The year is 1950. The setting is a dimly lit movie studio backlot. It’s the middle of the night, and an attractive young woman named Betty Schaefer is explaining to her screenwriting partner why she became a writer instead of what she really wanted to be — an actress. The movie is “Sunset Boulevard.”
“I come from a picture family,” Schaefer (Nancy Olson) tells Joe Gillis (William Holden). “Naturally, they took it for granted I was to become a great star. So I had 10 years of dramatic lessons, diction, dancing. Then the studio made a test. Well, they didn’t like my nose — it slanted this way a little. I went to a doctor and had it fixed. They made more tests, and they were crazy about my nose — only they didn’t like my acting.”
Though it’s never overtly stated, the obvious implication is that Betty Schaefer is Jewish. If you’ve ever wanted to understand the ambivalence Hollywood has felt toward Jewish women, there it is in glorious black and white. Read more »
