Matthew Broderick

Of all the Jewish stars, the eternally boyish Matthew has a special place in the hearts of Chicagoans for starring in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, in which he plays a high schooler who cuts class to tour all around Chicago. Hey-- it's cute in a movie, but don't you try it!

He also plays a high schooler in one of our Movies of the Month, the computer-paranoia classic WarGames with Jewish actress Ally Sheedy. And he's still a high-school-age kid in the lyrical fantasy Ladyhawke. Of course now, he's old enough to play the teacher role, like in Election, when he tries to put a stop to a runaway high-school, um, election.

Matthew got his start on stage, and now Matthew is back there, big time, with his Tony-winning role in The Producers. First, that story was a movie by Mel Brooks starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. Then it was a stage musical, with Matthew in the Gene part. And then they made a movie out of the musical version, still with Matthew (although Gene can sing, as he does in the original Willy Wonka movie.)

Next, Matthew is in Margaret, about a Jewish girl who witnesses a bus accident. And he's in Wonderful World, about an inter-racial relationship. 

But you know Matthew as the voice of the grown-up Simba in The Lion King. Now he's in another animation (with Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Kline), as a mouse named Despereaux in The Tale of Despereaux, who despereau-tely tries to rescue someone.

He's a also voice in Jerry Seinfeld's new movie, Bee Movie, one of our Movies of the Month! It also stars Larry Miller, Larry King, and Larry Bevinson-- Oops! We mean Barry Levinson. (Guess we got a little Larry'd away!)

Another cartoon-based movie Matthew starred it was Inspector Gadget. In the original TV toon, Inspector Gadget's voice was done by a Jewish actor named Don Adams. The cartoon was a spoof of a TV show called Get Smart, also starring Don Adams and created by... guess who? Mel Brooks! And now, they made a Get Smart movie! (Mel gets an environmental award for recycling his own work!)

Even with all that voice work, Matthew is still 90% a live-action actor. In a Jewish role, Matthew plays a young Neil Simon in that playwrights' autobiographical Biloxi Blues, about being a Jewish Army private in 1950s Mississippi. Harvey Fierstein, another Jewish actor and writer, put Matthew in his autobiographical movie, Torch Song Trilogy, about being a Jewish gay man in 1950s New York, in which Matthew plays Fierstein's boyfriend.

He sometimes plays historic roles. He stars with Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, about Jewish American writer Dorothy Parker, and plays a white general in charge of an African-American platoon in the Civil War movie Glory. 

He was also in two movies with Oscar winner Helen Hunt. One was called Project X, about an evil experiment on some cute chimps, and the latest is a new comedy-drama called And Then She Found Me.

As Matthew told the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, "My background is very much that style of writing, Neil Simon and Mel Brooks, and the Your Show of Shows guys are what I grew up loving. So I probably drew on my New York background and my Jewish background for that, sure." (What's Your Show of Shows? See the Bonus under Woody Allen and find out!)

Bonus:

Matthew's married to Sarah Jessica Parker and has two Tony Awards. He's very talented, very much a mensch, and deserves all the success he has earned.