CBS-TV has come under fresh attack from Jewish organizations for selecting Vanessa Redgrave, an outspoken supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, for the role of a Nazi concentration camp survivor in a TV film based on Fania Fenelon’s book, “Playing for Time.” The latest denunciations came from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Congress.
Dore Schary, honorary ADL chairman and a producer, playwright and author, said that casting Miss Redgrave for the film dealing with Miss Fenelon’s memoirs about musicians who were forced to play for the Nazis in concentration camps indicated that CBS had a “profound lack of sensitivity and understanding.”
A MISGUIDED JUDGEMENT
He said that Miss Redgrave, “an actor of talent, has opportunities to play many other roles, but to cast her as one of the victims of the Holocaust is, we suggest, a trick, a stunt, a misguided judgement.” Schary suggested that perhaps she chose to play this part “as a gesture of redemption because of her close alliance with the terrorists of the PLO — the film she made (The Palestinians) showed little children practicing the killing of Jews and aiding the obscene propaganda of the PLO.”
However, Schary added, “If redemption is not the aim, perhaps CBS believes that her performance will make her aware of the necessity for the creation of Israel and make her realize how necessary it is for that small, beleaguered country to defend itself against 60 million adversaries who seek its obliteration.” The casting of Miss Redgrave in the TV film, “degrades, offends, depreciates those who survived the death camps and defames the names of those who died in them.”
Howard M. Squadron, AJCongress president, called the Redgrave casting “grotesque” and certain to be “offensive to the Jewish community.” He expressed the hope that Miss Redgrave, in that performance, might learn something “about the Nazi slaughter of the Jews” and “recognize at last that the Jewish people have a right to a state of their own” that seeks only “to live in peace with its Arab neighbors.”
MILLER DEFENDS REDGRAVE CASTING
At the same time, Arthur Miller, who wrote the screenplay for the film, said in a statement issued yesterday that. “Miss Redgrave was offered the role of Fania Fenelon as an actress suited to it. To fire her now for her political views would be blacklisting. Having been blacklisted myself in time past, I have fought against the practice abroad as well as here, and I cannot participate in it now.”
Miller added, “No actress can possibly play Fania in this play without generating, the profoundest sympathy for the Jewish people, as well as a deeper understanding of some of the experiences that cried out for the creation of the State of Israel.”
Meanwhile, responding to casting Miss Redgrave in the film, David Wolper, producer of television documentaries and dramas, including “Roots,” and Lionel Chetwynd, a writer with many screen and television credits, disclosed they have cancelled projects with CBS.
Bernie Sofronski, vice president of special programs for CBS Entertainment, said Miss Redgrave was chosen because “the feeling was” that she was “the best actress for the part; that we should never position ourselves where we penalize people for their personal or political views, that our business was show business and that it was our responsibility to come up with the best actress we could find.” He said actresses Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand were also considered for the part but both were not available.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
