be. What is that like to realize that?
I have a grandson named Sebastian, who is 3 months old and already he’s got a mischievous smile. He’s already a little bit of a comic. His mother and father are lovely people. You look into his eyes, and you can see the aspects of what he will be like. If hunger and disease and bad fortune don’t disturb him too much, he should become this wonderful, amusing human being. So with the time I have left, I like to look at all my grandchildren and try to extract what I can out of my impressions.
Do you like going to these “Star Trek” screenings and conventions and being in front of all those fans?
I don’t enjoy being tugged at, but I enjoy answering questions and being in front of thousands of people.
Do you have a favorite role?
No. I just try to have a good time on the set. I just did a commercial for a watch that I designed. It has a face with a telescope, a sun, the milky way. And the watch company did this whole science fiction background for me to talk about it. Well, there’s a part of the commercial where they use CGI to have a meteorite land next to me. I ad lib, “That’s a lot of meteorite.” That was a pretty funny improv. I did that on Monday, and that’s become one of my favorite moments. I don’t know what it’s like for others. I went to watch Dwight Yoakam record an album last night, because I have no idea how a great artist makes their art. It’s like, how does everybody else fuck? You have no idea. I don’t know if he has a favorite album, and I don’t know if I don’t have a favorite role.
In 2021, you went into space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle and you said it made you weep because it gave you a better sense of what is happening to the planet. What did you mean?
When I came out of the space ship I was crying, just sobbing, and I thought why am I crying? What’s going on? I’m in grief. What am I grieving about? Oh shit, I’m grieving about the world, because I now know so much about what’s happening. I saw the Earth and its beauty and its destruction. It’s going extinct. Billions of years of evolution may vanish. It’s sacred, it’s holy, it’s life and it’s gone. It’s beyond tragic. We stupid fucking animals are destroying this gorgeous thing called the Earth. Doesn’t that make you angry? Don’t you want to do something about it?
My Palm Beach Faux Pas: Old Money Vs New Money Lois Whitman-Hess Www.thethreetomatoes.com
I was recently told that I made a faux pas in Palm Beach that I shouldn’t repeat again. I love the person who tried to correct me, but I am too old, and too satisfied with who I am, to change my ways.
This is what happened. I was at a Palm Beach party a few weeks ago and one of the other female guests was staring at me as if she wanted to have a conversation. Instead of standing there awkwardly, I said, “Hello I’m Lois Whitman-Hess, how do you know our host and what do you do?” She was around my age so I thought she might be retired but would have plenty to say. She could just give me a one liner about her career so we could strike up a conversation. Instead, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “I do nothing.”
I have to admit that most people would have backed off and tiptoed away in embarrassment. Not me. I didn’t let men order me around in business, so I sure wasn’t going to let this uptight senior get the better of me. I said, “You did nothing? Surely you had to do something.” She cleared her throat, paused to think, and then blurted out, “I raised my children.”
I wasn’t finished. I never am. “I’m sure you worked before having children.” She stepped back in an attempt to run away but she snapped back, “I was a writer for Seventeen Magazine.”
I was flabbergasted. Standing before me was someone I would have loved to know better so we could reminisce about our journalism days. I was a reporter for WWD and HFD for eight years in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. I read every issue of Seventeen Magazine as a young girl. I wanted to know so much more. I told her how thrilled I was to meet someone who wrote for a leading magazine during my reporting heyday. She wasn’t interested. She politely ended the conversation and walked away.
I was baffled by this encounter, so I mentioned it to the Palm Beach woman who hosted the party a few days later when we spoke on the phone. Her response was like she found out I was picking my nose in the middle of her party. “You don’t ask people what they did for a living in Palm Beach. It’s rude and classless.” I didn’t answer her because after 55 years of successfully navigating myself in the business world, I wasn’t going to listen to someone telling me right from wrong. I Iet it go.
A few weeks later I read a chapter in Laurence Leamer’s book, entitled, Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace about the protocol at parties in Palm Beach. Apparently, Donald Trump and I have bad etiquette in common.
I will let Laurence Leamer’s book explain. “After one of the dinner parties at Mar-a-Lago, when the waiters were serving coffee, Trump stood up at the head of the table. ‘I’d like to go around the table,’ he said, sweeping the room with his hand, ‘and have everyone get up and say a little about themselves, where they are from and what they do.’One of the grandes dames rose slowly and stood quietly as she looked across the table. ‘I live in Palm Beach,’ she said finally. ‘And I do nothing.’ With that she sat down while the other guests contemplated her words. Another of the ladies, copying the first speaker’s words, rose and said, ‘I live in Palm Beach. And I do nothing.’
Trump had merely been trying to enliven the island’s tired social rituals, but he discovered that most of these people did little. That was the point. They didn’t have to do anything. They stayed among their kind. They never went places where someone would ask anything so impertinent and expect one to stand up and answer.
Another of the dinner guests, Richard Cowell, observed these proceedings with astonishment. Born in 1927, Cowell had lived in one of the first fifty houses on the island and gone to the Palm Beach Day School. To him, Mar-a-Lago was not a legendary estate but the landed expanse that he and Dina Merrill, the actress and Mrs. Post’s daughter, had roamed as children. Cowell was the second generation of his family to belong to the Everglades and the Bath and Tennis, and he saw himself as the keeper of certain aristocratic traditions.
Cowell watched that evening at Mar-a-Lago with bemused fascination as Trump belly-flopped in front of the social arbiters of the island. ‘All of the top people were there, the peak of the Bath and Tennis and the Everglades,’ Cowell said three decades later, his memory vivid. ‘Everybody was laughing at him. That was his first major blunder with that group.’ The guests left right after coffee, and by the next morning the story of Trump’s behavior was all over the island.
“Trump paid no attention to the naysayers. He would rise to the heights of Palm Beach life, and Mar-a-Lago would be the splendid device that would take him there.”
The moral of the story. Marry rich and do nothing, or live in Miami, a wonderful melting pot, where everyone wants to know who you are.
Not too many people understand why a growing number of men, women and children are choosing death by suicide. The press is filled with young people and celebrities alike that take their own lives. It is now time to take a hard look at this phenomenon. Susan’s 32-year-old son died by suicide six years ago. Tragically her husband of 38 years died of an aggressive cancer six months later. Susan has spent the last year sharing her experiences and thoughts with others through essays, editorial interviews, podcasts and quotes from her soon to be released book “Never Say Never, Never Say Always.”
It’s time for Susan to focus on the subject of suicide in ways we haven’t heard from her before. She wants to be very careful about the way she addresses the topic because she is not a trained mental health counselor. Unfortunately, she has had more personal experience in this area than many others. She wants to share her insights and clear up many misconceptions.
The principles of Zen Buddhism can cover all dimensions of life, and, for Chef Eric Ripert,that was the focus when designing his Sag Harbor home. Austerity, simplicity, naturalness, subtlety, imperfection, originality, and stillness—those were the concepts the French culinary force presented to architect Blaze Makoid for his new home’s design. Considering Ripert has been seriously practicing Zen Buddhism since the mid 1990s, it was only natural for him to easily have this top of mind.
“My challenge was to create a monastery, but I didn’t want my wife to know that she was living in a monastery,” says Ripert, referring to his partner, Sandra. “I wanted her to think it was a beautiful luxurious house, which meant creating a bridge between what we both wanted: a sanctuary and a monastery.” Luckily, the Riperts were able to find the perfect team to execute their combined visions. Besides Makoid, a key member of that team was Marie Aiello Design Studio, with whom the Riperts worked on the interior design of the home. Another was Landscape Details, who spearheaded the landscape architecture. And finally, Greg Diangelo Construction, who handled the building.
“Landscaping was very important because the house is part of nature and vice versa,” Ripert says. “I wanted it to feel like the house is in a forest—cultivated and a little bit wild.” Ferns, towering oaks, and wild grasses surround the home in natural and deliberate ways. “The bedroom, in my mind, looks like a tree house. You are in the trees when you take a shower too,” he says, adding that bird feeders and statues are placed in perfect sight lines throughout the yard. Ripert notes the beauty of simply coming down the driveway—trees and animals everywhere. Naturalness and stillness: check.
Since the home is in the woods, the metal roof was a practical choice to avoid damage. The industrial look was also a perfect interpretation of the principle of austerity.
Of course, another very important aspect of the home’s design is the kitchen. Ripert being the co-owner of Le Bernardin—which has been awarded three Michelin stars for excellence in cuisine and has received four stars from The New York Times four consecutive times, making it the only restaurant to maintain that unique status for that length of time—the kitchen is a big deal. And, though the kitchen doesn’t necessarily look flashy, it is all about simplicity and efficiency. “I went to Gaggenau, the very best for building kitchens, and they made sense of my nonsense,” says Ripert, who chose to outfit his with an induction stove top, which is easy to maintain and saves energy, and worked with SieMatic on the space’s design. “It’s very effective to have a one-man show. I call it a Formula One kitchen.”
Ripert’s other passion, his Zen Buddhism practice, is most apparent in his meditation room. “It was very important for me to have that room, and it was designed with the help of a Nepalese monk—my teacher—to have the right feng shui.” Filled with statues made in Nepal that are sanctified and sealed with precious stones and prayers, the room was designed to host these pieces collected over the years. From the window, one can spot a more than 12-foot-tall statue of Buddha.
When Ripert and Sandra bought this land in Long Island nearly 22 years ago, it included a cute 1980s house, but, at a certain point, everything about the house began falling apart. Still, the couple liked the energy of the location, so they decided to rebuild. With the space complete, it’s clearly become an oasis. Chef Eric Ripert adds, “Every detail in the house was nonnegotiable.”
It occurred to me the other day that one of the reasons why I like writing about art is that it lasts longer than technology. Most of the tech stuff I wrote about for decades never made it to the market, or fizzed out after a few years. Art hangs on your wall forever. Twin stars by Jayda Knight
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We bought this painting over 20 years ago from an artist in Aventura, Marvin Marham. We found out he recently died. He advertised it in Ocean Drive magazine. It’s insane looking, half amateurish, half daring. That’s why we wanted it.
I posted it a week ago on Facebook to see what others thought of it. I thought everyone would say we had bad taste in art. The response has been just the opposite. We even got offers to buy it. I have posted other art work hoping for sales but never received the kudos like this one. Life is a mystery.
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Our amazing trip to Iceland and Greenland, September 2019 with Rene Alberto Rodriguez Bellucci,Dr. Howard Stark, Marcos Andreos and Greg Walton.
I like to think of Brook Dorsch, co-owner of the Emerson Dorsch gallery in Little Haiti, (a neighborhood in Miami) as the Lorne Michaels of gallerists. During the last 31 years, he has promoted more unknown artists than most anyone else. Many of the artists have become well known all over the world and they credit Brook for giving them their start.
“Isn’t that what it’s all about?” asks Brook as we talk about the art scene in Miami. It was his efforts that eventually made Miami one of the most important cities for art in the world. Ever since he was a young rocker in New York City working at Symphony Space, a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Brook was visiting galleries in Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, and the lower east side.
“I was interested in becoming an artist, as well as continuing my music. As time marched on, I realized I was a hobby artist at best. However, I did have a good eye for interesting work and I wasn’t afraid of presenting art in dramatic new ways. We have been known to rip down walls in our galleries to accommodate certain exhibits, pile up sand on our floors to provide the proper atmosphere, and hang flying objects from the ceilings to make visitors look at works from a different perspective. We don’t do it to shock our clients, we do it to spark the imagination.”
When Brook first arrived in Miami in 1991, most of the art galleries were in Coral Gables. “They were very traditional and didn’t really promote the artists, or their work, in any creative way. There really wasn’t much enthusiasm. I was grateful for their efforts because it motivated me to bring new life into the Miami art market.”
Brook’s story of how he first got started is a dream come true for many art lovers who always wanted to open a gallery. When he was in his 20s, he moved into a 900 square foot loft, over Parkway Drugs on Coral Way, (very close to the Viscaya Metro Rail Station) and turned it into an art gallery. The loft featured wooden floors that reminded him of his days in Soho so he loved the place immediately. He actually lived amongst the art he was exhibiting. He even closed off the windows and added special lighting to properly present the paintings and sculptures.
Word spread fast that a young guy from New York was featuring the work from artists who were enrolled in the University of Miami’s Visual Arts department. He was also featuring works from unknown artists that never showed in Miami before. The intrigue was also the space. Everyone wanted to be a part of the new cool factor. It was a brilliant move because it generated interest from a growing number of people who were l interested in seeing works from a much more diversified group of artists. Enthusiasts were showing up at his studio all the time. The Dorsch gallery quickly became an underground hangout.
The same thing happened when Brook decided to relocate his gallery to Wynwood in 2001. He just needed more space. This was the big time. The new Dorsch Gallery was now 7,000 square feet showing the works by Robert Chambers, Joshua Levine, Cooper, Andrew Binder and so many others. Big groups of art lovers would congregate in the back of his gallery at night as if it was a nightclub or bar. In those days Wynwood was a commercial warehouse district that few people ever entered. The streets were usually empty which meant there was plenty of parking space for everyone. The police always stopped by at night to check out if any funny stuff was going on. They were actually impressed that in the middle of so many dark empty streets, there was a crowd of people hanging out under a string of lights. This was a sanctuary for so many creative people.
Brook was always interested in getting people together to talk about all kinds of art, music, writing, theater, movies, photography, fashion, broadcast, etc. “That’s the beauty of owning a gallery. You promote dialog.”
One of the topics Brook has expounded on over the years is the importance of exposure. He feels that many tend to hide their work. They finish a piece and never show it to anyone. Brett Sokol, the New York Times art writer who happens to live in Miami, quoted Brooke in an article he wrote years ago for the Miami New Times. Brook said, “It’s much better to have your work on the wall of somebody’s house than sitting in the corner of your studio in a pile. As great an artist as you think you’re gonna be, you’ve got to get it out there, and that means letting it go for a little cheaper. They have these formulas for selling art. How many hours did you work on it? What was your medium, your materials? If you calculate all that stuff out, and then add in the dealer commission, by that time it’s expensive. So look, cut the price, get it out there.”
Brook is very much a realist. That’s why he has not only survived, but prospered over the years. His mother gave him one bit of advice that served him well for most of his career. When the family all moved from New York to Miami, she told him to get a college degree in something he would like other than art. She said it was important to have something to fall back on. Brook, who was always an eager beaver, wanted to make sure his love and interest in art was never at risk. He immediately enrolled in Miami Dade College and then Barry University focusing on computer science. For most of his art career, he has had a day job in technology for the cruise industry. Brooke, who says he is a damn good coder, loves the fact that computers gave him the freedom to express his creative side.
Brook’s wife, Tyler Emerson-Dorsch, joined the gallery as a co-owner in 2008 after earning a Masters from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. In 2013, the Dorsch Gallery was renamed to Emerson Dorsch. “Tyler brought in a strong academic territorial practice to the gallery. Tyler leads the curation of our shows and she is the resident writer for all of our materials. She brings in all of the professionalism we were missing.”
In January 2020, Ibett Yanez del Castillo joined the gallery as Director. Ibett was the Director of the de la Cruz Collection from its inception until 2019. Ibett runs the day to day operations. She gives Brook and Tyler great flexibility to focus on the future.
In June 2015, the gallery relocated to a building Brook and Tyler bought in Little Haiti because they wanted a gallery that offered more versatility. There is now room for art installations and outdoor performances. We are part of a migration of small businesses and art galleries from Wynwood to Little Haiti and Little River. Other galleries close to our new location are Nina Johnson, Pan American, and Anthony Spinello.
The gallery represents South Florida artists as well as emerging and mid-career visiting artists: Jenny Brillhart, Clifton Childree, Robert Chambers (sculptor), Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, Elisabeth Condon, Yanira Collado, Karen Rifas, Onajide Shabaka, Magnus Sigurdarson, Robert Thiele, Mette Tommerup, Frances Trombly, and Paula Wilson. Emerson Dorsch’s solo exhibitions include: Walter Darby Bannard, Corin Hewitt, Victoria Fu, Michael Jones McKean, Brookhart Jonquil, Siebren Versteeg, Arnold Mesches, Tameka Norris, Gustavo Matamoros and Saya Woolfalk.
Emerson Dorsch now offers cultural events as well as visual arts such as concerts and dance performances. Gestured artists include: Iron and Wine, SSingSSing, Arthur Doyle, Cock ESP, Otto von Schirach and Awesome New Republic.
Eliot and I have watched several episodes. I try not to compare this show to Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. They have different purposes. We watch Eugene Levy’s new show to see areas of a country we may have missed, or may want to consider for future travel destinations. Even if we never get there, it’s wonderful to know that there’s always a new part of the world waiting for us.
The comic actor balked when he was offered a travel show. But hosting “The Reluctant Traveler” showed him the (mild) joys of leaving his comfort zone.
By Anna Peele
Eugene Levy has never been a traveler.
As a child in Hamilton, Ontario, the farthest his parents might take him and his siblings was Lake Erie’s Crystal Beach, an hour and a half away by car. They would spend two weeks each year staying at the same spider-dominated cottages, eating at the same fish and chips place and visiting the same local amusement park. Levy rode a train for the first time at 8 and never repeated the exotic experience.
As a 76-year-old, Levy maintains the ancestral position that the known is the best place to exist. Why should he leave his life in the Pacific Palisades, where every day promises comfort? Each morning, Levy wakes up and puts on the round Leon eyeglasses he purchased in bulk and has worn in the same discontinued style for more than a decade. He drinks coffee with cream and sugar. If it’s Wednesday or Friday, Levy golfs, always with the same people and half the time not bothering to keep score.
If he’s working on something, Levy descends to his office to write or edit or go over scripts. He and his wife of 45 years, Deb Divine, might go to West Hollywood to see their daughter, Sarah, and her baby son. They’ll often have dinner with Martin Short, Levy’s friend for over five decades, who lives less than five minutes away. “I truly love having nothing on the agenda,” Levy said.
So when David Brindley, an executive producer, and Alison Kirkham, an Apple TV+ programming executive, called Levy in 2021 and asked him to host a travel show, he said no.
They’d never get Levy to a safari, he told them. He had watched animals on wildlife programs and didn’t need to travel halfway around the world to see them again. He doesn’t love water. He doesn’t like the hot; he doesn’t like the cold. This, along with Levy’s vehement aversion to sushi and fear of humidity that could ruin his hair, became basically the episode guide for “The Reluctant Traveler,” which premiered Friday on Apple TV+ and follows Levy from Finland to the Maldives.There is a safari episode, a hot episode, a cold episode, a jungle episode and a lot of uncooked fish.
As can be gleaned from the title, Levy’s lack of anything resembling wanderlust is the defining gimmick. But it’s also genuine, and the host himself still has no idea why anyone would have thought of him for the role of travel guide. “I’m not a curious person,” Levy said in an interview last week. “No sense of adventure.” He can’t pretend to be excited about things he isn’t, and he has historically had no interest in being himself on camera for anything longer than a talk show appearance.
“As a character actor, the further the character is away from me, the more comfortable I was doing it,” Levy said, inverting his magnificent brows into a chevron. “The closer you get to me, the interesting factor starts dropping.”
It’s a sentiment he expressed over and over as we talked at a restaurant in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. “This is the longest interview I’ve ever had,” he said before he even sat down in the private room, seemingly baffled about how we would fill the time. “I’m rambling,” he said later, while not rambling. It felt less like an expression of anxiety than a writer’s un-self-conscious assessment that this dialogue could be tightened and punched up.
Levy’s career has been a series of ensembles and repertory companies. His first professional role was joining Short in putting together a now famous 1972 production of “Godspell” in Toronto, with a cast that included Andrea Martin, Gilda Radner and Victor Garber. A few years later Levy, Short and Martin joined John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Rick Moranis and Harold Ramis, among others, on “SCTV” (1976-84), the beloved Canadian sketch comedy show that emerged from the Toronto branch of the Second City improv and sketch company.
In the 1990s, Levy became a leader of cinema’s pre-eminent mockumentary troupe, co-writing (with Christopher Guest) and starring in “Waiting for Guffman” (1996), “Best in Show” (2000), “A Mighty Wind” (2003) and “For Your Consideration” (2006). He played “Jim’s dad,” Noah Levenstein, in eight of the nine “American Pie” movies. Through this oeuvre, he became the comedic personification of spectacled, mostly well-meaning men who, in Levy’s assessment, “weren’t necessarily the sharpest pencils in the drawer.”
It was in “Schitt’s Creek,” the great sitcom Levy created with his son, Dan, about a group of coddled people who gain sentience through exposure to real life, that he came closest to portraying himself: an affable, affluent father who wears nice suits and has no tolerance for bad hotels. He was working with both of his children — Sarah played a diner waitress named Twyla — and the closeness of the role to himself created a dual consciousness in his performance that he hadn’t previously experienced. “I can’t believe my kids are on camera here with Catherine O’Hara,” Levy would think while he was acting in a scene with Catherine O’Hara.
By the end of its sixth season, “Schitt’s Creek” had gained nine Emmys, including a lead actor award for Levy. That success and impact led him to “The Reluctant Traveler.” He had ruled out doing another comedy series because he believed nothing would be as good as “Schitt’s.” He would have considered drama, but then Brindley and Kirkham called with their idea for the unscripted series, which was different from anything he had done before. Levy said the concept was originally pitched to him as “Room With a View,” a series highlighting luxury hotels around the world.
Divine was surprised when Levy told her he was going to take the job. “It’s so outside his comfort zone,” she said. She asked him, “Eugene, honestly; you’re going to do that?” He was — partly because Kirkham and Brindley had proved their creative flexibility by altering the brief to focus on Levy’s warm curmudgeonliness. “I love the people I’m working with,” Levy told me.
Levy’s collaborators are drawn to his sweetness and lack of pretense, along with his methodical brilliance. “‘Schitt’s Creek’ is a perfect example of that,” Short said. “Everything is logical, and some things are exaggerated, but still they’re based on what would happen and could happen. Eugene is very specific.”
Divine said, “He’s unlike anybody I’ve ever met in my life.”
“He doesn’t have any damage,” she explained. “He’s like a little Buddha: He just lives in the moment. He doesn’t gossip, he doesn’t care about show business that much. He does his work, goes in, has fun and gets out. But no, there is no damage.”
She added: “Believe me, I’ve looked.”
Divine and Short said that Levy’s parents are the root of his lack of brokenness, as well as his disinclination to vacation. “He grew up in a sheltered but loving, loving family,” Divine said. His mother “came to Canada on a boat” from Scotland at age 12, she added, “so her idea of traveling is steerage.”
Short said: “Eugene’s the sweetest human being in the world. There’s no one kinder. There’s no one more beloved. You’re dealing with the Saint Eugene here.”
A hallmark of Levy’s characters is that they’re funniest when acted upon — think of the doubly left-footed Gerry Fleck, from “Best in Show,” constantly running into people who have slept with his wife, Cookie (O’Hara). In at least one aspect, Levy’s onscreen persona is close to his familial role. “He’s the brunt of the jokes,” Sarah said of her father’s faux-low status. “It is all out of love — he’s so easy to pile up on because he takes it really well, and he’s a very particular person. And he’s the least sensitive out of all of us, which is why we end up doing it.”
Levy smiled when I relayed this, evidently delighted that his daughter had correctly analyzed what he tries to provide comedically. His earliest influence was Jack Benny. “He wasn’t afraid to have funny people around him as the star of the show, because his strength was reacting to them,” Levy said. “They would be funny and getting a laugh, and then he was able to get a bigger laugh from his reactions to them.”
This is what makes “The Reluctant Traveler”work, despite breaking Levy’s career-long avoidance of being the lead or playing himself. “Putting myself front and center was kind of an uncomfortable thing for me,” he said.
Brindley describes Levy as “a sort of anti-lead.” It’s odd to watch someone who is passively receiving — or as is often the case with Levy, actively resisting — experiences a typical travel host would greet with enthusiasm, like exploring the open markets of Venice or wading into the cerulean waters of the Indian Ocean.
When Levy is offered reindeer fillet, he says, “I don’t want to eat reindeer, to be honest.” In a segment about food in Japan, Levy swallows a tiny morsel of raw fish with the enthusiasm of a toddler “trying” a broccoli floret in order to unlock access to dessert. “It’s me,” Levy says to the camera during the same episode, identifying who the problem is.
But Levy’s best moments are, as usual, ensemble-based. In what may be the funniest scene of the series, Levy goes ice fishing with a man and his unsmiling 6-year-old son. For most of the day, Levy fails to catch anything while the boy amasses an enormous pile of perch. “Honestly, the kid was pissing me off,” Levy told me 10 months after filming, falling back into character as a disgruntled, fishless man with snowflakes on his eyebrows. “I didn’t think he really particularly liked me.”
As production went on, Levy began approaching interactions he would typically skip with a new attitude. “You know, this isn’t bad,” he recalled thinking. “I’m kind of liking it.” He said the conversations he had were the most memorable part of making the show, which included staying in two renovated royal palaces and sticking his arm up an elephant’s rectum to attempt to secure a stool sample in South Africa. (Levy failed to retrieve an acceptable specimen.)
Sarah went to several shooting locations for “The Reluctant Traveler”and spent time with Levy, as did Divine. Sarah said that growing up, she rarely traveled with her father except to places where he was working — often from their home in Toronto to Los Angeles in the summers, and to Rome and Monte Carlo one year. (Levy protested that they did go to “the Barbados” once.) If it weren’t for television and film, Levy wouldn’t have encountered so many things outside of the enviably contented existence he has created. And although being elbow-deep in an elephant is probably as far from teeing off in the Pacific Palisades as it’s possible for Levy to get, that willingness to extend himself for the bit — and the check — has led to his success. It helped him create a home he never wants to leave.
Looking back, Levy said he was happy he took the job, in a typically understated way: “Actually, it was kind of an enjoyable, uh, show to do.”
When I asked what other experiences Levy might not have had without his career, he immediately said, “I wouldn’t have married my wife if it hadn’t been for work, because I was at work [at the Second City theater] when she came in applying for a job. I said to the manager, ‘Hire her.’”
Then Levy frowned and looked down, toward the little Order of Canada maple leaf pin on his lapel. “What would I have missed?” he muttered. “What would I have missed out on it if hadn’t been for work?” He raised his head slowly, eyebrows windshield-wipering up in reaction to his realization: “I would have missed out on my life.”
Palm Beach, Monday, February 20, 2023, Celebrating the 92nd. Birthday of Richard Ekstract . Steven Ekstract behind me.Palm Beach, Monday, February 20, 2023, Celebrating the 92nd Birthday of Richard Ekstract. Eliot Hess, Richie Grand, me, Steven Ekstract, Neil Goldstein, and Marcia Grand.Palm Beach, Monday, February 20, 2023, Celebrating the 92nd. Birthday of Richard Ekstract. Steven Ekstract, Richard Ekstract, and Michael Ekstract 1975, Richard Ekstract with Jack Wayman (first leader of CES) and Sheila Wayman. Double trouble. Hesty Leibtag met her match.2009 – Jerusalem — Photo by Eliot Hess The Stone of Unction, also known as the Stone of Anointing, is the place where Christ’ body was laid down after being removed from the crucifix and prepared for burial. He was anointed and wrapped in shrouds as the Jews customarily prepared their dead for burial at the time. jerusalem #jews #christ #Stone of Unction #Stone of Anointing #burial #ohotooftheday March, 2011, Photo by Eliot Hess
Varanasi is a city in northern India. Regarded as the spiritual capital of India, the city draws Hindu pilgrims who bathe in the Ganges River’s sacred waters and perform funeral rites.Our young pals, Rae Hey and Mada Mcfly, floated by our condo tonight on the NCL ocean liner. Our window is the top light in the tower on the left. Ahoy folks. They took the photo
DigiDame 