Why is Elliott Gould wearing a fedora these days?
"Gangsters are people too," insists Elliott Gould. "Just because you're a gangster doesn't mean you're a criminal." Gould acquired this peculiar sympathy for the underworld while researching a proposed screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs's "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz" for producer Menahem Golan, which he had hoped both to star in and direct. That deal fell through, but Gould is now finally getting his crack at portraying a "friend of the friends." He plays Harry Greenberg, a.k.a. "Big Greenie," in "Bugsy," director Barry Levinson's ("Avalon") upcoming megabuck epic of Jewish gangsterdom. "Harry was Bugsy Siegel's oldest friend," explains Gould, while polishing off a plate of Chicago knockwurst at a Palm Springs deli. "Their families used to do Passover Seders together. Unfortunately, in the film, Bugsy also has to kill him." A Tri-Star production about Siegel's efforts during the 40s to set up the gambling industry in Las Vegas, "Bugsy" began a slated four-month shoot in February, and is due out next winter. Starring Warren Beatty, the film also features Ben Kingsley, Harvey Keitel and Academy Award-nominated actress Annette ("The Grifters") Bening. The course of Gould's career is probably not what the 52 year-old actor envisaged after his 1969 Oscar nomination for "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," and his starring role in the following year's biggest hit, theoriginal film version of "M.A.S.H." Though he recently had the lead role in a short-lived TV series called "ER," in which, as in "M.A.S.H.," he played a loopy physician, he now makes his living mainly by doing guest spots in television series, and from roles in TV movies and low-budget features.
His part in the big-budget "Bugsy" may be the shot in the arm his career needs. The movie is riding the crest of a small wave of productions now in the works about Jewish gangsters, which include both a film and television series about the young Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and Dustin Hoffman as Schultz in the forthcoming film of E.L. Doctorow's "Billy Bathgate." Gould reports having a grand time on the set of "Bugsy," dodging bullets and queries from tabloid reporters about rumors that he is getting back together with his former wife, Barbra Streisand at the behest of their son, Jason. Gossip also has it that Gould's penchant for keeping his head covered throughout the production-wearing a yarmulke at the Seder table and a 1940s fedora elsewhere-has something to do with a newfound religious observance. Gould, born Elliott Goldstein, started in show biz as an adolescent with song and dance appearances in Brooklyn synagogues and in Borscht Belt (Catskill Mountain) resorts. He has been associated with a number of Jewish groups during the last six years, including the ultra-Orthodox Chabad and the controversial Pacific Jewish Center (The Jerusalem Report, Jan. 3). Barry Greenberg, owner of an agency called Celebrity Connection, which tries to match up entertainment celebrities with appropriate causes, notes that Gould has put himself at the service of a variety of charitable Jewish works in recent years. However, Gould denies the rumors that he has become newly observant, declaring that he would not look good in a shtreimel, or hasidic hat. In fact, he recalls, Rabbi Shlomo Kunin had the devil's time getting him to doff his battered Miami Dolphins cap before appearing on Chabad's yearly Los Angeles telethon. "He kept telling me, take mine, mine is better,'" recounts Gould. "I said, Rabbi, if you show me where it's written that your fedora is intrinsically better than my Dolphins cap, I'll do it.'" Gould kept his cap on. "I am interested in the life that true observance represents," he acknowledges. "But I don't live in that community yet." Still, he feels that his Jewish roots "offer a true and a real alternative to a way of life I am finding more and more artificial, superficial and dangerous. I feel that solidity offers a vehicle for moral content. Whether solidity can be a substitute for moral content, however, is something I still need to think about." People who know Gould believe that he is incapable of being a belonger. Indeed, some think it is precisely that streak of free-spiritedness that may have harmed his career in recent years. Industry types don't always know what to make of Gould, and are prone to dismiss him as a flake. Acting is still a living, though, acknowledges Gould good-naturedly, as he saunters down the main drag of Palm Springs, shmoozing up the locals like the town sheriff. "But," he adds, "there's no doubt I've got to do a little more thinking about the future."