Noah Wyle

Before there was Indiana Jones, there were several generations of heroic relic hunters that populated movies and pulp novels, which were called that because they were on very low-grade, pulpy paper (this is where the expression “pulp fiction” comes from).

But after Harrison Ford played Indiana Jones, there were many, many more: Brendan Fraser in The Mummy, Tia Carrere in Relic Hunter, Matthew MacCaughey in Sahara, Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider, Sean Astin and Corey Feldman in The Goonies, Sean Patrick Flannery as the Young Indiana Jones…

…and Noah Wyle in the Librarian movies. (His name is pronounced “WHY-lee” like the cartoon coyote.) These three (so far) movies star Noah as a nerdy bookworm who discovers mysterious ancient caverns under his normal-looking library. In the one, he researches King Solomon’s Mines. These are the maybe-real mines from which the very-real King Solomon’s gold and silver is rumored to have come; why don’t you go to Israel and see if you can find them, since no one else can!

Noah is also doing a sort of political trilogy, too! He is in the political thriller Nothing But the Truth with David Schwimmer... the bio-pic W. with Richard Dreyfuss... and in An American Affair, about growing up in the Kennedy years. Wait, one more political movie... Below the Beltway, about a guy who tries tomake a political comeback ("The Beltway" is a highway that runs around, and is a metaphor for, Washington, D.C.... like "The Loop" runs around, and stands for, downtown Chicago.)

Probably the most famous movie Noah was ever in was A Few Good Men, with Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Kevin Pollack, and Christopher Guest. But his most Jewish project was called Swing Kids, set just before WWII. It’s about German kids who continue to dance to swing music from America even though it is banned by the Nazis. It may seem like a silly way to rebel, but when you’re a teenager, how much can you do against the secret police?

Noah has been in a couple of other movies. He was in the weird Donnie Darko with Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. He was in the dysfunctional-family drama The Myth of Fingerprints. And he was one of the most romantic figures in all of history, Sir Lancelot, in the TV version of the King Arthur story, Guinevere (say: GWEN-a-veer).

Noah was also in a movie called Pirates of Silicon Valley, which is not like Johhny Depp's pirate movies! This one claims that Bill Gates pirated a lot of his early ideas from Steve Jobs; Noah plays Steve. You know the name Bill Gates, but Steve Jobs gave us Apple Computers, the Macintosh, iTunes, the iPod, and the new iPhone… plus the Pixar movie company! Wow! (No, he’s not Jewish. Can’t have ’em all!)

Noah first became popular in the major medical drama that came from before Grey’s Anatomy, called ER. Noah started with the show and stayed for ten seasons; he was nominated for five Emmys. Noah’s mom was a real-life nurse and coached some of the actors! Noah played the young doctor learning the ropes from more experienced staff… like Juliana Margulies and George Clooney. Yep, that same show is where he got famous. By the way, Noah has used his ER fame to advocate for healthcare insurance for the poor.

Noah’s full name is Noah Strausser Speer Wyle. He was born in Hollywood (yes, people really do live there!). He studied acting at Northwestern University near Chicago while still in high school and went on to acting school instead of college. Today, he still keeps a hand in theater by acting as producer for a theater company; some of its Jewish actors include Buffy stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amber Benson and TV vet Ed Asner.

Noah collects lots of typical stuff like baseball cards and antiques… but also things having to do with Noah’s ark! At least he doesn’t try collect all the animals there are. That would get crowded.

Bonus:

Umm… what is the “myth of fingerprints,” exactly? Well, the title of the movie comes from a song by Jewish songwriter Paul Simon. He was the part of Simon and Garfunkel, a major folk duo in the 1960s. He went solo in 1970 and continued to have a ton of hits. Today, he has more than a dozen Grammy awards, and is also famous for standing up against South African apartheid by recording with performers from there.

Just some of Paul’s songs are: “Sounds of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Slip Slidin’ Away,” “Still Crazy After All These Years,” “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “You Can Call Me Al”… and “Father and Daughter” from the Thornberrys movie. He’s simply one of the best songwriters ever, right up there with Bob Dylan and Irving Berlin (also both Jewish!).

Anyway, on Paul’s major album 1986 “Graceland,” which helped make world music popular, he has a song called “The Myth of Fingerprints. A line from the song goes “It was the myth of fingerprints/ I’ve seen them all, and then they’re all the same.” So while people say everyone has unique fingerprints and this means they are all special, Paul thinks this is a myth, and in reality people are more alike than they would like to admit! This lesson is what the family members in the movie learn, too.

What do you think— are people as unique as their “fingerprints,” or is that a “myth”?