Broadway actor Theodore Bikel dies at 91

He was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of von Trapp. (Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer took their parts in the 1965 version, which won the Oscar for best picture.). His additional TV credits include guest appearances on the 1954 NBC legal drama Justice, as well as on The Twilight Zone, Appointment with Adventure, Wagon Train, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, Charlie’s Angels, The San Pedro Beach Bums, Cannon, Little House on the Prairie, Mission: “Impossible, Gunsmoke, Dynasty, All in the Family, Knight Rider, Babylon 5, Murder She Wrote, and Law & Order“.

And when Bikel played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in 1967, it was the beginning of an enduring relationship.

He drew his first Tony nomination in 1958 for “The Rope Dancers” and picked up his second two years later for “The Sound of Music”.

Author of Folksongs and Footnotes, his autobiography Theo was published in 1994.

He founded the legendary Newport Folk Festival with Pete Seeger, Oscar Brand and George Wein, launched the Actors Federal Credit Union and later became a champion of civil rights in the US.

Bikel was passionate about the arts, having recorded 27 folk albums, and served as president of both the Associated Actors and Artistes of America and the Actor’s Equity Association. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve a six-year term on the National Council for the Arts.

A vocal advocate for better working conditions and financial stability for actors, Bikel was the president of Actors’ Equity for almost a decade, from 1973 to 1982.

In the same interview, Bikel said he had planned the inscription for his tombstone – “He Was the Singer of His People” – in Yiddish.

The Austrian-born Bikel was noted for the diversity of the roles he played, from a Scottish police officer to a Russian submarine skipper, Jewish refugee, Dutch sea captain and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. His father, an insurance salesman and ardent Zionist, soon moved his family to Palestine (later Israel) and became director of the public health service.

LUCY NICHOLSON/REUTERS Bikel sings lyrics from ‘Fiddler on the Roof, ‘ in which he appeared more than 2,000 times, after receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. Bikel spent his teens living on a kibbutz and got his first acting job as a Czarist constable in a Hebrew production of the Tevye stories.

He often played Germans or Russians – in his autobiography, Bikel said that his facility with accents resulted in his typecasting “as the poor man’s Peter Ustinov”.

Within a couple of years, he gained a task in the London manufacturing of “A Streetcar Named Desire” with Vivien Leigh, enjoying Mitch, Stanley Kowalski’s good friend.

Bikel is survived by wife Aimee Ginsburg and two kids.

Donations can be made to The Actors Fund or Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger.

In the 1950s, Bikel produced several albums of Jewish folk songs, as well as Songs of a Russian Gypsy, in 1958.