Jewish Entertainment:
Jewish Actors, Playwrights, Comedians, Musicians

Miyam Bialik
Jewish Name - Mayim Hoya Bialik

Mayim Hoya Bialik, Ph.D. is a Jewish American actress best known for her roles as Blossom Russo on NBC's Blossom and as Amy Farrah Fowler on CBS's The Big Bang Theory. [1]

Early life

Bialik was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Barry Bialik and Beverly Winkelman.[2] Her grandparents emigrated from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary in the late 1930s. Bialik was raised in Reform Judaism. Her given name means "water" in Hebrew.[3]

Career

Bialik started her career as a child actress in the late 1980s. Her early roles included the horror film Pumpkinhead (1988), her first acting job,[4] and guest appearances on The Facts of Life and Beauty and the Beast. She appeared in three episodes of MacGyver as Lisa Woodman. She appeared in Beaches (1988), playing Bette Midler's character as a young girl. She also appeared in the video for the song "Liberian Girl" by Michael Jackson.

Bialik at the rehearsal for the 1989 Academy Awards

In 1990, Bialik was tied to two television pilots, Fox's Molloy and NBC's Blossom. Molloy at first produced six episodes for a tryout run, followed by the shooting of the pilot special for Blossom. The latter actually aired two weeks before Bialik's Fox series and ultimately garnered higher ratings than it. When Molloy folded after its six episodes, Blossom was pursued as a regular series, airing until 1995.

Between 1995 and 2005, Bialik mostly did voice-over work for cartoons, such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest and Recess.

She appeared in the feature film Kalamazoo? (2005) and appeared in three episodes of the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm as Jodi Funkhouser, the lesbian daughter of a friend of Larry David. Bialik also made guest appearances as a fictionalized version of herself in the series Fat Actress and made a guest appearance as a Hasidic Jew in an episode of Saving Grace.[5][6] She had a recurring role as the high school guidance counselor in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She also made an appearance on the Fox TV show 'Til Death in which she has a reunion of sorts with two of her Blossom co-stars—Jenna von Oÿ, who played Blossom’s quirky best friend Six, and Michael Stoyanov, who played Blossom’s older brother Anthony.[7]

In 2009, Bialik was nominated by Clinton Kelly for a makeover on TLC's What Not To Wear.[8]

In Season 3 (2009–2010), she joined the cast of The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler. Her first appearance was in the season finale as a potential love interest for the character of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). In Season 4, she began as a recurring character playing Sheldon's "friend that's a girl, but not a girlfriend." Beginning with Season 4, Episode 8, she became part of the main cast.[9] Bialik's character is a neurobiologist, which corresponds to Bialik's real-life educational pursuits, as described below.

Prior to her joining the cast in the episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture," Raj suggests recruiting the real-life Bialik to their Physics Bowl team, saying "You know who’s apparently very smart, is the girl who played TV’s Blossom. She got a Ph.D. in Neuroscience or something."

On March 6, 2012, her book, Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way, was released.[10]

Personal life

Hayim Nahman Bialik, Israel's national poet, was Mayim Bialik's great-great-grandfather's uncle.[11]

Bialik attended Walter Reed Junior High School in North Hollywood, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. At the end of Blossom, she chose to attend UCLA, although she also had been accepted to both Harvard and Yale.[12][13] She stated that she wanted to stay close to her parents and did not want to move to the East Coast. She earned a bachelor's degree in 2000 in neuroscience, Hebrew, and Jewish studies, and went on to the PhD program in neuroscience.

She took a break from studies in 2005 to return to acting.[14] Bialik completed her PhD in 2007.[15] Her dissertation was an investigation of Prader-Willi syndrome.[16][17]

In a 2012 interview Bialik stated that she would call herself "aspiring Modern Orthodox." [18] She has appeared in several YouTube cameos as Blossom and Amy Farrah Fowler[19] asking questions about Jewish beliefs. The videos are produced by Allison Josephs, Bialik's Judaism study partner, whom she met with the help of Partners in Torah.[20]

She married Michael Stone on August 31, 2003, in a Victorian-themed ceremony with traditional Jewish customs[21] (Bialik's husband, born a Latter Day Saint, converted to Judaism; several years later, Bialik's mother-in-law converted to Judaism as well).[22][23] The couple have two sons together: Miles Roosevelt Bialik Stone, born October 10, 2005, and Frederick Heschel Bialik Stone, born August 15, 2008.[24] She is a celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network.[25]

She is a vegan[26] and a founding member of the Shamayim V'Aretz Institute.[27]

Bialik is a fan of the television series Survivor as she stated in the reunion show of Survivor: One World. She stated that Colton Cumbie was entertaining, though she did not support his controversial actions, and declared that she would watch a season if Colton was on it.

References

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Further reading

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