Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast, one of the most romantic movies of all time— and the first animated movie nominated for an Oscar—is quite a Jewish movie. First of all, the Beast himself is Jewish! At least, Robby Benson, who does the Beast’s voice, is. Robby was in another very important Jewish movie, The Chosen, about two Jewish teenage friends. He has been an actor since the 1950s; probably his most famous movie is called Ice Castles, which is is also very romantic, but has a figure skating scene instead of the ballroom dancing scene in Beauty and the Beast.

Lumiere is a special candlestick and not just because he sings; he might be the cousin of a menorah! Jerry Orbach, who did Lumiere's voice, was a great Jewish actor. Jerry played the dad in a very Jewish movie called Dirty Dancing, set in the Catskills. (The Catskill mountains had resorts where Jewish families would hang out on their summer vacations, and many very famous Jewish actors and comics got their starts entertaining their guests in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s.). Jerry got his own start on stage, where he created some major Broadway roles and won a Tony. Sadly, Jerry died recently, but only after breaking the record for playing the same character for longer than anyone in history— he was Law and Order’s Detective Lenny Briscoe on six different shows for 12 years! His birthday was this month, October; he would have been 70 years old.

Jerry, aka Lumiere, sings Beauty and the Beast’s major show-stopper, “Be Our Guest.” This and other songs on the unforgettable soundtrack were written by the Jewish team of Howard Ashman and Alan Mencken. Howard wrote the words and Alan wrote the music. You may have heard of another movie they scored together: The Little Mermaid. Before that, they wrote the songs for the hysterical musical Little Shop of Horrors; Rick Moranis starred in the movie version. Howard, one of the top lyricists of his generation, died of AIDS a few years ago, while working on the animated movie Aladdin.

Bonus Trivia:

What kind of beast is the Beast, anyway? He is a mish-mash of a lion, gorilla, wolf, bear, boar, and buffalo!

Bonus Bonus:

Buffalos are kosher!