Kontent from the Kindle
I knew Hollywood had a heavy Jewish influence, but I didn't realize it was pretty much entirely Jewish, albeit of the type who assimilated. A few passages from Thaddeus Russell's Renegade History:
Emanuel Goldenberg became Edward G. Robinson, Betty Perske became Lauren Bacall, David Kaminsky became Danny Kaye, Bernard Schwartz became Tony Curtis, and Issur Danielovitch Demsky became the square-jawed, all-American Kirk Douglas. . . .
Seven of the eight major Hollywood studios during the 1930s were owned wholly by immigrant Jews. A 1936 study found that 62 percent of studio employees engaged in production were Jewish. But these Jews had a different mission than their predecessors. They played golf and polo. They married Gentile women. Louis Mayer, the head of MGM, claimed that he had lost his birth records while immigrating from Russia and took July 4 as his birthday. Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures delighted in telling “Jew jokes,” and when asked to contribute to a Jewish relief fund, yelled, “Relief for the Jews!
