Date: Apr 13, 2010

The Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic of the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center Presents Celebrity Couple Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry In a Discussion and Signing for "Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent

Wednesday, May 5, 2010, Common Hour (11:15 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.)

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY …  Celebrity couple Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry will be discussing and signing copies of Tucker's new book, Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent, at Hofstra University on Wednesday, May 5, 2010, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. In this book, Tucker and Eikenberry, actors best recognized for their work in the television series L.A. Law, tackle an issue many families face – caring for an elderly parent who can no longer care for himself or herself and learning how to deal with the challenges this brings.

This event is sponsored by the Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic at the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center. Location is the Lowenfeld Conference and Exhibition Hall, located on the 10th floor of the Axinn Library, South Campus.

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase. Reservations are required. Please call (516) 463-6535 or e-mail Elizabeth Connolly.

Hofstra University's Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic at the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center is an integral part of the Department of Health Professions and Family Studies in the School of Education, Health and Human Services. The clinic was established to train graduate students from the Marriage and Family Therapy program while providing low-cost clinical services to the community. Workshops and services are conducted to address issues such as caring for an elderly parent, caring for caregivers, couple communication and midlife issues. For more information on the services offered by the Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic visit www.hofstra.edu/saltzmancenter or call (516) 463-1917.

***
About Family Meals:

Acclaimed actor Michael Tucker, known for his work on the stage, in films and on television, was born into a large, closely connected Jewish family. Growing up, his parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins were a constant presence; life was very much centered around the extended relatives. But within his own family, he opted for a more "American" model – he and wife, actress Jill Eikenberry, also an Emmy Award-nominee, pursued their careers while their grown children lived on separate coasts, carving out their own lives. They all got together when they could. This concept of family changes for the Tuckers when Jill's mother, Lora, becomes a widow and soon falls into pronounced dementia. Jill and Michael are confronted with the same issues millions of families are faced with every day – what to do when aging parents can no longer care for themselves?

As a follow up to his celebrated 2007 memoir, Living in a Foreign Language, Michael Tucker's Family Meals: Coming Together to Care for an Aging Parent is about the journey home, which is most certainly not a place. It's about children becoming adults, an older parent becoming a child, and a husband and wife realizing that the direction of their lives is less important than the fact that they are moving on that path with each other.

About Michael Tucker

A veteran stage, film and television actor, Michael Tucker is perhaps best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz in the hit series, L.A. Law. His 8-year stint on the popular NBC-TV drama brought him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.

In the theater, Tucker most recently starred in Based on a Totally True Story at Manhattan Theatre Club. He made his Broadway debut with in Moonchildren and then went on to build an extensive list of stage credits. Among them: Modigliani, The Rivals, Mother Courage, Oh What a Lovely War, Trelawney of the Wells with Meryl Streep and John Lithgow, Herb Gardner's The Goodbye People and I'm Not Rappaport as well as principal roles in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Measure for Measure and The Comedy of Errors for Joe Papp in Central Park. Michael's film credits include Woody Allen's Radio Days and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Barry Levinson's Diner and Tin Men, Paul Mazursky's An Unmarried Woman, Lina Wertmuller's A Night Full of Rain, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Network, Checking Out, For Love or Money with Michael J. Fox, Mighty Ducks II and Till There Was You.

Tucker's first book, I Never Forget a Meal: An Indulgent Reminiscence, is part memoir, part cookbook. In this witty autobiography, he captures his passion for living, loving, learning, acting and his lifelong love affair with food. His second book, Living in a Foreign Language, chronicles his and his wife's newest chapter as homeowners in the Italian countryside.

About Jill Eikenberry

Jill Eikenberry has a long list of theater, film and television credits. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Ann Kelsey on NBC's long-running hit series L.A. Law, which earned her four Emmy nominations, two Golden Globe nominations and a Golden Globe Award. Her extensive theater career on and off Broadway includes Michael Weller's Moonchildren, The Beggars Opera, All Over Town directed by Dustin Hoffman, Save Grand Central by famed cartoonist, William Hamilton, Summer Brave with Alexis Smith, Wendy Wasserstein's Uncommon Women and Others,  in which she also appeared opposite Meryl Streep in the PBS-TV version; Tennessee Williams' The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Watch on the Rhine, and the Broadway musical, Onward Victoria. For her performances in Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky and Richard Greenberg's Life Under Water she was recognized with an Obie Award. She was most recently seen Off-Broadway in Manhattan Theater Club's production of A Picasso. She performed in The Vagina Monologues at The Circle in the Square in San Francisco and The Napa Valley Opera House and numerous productions around the country of Love Letters by A.R. Gurney.

Her film credits include Between the Lines, Rich Kids, An Unmarried Woman, On Hope, A Night Full of Rain, Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, Hide in Plain Sight, Arthur and The Manhattan Project. Most recently, she appeared in the independent feature, "Manna From Heaven" and two films that will be released this year, A Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Best Day of his Life.

This spring she will be seen off-Broadway  in The Kid, based on the true story of what happens when sex columnist Dan Savage and his boyfriend decide to start a family.