After that, I worked in Congress on the appropri-
ations committee. I worked on a Senate campaign
in Montana. Then the same guy got elected gover-
nor. So I moved to Montana with my wife, and then
we moved down to Denver.

I got a job on radio and went back to investiga-
tive, follow-the-money journalism.

How did the movie come together?
Adam McKay has been a friend for a long time.

In the mid-2000s, I had written an article about
NAFTA. He got in touch and said he liked the arti-
cle. “Next time you’re in L.A. let’s meet.” We struck
up a friendship.

I spent election night 2016 with him and the cast
of (HBO’s) “Succession.” They were doing a table
read of the show.

After that, I got in touch and said, “Listen man, I
loved ‘Vice’ (the 2018 black comedy movie about
former Vice President Dick Cheney). You have to
use your superpower mixing comedy and politics to
address the climate crisis.” He said, “I know man, but
I don’t want to do, like, post-apocalyptic ‘Mad Max.’”
I called him again after I had written a couple
stories about climate change; I was frustrated that
people didn’t care enough. I said, “It feels like a
comet’s coming to earth and people don’t care.”
We brainstormed over the phone. He wrote the
script. I gave notes.

Two weeks later he said, “Jennifer Lawrence and
(Leonardo) DiCaprio are interested.” A week later
he’s like, “This is actually happening. We’re sending
the paperwork over.”
I was shocked.

trying to say. So, what was it trying to say?
So the movie comes out on Netflix and goes viral
on social media. What was that experience like?
I tweeted this out, but I hope to see my Little
League teammate Bradley Cooper.

When he first became famous, I was like, “That
name sounds familiar.” Then my best friend was like,
“That’s Bradley from East Abington Little League.”
I asked my mom to find the team photo. There it
is. Me in the bottom row, him in the top row.

I never expected the movie to become a cultural
phenomenon. You see politicians referring to “just
look up.” It really has become part of the cultural
discourse. I think the reason that happened is because it’s
a movie about the here and now. This movie feels
a lot like reality. Everybody has strong opinions on
the here and now.

It felt as politically supercharged as campaign
discourse. There was this controversy on Bernie’s
campaign: He made a half-joke like, “Jeff Bezos’
paper (The Washington Post) is really friendly with
me.” And it was like, “Bernie is attacking journalism!”
A lot of the debate was about what the movie was
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Every politician is asked questions about the econ-
omy. What we have to do is bake that same attitude
about climate into the coverage.

The economy is the way we talk about politics.

The livable atmosphere needs to be at the same
level. What are you looking forward to most about the Oscars?
That’s very cool. So what’s next for you now? Are
you a screenwriter?
I’ve got some irons in the fire on other projects. I’m
also doing my journalism every day.

I take from this that there’s pent-up demand for
movies, TV shows that wrestle with the challeng-
ing issues of the day.

To me, that’s exciting. That’s what I’ve been doing.

That’s what I want to do. JE



obits
Photojournalist Sharon Wohlmuth Dies at 75
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
O n their way to Minot, North
Dakota, to interview and photo-
graph subjects for their photo essay book
“Sisters” — which later spent 63 weeks
on The New York Times Best Sellers list
— photographer Sharon Wohlmuth and
essayist Carol Saline were caught in a
snowstorm. The two had no boots or coats and lost
their way while headed to their destina-
tion. All of a sudden, Wohlmuth insisted
on pulling over the car. Despite Saline’s
confusion, she complied and, soon,
per Wohlmuth’s request, they began to
make snow angels in the freshly fallen
snow. “She was very big on ‘be here, now’,”
Saline said.

Wohlmuth died on Feb. 13 in her
Rittenhouse Square home. She was 75.

In addition to copublishing four addi-
tional photo essay books with Saline after
“Sisters,” Wohlmuth was a photojour-
nalist with The Philadelphia Inquirer for
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Sharon Wohlmuth presents at the Old City Jewish Art Center as part of the
“Morning Meditations” exhibit.
Photo by Zalman Wircberg
more than 20 years and won a Pulitzer
Prize in 1980 for her work in the paper’s
coverage of the Three Mile Island nuclear
accident. Her photos, which spanned from
Brooklyn Lubavitcher life to Somali
refugee camps, attracted some of the
Old City Jewish Art Center’s largest
audiences while they were on display
in exhibits in 2009 and 2015, OCJAC
director Zalman Wircberg said.

Wohlmuth was an active member
of the Philadelphia Jewish community.

Both a member of Temple Beth Zion-
Beth Israel and Vilna Congregation,
Wohlmuth had “chutzpah” and was
“very, very proud of being Jewish”
recalled Rabbi Menachem Schmidt
of Vilna Congregation, a friend with
Wohlmuth for 40 years.

On Rosh Hashanah, Wohlmuth vol-
unteered to visit a local hospital with
Schmidt and blow the shofar for patients
to welcome the new year. In addition to
going room-to-room to visit patients,
Wohlmuth would greet doctors and
nurses in the hallway who “looked
Jewish” to blow the shofar for them, too.

“She just had a lot of class,” Schmidt
said. “She had a tremendous presence.”
Born in Bristol, Connecticut, on Sept.

25, 1946, Wohlmuth was the middle
child to older brother Gary Joslow and
younger sister Beth Josolowitz. Her
father was an avid photographer and
influenced her decision to pursue pho-
tography in school.

After a short stint at a travel agency,
where she met first husband Edward
Wohlmuth, Sharon Wohlmuth enrolled
in the Moore College of Art and Design
in 1972. For her thesis, she lived among
a Lubavitcher community in Crown
Heights, Brooklyn, for six months in
1974, photographing weddings and
scenes from the Yeshiva.

Her photography impressed Inquirer
photo editor Gary Haynes, who hired
her a few months after she received
her bachelor’s in photography. She was
among the first four women to be hired
as photographers for The Inquirer.

In 1994, Wohlmuth and Saline pub-
lished “Sisters” through Running Press,
a small publisher run by Wohlmuth’s
second husband Larry Teacher. The
book had a modest first printing of
20,000, but it skyrocketed in popularity
after it was featured on an episode of
“Oprah.” Companion books “Mothers
and Daughters” and “Best Friends” also
earned acclaim.

Wohlmuth was open about her ADD
diagnosis, and she hired organizers
to help sort through bits of paper,
receipts and knickknacks in her pock-
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 25