names to hide they are Jewish if Hollywood was already controlled by Jews.
Seems like they would want to promote their Jewishness.
Mother is the name for God on the lips & hearts of all children -Eric D. Raven
The movie going public was not controlled by Jews, and many did not like Jews. And Hollywood was not controlled by Jews, but there were plenty of Jewish people in the entertainment business. (Of course, the Jews control the media and the financial industry -- I keed. I keed. I made that last part up).
Many Americans (not a majority but enough) and others want to seek out minorities and blame them for everything that is in reality, or in their imaginations, "wrong."
Still the same today.
People don't learn from history because education isn't good enough everywhere, and frankly will it ever be?
I recall reading Michael Medved's Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values back when I was a teenager. It was published in 1992 so it's probably dated now, but I skimmed through it as I recall he made mention of this fact in his book and on page 51 provided the following as possible motive:
For them, it was not only a matter of good business, but as an element of "good citizenship." As Neal Gabler so persuasively points out in his book An Empire of Their Own, the Jewish immigrants who founded the film business wanted more than wealth and power: they felt a powerful craving for acceptance as mainstream Americans. Making movies that expressed an affectionate attitude toward the Christian conventions of the nation's dominant culture could help them to achieve the respectability they so passionately desired.
Good points. In fact just today I was reading that recently deceased director Garry Marshall was of Italian descent and was born "Masciarelli". His father changed it to "Marshall" after Garry's birth in 1934. There are lots of other examples.
However it is a fact that historically many Jews changed their surnames to avoid being recognized as Jews, but probably more in the 1930s and 1940s Europe when the Nazis were out to exterminate Jews. It was for survival.
..*.. TxMike ..*..
A lot of Jewish people ran Hollywood studios because they got in on the ground floor from the days when movies were 15 minutes long and shown in old buildings with the walls knocked out on the east coast.
They ran the studios and had their pick of starlets but more and more New York banks called the shots by controlling the purse strings.
Jewish big wigs in LA built their own country clubs because they were barred from non Jewish ones. In fact WASPS didn't want entertainment people in their clubs except for maybe a Walt Disney or Randolph Scott. I regard Scott as a successful businessman who also made his own movies as an independent.
Sure there's a lot of money in the movie business but much of it doesn't stick to your fingers in the next generation.
This country is still controlled by a relatively small number of people generation after generation. They use trusts and various other legalities to keep stupid addlepated heirs from blowing those fortunes. Marriages between these people are like corporate mergers.
One thing the old guard is good at is letting in a few newcomers with fresh blood and money. I wonder how many hedge fund operators and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will make the leap and be accepted.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
Your remark: "Jewish big wigs in LA built their own country clubs because they were barred from non Jewish ones" made me recall a scene that made mention of this very fact in a 1998 documentary I watched only this week. It was based on Neal Gabler's book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood and is titled, Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream or alternatively, Hollywood: An Empire of Their Own. It's available to watch online at http://www.veoh.com/watch/v16439142GRyZJsPn
There are some astute observations throughout like the following insightful quote in relation to your comment. The Narrator, R.H. Thomson, states:
Actors became the gods and goddesses of the new American religion... And where there are new gods there must be new idols. So the studio heads began a movie guild with a lofty title of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was Mayer's brilliant idea to create the Oscars where the movie moguls could honor themselves by giving each other awards. In this way, they went from being a group of immigrant Jews to award-winning American producers... In their own lives the Hollywood Jews subscribed to the religion of their own making. They were the quintessential little guys who had made it to the top. They threw parties on their yachts. They dressed in tailor-made suits. They lived in the kind of houses that aristocrats were supposed to live in. And when they were not admitted to the Gentile country clubs they rebuilt this one—Hillcrest—bigger and better than all the rest.
It must have been an embarrassment when an actor working for you was invited places where you, as studio head, were not welcome.
I read once that the Oscars was Hollywood's attempt to kiss itself on the back of the neck.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else