Austrian-American actor and folk musician (1924–2015)
Theodore Bikel
Bikel in 2009
Born
Theodore Meir Bikel
(1924-05-02)May 2, 1924
Vienna, Austria
Died
July 21, 2015(2015-07-21) (aged 91)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place
Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation(s)
Actor, folk singer
Years active
1943–2013
Spouses
Ofra Ichilov
(m. 1942; div. 1943)
Rita Weinberg Call
(m. 1967; div. 2008)
Tamara Brooks
(m. 2008; died 2012)
Aimee Ginsburg
(m. 2013)
Children
2
9th President of the American Actors' Equity Association
In office 1973–1982
Preceded by
Frederick O'Neal
Succeeded by
Ellen Burstyn
Theodore Meir Bikel (/bɪˈkɛl/bih-KEL; May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist, and political activist. He appeared in films, including The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Kidnappers (1953), The Enemy Below (1957), I Want to Live! (1958), My Fair Lady (1964), The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and 200 Motels (1971). For his portrayal of Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones (1958), he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.[1]
He made his stage debut in Tevye the Milkman in Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine, when he was in his teens. He later studied acting at Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made his London stage debut in 1948 and in New York in 1955. He was also a widely recognized and recorded folk singer and guitarist. In 1959, he co-founded the Newport Folk Festival, and created the role of Captain von Trapp opposite Mary Martin as Maria in the original Broadway production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. In 1969, Bikel 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 production won nine Tony Awards, and was one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history.
Bikel was president of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America until 2014, and was president of Actors' Equity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He served as the chairman of the board of directors of Partners for Progressive Israel,[2] where he also lectured.
^"The 31st Academy Awards – 1959". Oscars.org. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
^"About Partners for Progressive Israel". Archived from the original on November 21, 2012.
Theodore Meir Bikel (/bɪˈkɛl/ bih-KEL; May 2, 1924 – July 21, 2015) was an Austrian actor, folk singer, musician, composer, unionist, and political activist...
States and the United Kingdom, the film stars the Mothers of Invention, TheodoreBikel, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr. A soundtrack album was released in the...
Music". The original Broadway production, starring Mary Martin and TheodoreBikel, opened in 1959 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, out...
second feature British film directed by Denis Kavanagh and starring TheodoreBikel and John Bentley. Colonel Sandor Kosice is a Hungarian police chief...
his first major film role, Carl Reiner, Eva Marie Saint, Brian Keith, TheodoreBikel, Jonathan Winters, John Phillip Law, Tessie O'Shea, and Paul Ford. The...
Wein, music manager Albert Grossman, and folk singers Pete Seeger, TheodoreBikel, and Oscar Brand. It was one of the first modern music festivals in...
by famed B movie director Albert Band and starring Richard Boone and TheodoreBikel. It was written by Louis A. Garfinkle and produced by Garfinkle and...
Politiques de Paris. She was married briefly to actor and folk singer, TheodoreBikel. She was a researcher for Time, Newsweek, and ABC Television. She moved...
other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi, TheodoreBikel and Harry Goz (in the original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy. Mostel's...
Sidney Poitier as Noah Cullen Tony Curtis as John “Joker” Jackson TheodoreBikel as Sheriff Max Muller Charles McGraw as Captain Frank Gibbons Lon Chaney...
Sholem (1987), The Stories of Tevye the Dairyman, Audio Renaissance, TheodoreBikel narrator (unabridged ed.), Macmillan Audio, ISBN 978-1-55927379-4, with...
entitled Taste of Passover. It was there that she met TheodoreBikel. Ten years later she married Bikel, with whom she toured the world in acclaimed concerts...
starring Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra and Sophia Loren. The film co-stars TheodoreBikel and Jay Novello. The film's storyline concerns a British Royal Navy...
starring Susan Hayward, Stephen Boyd, Barbara Nichols, Dennis Holmes, TheodoreBikel, Ken Scott, James Philbrook, and Florence MacMichael. The screenplay...
Peres Elizabeth Taylor as Edra Vilnofsky Julius Harris as Idi Amin TheodoreBikel as Yakov Shlomo Harris Yulin as Gen. Dan Shomron Christian Marquand...