Brittany Murphy’s Mother Was Jewish
Deceased actress was very close to her
December 22, 2009
Murphy at a tennis match in 2008.(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
The news, if you like, technically means that her daughter was Jewish as well. Just as importantly, though, Brittany Murphy was very close to her mother, Sharon, living with her into adulthood. Murphy’s husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, was a self-identified Jew; the two married in a Jewish ceremony in 2007.
Murphy’s most famous role was also, in a way, her most Jewish. In the 1995 smash Clueless, Murphy played Tai, a streetwise but fashion-unconscious teenager from New York. Though that character isn’t necessarily Jewish, her clashing, ambivalent relationship with the movie’s protagonist, Cher Horowitz (who is necessarily Jewish), is a hilarious and memorable illustration of one Jewish archetype (the L.A. princess) conflicting with another (the outer-borough ethnic).
Our Loss, By Brittany Murphy’s Family [Jewish Chronicle]
Brittany Murphy, Actress in ‘Clueless,’ Dies at 32 [NYT]
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
