Broadway to honor Theodore Bikel by dimming lights Friday

From Variety, Actor’s Equity Association wherein Bikel was once a president said that it “mourns the passing of our dear friend, our brother and former President Theo Bikel”.

Bikel’s own big-screen career spanned more than 150 appearances, including his 1951 film debut as a German naval officer in the classic The African Queen and an Oscar-nominated turn as a Southern sheriff opposite Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. “Professionally, I can count three or four separate existences”, he said.

He later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London where Michael Redgrave spotted his talent and recommended him for the West End premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Lawrence Olivier and starring Vivien Leigh. His other Broadway credits included Tonight in Samarkand, The Lark, Café Crown, Pousse-Café, and The Inspector General. “I’m not just somebody who mouths words or sings songs on the stage; I’m also a human being, and that counts for something”. In 1963, he performed with Bob Dylan, whom he greatly admired, Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary and Joan Baez at the festival.

Bikel was active in the civil rights movement for many years, and was elected a delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Honored by the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring for his support of Yiddish culture around the world, he received a plaque at a ceremony in Los Angeles, where he had established his primary residence. “I call it ‘Plaquistan.'”.

Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria, in May 1924, to Miriam and Josef Bikel, who were Jewish immigrants from Bukovina in Central Europe.

He also was featured in a widely circulated Internet promo for a negotiated peace agreement, comparing the experience of the Jews being driven from their homes by the Tsarist government of Russian Federation and the Palestinians forced from their lands during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.

Zero Mostel originated the role on Broadway in 1964, but Bikel took on the part in 1967 and never entirely stopped, appearing in more than 2,000 performances of Fiddler.

One of his most challenging performances came in 1979, when he was aboard a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles that had been commandeered by a disturbed woman threatening to blow up the plane with nitroglycerin.

He is survived by his wife, Aimee Ginsburg; sons Rob, Danny Bikel and stepsons Zeev and Noam Ginsburg and three grandchildren.