Actor Fyvush Finkel defends his Picket Fences' character against charges of being an anti-Semitic stereotype

THERE ARE THOSE WHO contend that the character of Douglas Wambaugh, the crafty Jewish defense attor-ney who has been seen regularly practicing for the past three years on the CBS-TV series "Picket Fences," is a stereotypical Jewish shyster, an ambulance-chasing weasel who will pull any lowlife stunt to win a case. They see Wambaugh - whose cards read "Reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee" - as an affront to the Middle-American community portrayed in the show and a disgrace to American Jews.

Fyvush Finkel, the feisty 72-year-old former star of the Yiddish stage who plays Wambaugh, will have none of this. "Wambaugh is a sensitive, ethical man who will protect his clients with the utmost care," says Finkel passionately over lunch at the Fox Studios commissary. "He doesn't chase ambulances, his clients all come to him. Like me, he's a good Jew; we both go to shul whenever we can. He's a good man, an intellect, he's devoted to his family, and he believes deeply in God. He's just a little eccentric in the courtroom."

Finkel's defensiveness is understandable. At a recent panel discussion on the way Jews are portrayed in movies and television, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League at Paramount Studios, some members of the crowd expressed their continued discomfort at the way the character is portrayed. Said one particularly irate audience member: "The whole country watches and says, Yes, that's what a Jew is, he's sleazy, he takes every goddamn case no matter what!'"

Finkel responded by brandishing a plaque that he said was the "Jewish Tele-image Award" he received for being "Best Jewish actor portrayed on televsion" (sic).

"Who gives the award?" I ask Finkel.

"I don't know," he replies, "but God bless them!"

Finkel, the Brooklyn-born child of East European immigrants, got his start in show business on the Yiddish stage at age 9. His specialty was singing a show-stopping tune called "Oh Promise Me" at the end of every play that climaxed with a wedding scene - which, he says, was most of them. "I got a dollar a night for singing in the box seats, which wasn't bad in those days."

He became a star of the Yiddish theater, performing through the United States, in Montreal and in South America.

"I always had a foot in Broadway," he says, "but I didn't break out until I joined the national company of Fiddler on the Roof.'" He ended up playing a number of roles in Fiddler,' including the lead. "Many actors consider playing Hamlet the apex of their career, but to me, Tevyeh was my Hamlet."

Finkel has made a mostly steady, and now very lucrative living as a thespian; incredibly, after 63 years in the business, he can recall having played a non-Jewish role only once. That was in a musical based on the life of Russian playwright Maxim Gorky; Finkel played young Gorky's grandfather,

but he almost got fired for refusing to make the sign of the cross.

"But the director was clever," he recalls. "He said, Fyvush, just turn to the wall with your back to the audience, move your shoulders up and down, and they'll all think you've done it.'"

He won the role of Douglas Wambaugh four years ago after "Picket Fences" producer David Kelley saw him in the small role of a shrewd New York lawyer in Sidney Lumet's 1990 film "Q&A." Set in the fictional hamlet of Rome, Wisconsin, "Picket Fences" is a quirky view of small-town life focused largely on the local sheriff (Tom Skerrit) and his doctor wife (Kathy Baker). But Finkel's ripe portrayal of Wambaugh, especially in comical courtroom interactions with a crusty judge played by Ray Walston, provides the program's main sideshow attraction.

Right from the start, some viewers found Finkel's overbearing character a bit too much. In 1992, The New York Times even ran a letter by "Picket Fences" watcher Rita Kaplan, who wrote: "Some Jewish viewers find the depiction of the unremittingly evil Jewish lawyer in the CBS series so repugnant as to be anti-Semitic… I recommend that everyone involved with this series take a good look at the type of fence' they are building."

Three years later, Finkel still goes ballistic at the mention of that letter.

"Little did that lady realize what a moron she was!" he declares. "To write a letter like that, when it's Fyvush Finkel who plays the part? I'm a better Jew than she ever was or ever will be!"

The letter also ticked off David Kelley, who penned an episode of "Picket Fences" intended as a direct rebuttal to the notion that you always have to be a refined person, or a paragon of professional virtue, to be a good Jew or a decent human being. In that episode, Wambaugh is asked to speak at a funeral. In a minor lapse of judgment, he tells a story of dubious taste, leading the rabbi to demand that he be banished from the local shul as an "embarrassment to Judaism."

Wambaugh demands, and receives, a "Beit Din," a religious trial. There, he delivers an impassioned speech in which he declares himself a pious Jew, a committed family man and a philanthropist. At one point, the rabbi asks him about his "responsibilities as a Jew to act in a manner that does not perpetuate the prejudice which you know is out there." Wambaugh responds: "Well, I suppose I could wake up each day and assume like you suggest that the world is full of anti-Semites. But that would make me a bigot."

"That episode was a million-dollar-plus response to the letter," says Finkel. "There wasn't a rabbi in the country who didn't discuss that episode that Shabbos. I should know; many sent me letters."

Finkel won an Emmy award two years ago as best supporting actor in a dramatic series, helping him to get a wider range of parts. He was recently cast in Oliver Stone's upcoming bio-pic of Richard Nixon in the role of Murray Chotiner, an early political adviser of the late president. But Finkel says don't expect him to say goodbye to the role of Douglas Wambaugh any time soon.

"I'm having too much fun. And as for ever getting tired of a part, it's not in the cards. I never, ever leave a hit!"

Graphic