Theodore Bikel

Theodore Meir Bikel (pronounced bih-KEL; May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian-American actor, folk singer, musician, composer, and activist.

Spouses :

• Ofra Ichilov (m. 1942; div. 1943)
• Rita Weinberg Call (m. 1967;div. 2008)
• Tamara Brooks (m. 2008;d. 2012)
• Aimee Ginsburg (m. 2013;wid. 2015)

Bikel made his stage debut in Tevye the Milkman in Tel Aviv, Israel, when he was in his teens. He later studied acting at Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and had his London stage debut in 1948 and in New York in 1955. He had his film debut in The African Queen in 1951, and in 1958 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his supporting role in The Defiant Ones. For most of his acting career, he played primarily character parts in American and British films, often portraying foreigners, due to his ability to speak numerous languages.

He was also a widely recognized recorded folksinger and guitarist, sometimes performing to support Democratic Party politics. In 1969 he began acting and singing on stage as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, a role he performed more often than any other actor to date. The play won nine Tony Awards and was the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

In 1959 he co-founded the Newport Folk Festival. Bikel was president of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America and was president of Actors' Equity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Partners for Progressive Israel, where he also lectured. His autobiography, Theo, first published in 1995, has been reprinted and updated three times.

Early years

Theodore Bikel was born into a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, the son of Miriam (née Riegler) and Josef Bikel, from Bukovina. As an active Zionist, his father named him after Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism. Following the German union with Austria in 1938, Bikel's family fled to Mandatory Palestine, where his father's contacts helped the family obtain British passports. Bikel studied at the Mikve Yisrael agricultural school and joined Kibbutz Kfar HaMaccabi.

Bikel started acting while in his teens. He performed with Habimah Theater in 1943 and was one of the founding members of the Cameri Theatre, which became a leading Israeli theater company.He described his acting experience there as similar, if not better, than the Method acting techniques taught at the Actor's Studio in New York. "The Habimah people were much closer to the Method, indeed, than Lee Strasberg was, because they were direct disciples of Stanislavski."

In 1945, he moved to London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Bikel moved to the United States in 1954, and became a naturalized citizen in 1961.

Career

Actor

In 1948, Michael Redgrave recommended Bikel to his friend Laurence Olivier as understudy for the parts of both Stanley Kowalski and Mitch in the West End premiere of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Bikel graduated from understudy to star opposite the director's wife, Vivien Leigh, with a sudden unplanned performance when a costar, playing the role of Mitch, came down with a case of flu. Bikel showed up backstage and went directly to Leigh's dressing room to ask if she wanted to rehearse with him, to make sure he was right for the part. She replied that she didn't need to: "Go and do it," she said. "You are a professional, and Larry gave you this job because he trusted you to do it well." After the show, Leigh told him, "Well done."

For most of his acting career, he became known for his versatility in playing characters of different nationalities, claiming he took on those different personalities so his acting would "never get stale." On television he played an Armenian merchant on Ironside, a Polish professor on Charlie's Angels, and American professor on The Paper Chase, a Bulgarian villain on Falcon Crest, a Russian on Star Trek:The Next Generation, and an Italian on Murder, She Wrote.

In movies, he played a German officer in The African Queen (1951) and The Enemy Below (1957), a Southern sheriff in The Defiant Ones, and a Russian submarine captain in the comedy, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966). He also portrayed the sadistic General Jouvet in The Pride and the Passion (1957), and was screentested for the role of Auric Goldfinger in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). In My Fair Lady (1964), he played an overbearing Hungarian linguist.

He made his Broadway debut in 1955 in "Tonight in Samarkind" and in 1958 was nominated for a Tony for "The Rope Dancers." In 1959, he created the role of Captain von Trapp in the original production of The Sound of Music which earned him a second Tony nomination. Bikel did not like his role, however, because his ability to sing was limited, nor did he like performing the same role of the Captain repeatedly. When the film's composers, Rodgers and Hammerstein, realized Bikel was an accomplished folksinger, they wrote the song "Edelweiss" specifically for him to sing and accompany himself on the guitar.

In 1964, he played Zoltan Karpathy, the dialect expert, in the film version of My Fair Lady. Since his first appearance as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof in 1967, Bikel has performed the role more often than any other actor (more than 2,000 times to date). When an injury required 74-year-old fellow Israeli performer Chaim Topol (veteran of many productions of the stage show and star of the motion picture of Fiddler on the Roof) to withdraw from a high-budget, much-promoted 2009 North American tour of the musical, Bikel substituted for him in several appearances in 2010.

Bikel was a guest star on many popular television shows. He appeared in an episode of the 1954 NBC legal drama Justice based on cases from the Legal Aid Society of New York. He also appeared in the episode entitled "The Faithful Pilgrimage" of CBS's Appointment with Adventure anthology series. The particular episode was written by Rod Serling. He also appeared in a second episode of Appointment with Adventure entitled "Return of the Stranger." Bikel also appeared in Frank Zappa's 1971 film 200 Motels.

Later, Bikel guest starred on Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (episode "Four O'Clock" as Oliver Crangle). He appeared on episodes of 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, Murder She Wrote and Law & Order. He appeared on the game show Super Password as a celebrity guest in 1988.

In the early 1990s, he appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the episode "Family", playing Sergey Rozhenko, the Russian-born adoptive father of Worf. Bikel performed two roles in the Babylon 5 universe, in 1994 as Rabbi Koslov in the first season episode "TKO" and in 1998, as Ranger leader Lenonn in the TV movie Babylon 5: In the Beginning.

In 2010 Bikel was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for outstanding solo performance for “Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears.” In 2012, Bikel played the title role in Visiting Mr. Green with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company in Toronto, Ontario. In 2013, Journey 4 Artists, a documentary produced and directed by Michele Noble featuring Theodore Bikel, Tamara Brooks, Merima Kljućo and Shura Lipovsky which celebrates the power of music and religious diversity, premiered at Academy Award winning producer, Branko Lustig's 7th Annual Jewish Festival of Tolerance in Zagreb, Croatia.

Folksinger and composer

In 1955 Bikel began recording songs, including several albums of Jewish folk songs and songs from Russia and other countries. For those, he played acoustic guitar alone or accompanied by other musicians. He was able to sing in 21 different languages, including Yiddish, Hebrew, German, Russian, Hungarian, medieval Spanish, Zulu and English. His early albums included "Israeli Folk Songs" (1955) and "Songs of Russian Old & New" (1960). One of his Russian albums was entitled Songs of a Russian Gypsy, in 1958, where he introduced the folk tune, "Kretchma."

In 1959 Bikel co-founded the Newport Folk Festival (together with Pete Seeger, Oscar Brand, and George Wein). He performed a number of recorded duets with Judy Collins at various festivals and on televison.During an interview, when asked what inspired him to become involved in organizing a folk festival, he said that music was "one of the few answers to the chaos that we have," one of the only recourses to avoid social strife, and a means of giving youth hope for a better world.

Bikel used then 21-year-old Bob Dylan as one of those young performers expressing emotional and social messages through song. In 1963, Bikel joined Dylan, Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and Joan Baez for the festival grand finale as they sang "Blowin' in the Wind" and "We Shall Overcome." Following the festival, Bikel, Seeger and Dylan traveled to a planned rally in Greenwood, Mississippi to perform Dylan's newly-written song, "Only a Pawn in Their Game," about the man who murdered Medgar Evers, head of the NAACP. Originally, only Bikel and Seeger were scheduled to perform, but Bikel wanted Dylan to go with them. He told Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, "I'll tell you what. Buy him a ticket. Don't tell him where it came from. Tell him it's time to go down and experience the South."

Bikel's close friendship with Seeger was sometimes tested as a result of the festival's choice of performers. On one occasion, Seeger became infuriated and threatened to cut the electrical cables with an ax unless the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, whose radical performance he considered "blasphemous" at a folk music concert, was taken off the stage immediately. Seeger expected Bikel to support him: "Theo, for Chrissake—tell them. Set them straight!" Bikel stepped forward and told Seeger to put the ax down, saying, "Peter, this band, these rebels—they are us. They are what we were twenty years ago. Remember?" Seeger stared at him "like a trauma victim," as Bikel succeeded in calming Seeger down enough to let the group finish their songs.

In 1962, Bikel became the first singer besides Dylan to perform "Blowin' in the Wind" in public. Bikel (with business partner Herb Cohen) opened the first folk music coffeehouse in Los Angeles, The Unicorn. Its popularity led to the two opening a second club, Cosmo Alley, which in addition to folk music presented poets such as Maya Angelou and comics including Lenny Bruce. Bikel became increasingly involved with civil rights issues and progressive causes, and was a delegate to the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Personal life

Bikel was married four times. He married Ofra Ichilov in 1942. They divorced the following year. His second marriage was in 1967 to Rita Weinberg Call with whom he has two children. They divorced in 2008. He married conductor Tamara Brooks later that year. She died in 2012. He married Aimee Ginsburg December 29, 2013.

Bikel died on July 21, 2015, at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles as a result of natural causes, according to publicist Harlan Boll. Bikel is survived by his wife, Aimee Ginsburg-Bikel, sons Rob and Danny, stepsons Zeev and Noam Ginsburg and three grandchildren.

For his 90th birthday in May 2014, various stars and celebrities paid tribute to his career through a video produced by Moment Magazine. Among those who spoke were Kirk Douglas, writer Leon Wieseltier and Leonard Nimoy, who himself had also played the role of Tevye when he acted in Fiddler on the Roof early in his career. Songwriter Peter Yarrow dedicated and performed a song he wrote about Bikel.

Political activism

Bikel was a longtime activist in the civil rights and human rights movements, participating as fundraiser with performances. He co-founded Actors Federal Credit Union in 1962, and in 1968 was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was president of Actors' Equity 1977 to 1982 in which office he supported human rights and had been president of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America since 1988.

Upon hearing of his death, Actors’ Equity wrote: "From the time he joined Equity in 1954, Bikel has been an advocate for the members of our union and his extraordinary achievements paved the way for so many. No one loved theater more, his union better or cherished actors like Theo did. He has left an indelible mark on generation of members past and generations of members to come. We thank you, Theo, for all you have done."

Bikel was an active supporter and campaigner for John F. Kennedy. He did some of his campaigning during the run of Sound of Music which got him into trouble with the producers, who didn't think it was becoming for an actor. He recalls, "I would go out sometimes between matinee and evening performances, go to a rally and speak from a flat-bed truck, and then come back to the theater." The producers stopped complaining, however, when after one show he was picked up backstage by a limousine carrying Eleanor Roosevelt, and he accompanied her to a Democratic rally as her special guest.

At the 1977 AFL–CIO Convention, Bikel welcomed the Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky upon his release from the Soviet Union. He was arrested in front of the Soviet Embassy in Washington in 1986 while protesting the plight of Soviet Jews.

President Jimmy Carter appointed him to serve on the National Council for the Arts in 1977 for a six-year term. In 2007 he served as chair of the Board of Directors of Meretz USA (now Partners for Progressive Israel).

He was a member of the High IQ collective Mensa International.

Published works

His autobiography, Theo, was published in 1995 by Harper Collins, and re-issued in an updated version by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2002 and 2014.

Awards and recognition

• 1959 Academy Award nomination for Flucht in Ketten (The Defiant Ones)
• 1992 Honorary Doctorate of the University of Hartford
• 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture
• 2008 Golden Rathausmann of Vienna (November 27)
• 2009 Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (November 15)