Jon Lovitz

Jon, like many stars, got his first national fame on Saturday Night Live. His most famous character was a compulsive liar; his catchphrase was, "Yeah, that's the ticket!" Although Jon is a comic actor, his next movie, Casino Jack, is a suspense film.

Jon is in the movie version of The Producers, a musical that is based on the Mel Brooks' movie-that-became-a-musical-that-became-a-movie-again. Who says Hollywood is running out of ideas? Matthew Broderick is the star in that.

Jon also was in some of Adam Sandler's movies: Eight Crazy Nights, Little Nicky, and The Wedding Singer. He was also in two great movies with Tom Hanks: Big and A League of Their Own. This last one is about the time during WWII when the men went to war and the women started to play pro baseball! True!

Speaking of baseball, one of his latest movies, one of our Movies of the Month, has Rob Schneider and Matt Weinberg  in it; it's called The Benchwarmers and it's about some, um, less-than-athletic athletes.

Jon's in two movies about almost-cowboys. In one, City Slickers II with Billy Crystal, an office worker goes to a cowboy camp for grownups. And in Three Amigos! Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short play cowboy actors mistaken for real cowboys. Jon was not an "amigo." But then he was not the Singing Bush either, so that's something. Yes, there is a bush that sings in that movie! (Its voice was done by Randy Newman. He is a Jewish songwriter you can read more about in our review of Toy Story.)

Jon was also in Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks with Michael Rapaport and Isaac Mizrahi... and in I Could Never Be Your Woman, with Paul Rudd and Henry Winkler, and it's about how both mothers and Mother Nature can mess with ya!

With his distinctive voice, Jon has a great career in voice-overs. He did the voice of an obnoxious critic who made fun of movies in the cartoon The Critic. It was a pretty big hit, for a cartoon! In Cats and Dogs, in which dogs save the world from being taken over by cats, he plays Calico. And he is in the follow-up to the Jewish-est of all cartoons, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.

But our favorite Jon performance is when he does the voice of the enthusiastic Radio in the under-appreciated classic The Brave Little Toaster. It's about a toaster, radio, lamp, vacuum cleaner, and electric blanket who adventure to find the little boy who used to live in their house. No, really! It's adorable!

This isn't more trivia, just something nice… Jon's dad was a doctor, but had always wanted to be an opera singer. So he told Jon to do whatever he wanted to in life. We figure having a dad like that counts as a big bonus any day.

Bonus:

Jon is one of an elite group of actors who have been in three or more hit shows! In his case, he was a cast member of SNL, the voice of The Critic, and a star of NewsRadio. Some of the other Jewish people in this group include Michael Landon, William Shatner, Richard Belzer, and Amanda Bynes.

Yet another is Ron Silver. His three were The West Wing, Veronica’s Closet, and Chicago Hope, plus he was a regular on a great mob show called Wiseguy. Ron died in March of 2009, and he was only 63. That may seem old now, but think about how many people you know who live into their 70s or 80s or even longer!

But let’s talk about Ron’s life. Aside from TV, he’s been in some very Jewish movies. One starred Billy Crystal and was about how Jews were some of the early greats in stand-up and on TV; it’s called Mr. Saturday Night. One is about a man who survives the Holocaust and thinks his wife didn’t, so he remarries, and then finds out she’s still alive! It’s based on a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer and it’s called Enemies, a Love Story. Another is about the Ten Commandments, and it’s just called The Ten. And Reversal of Fortune is not a Jewish movie, but Ron plays a famous Jewish attorney named Alan Dershowitz in it.

Some of Ron’s Jewish co-stars in other movies include comedy legend George Burns in Oh God! You Devil!, Michael Douglas in Romancing the Stone, Jamie Lee Curtis in Blue Steel, and Jill Clayburgh in Semi-Tough. He worked with Jewish directors, too, like Sidney Lumet in Find Me Guilty and Mike Nichols in Silkwood. And his movie Ali starred John Voigt as legendary Jewish sportscaster Howard Cosell. Oh, and Ron won a Tony for being in play by Jewish playwright David Mamet (see the Bonus here).

Ron went to Hebrew school as a kid and also spoke Spanish. In fact, he later taught Spanish at a Jewish school! But he also studied politics and got a master’s degree in Chinese history. He even knew how to speak Chinese. (A master’s is when you graduate college but keep going to school. Why? Some people like school! Also, you get to be more of an expert in something.) 

Israel was very important to Ron, and he was mostly liberal. But after September 11, he became conservative when it came to fighting terrorism, and he started a radio show to speak about Israeli politics. Sadly, it affected his ability to get acting jobs. Hollywood should have remembered the lessons of the anti-Communist “blacklist,” when liberal actors could not get work for years. What people believe is important, but it’s also important in business— even show business— to respect people’s beliefs and still hire them if they can do a good job. 

Bonus Bonus:

Others with at least three hit shows include Tony Danza, Robert Wagner, Lee Majors and comics Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby.

There's no word for these guys, but maybe there should be!