When Harry Belafonte said the Jewish blessing for bread with Zero Mostel
The actor, singer and civil rights icon starred in 1970’s ‘The Angel Levine’
Zero Mostel
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Culture In ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ Chava is a hero. But she wasn’t always.
Editor’s Note: Fifty years ago, on Nov. 3, 1971, the movie adaptation of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ premiered. In honor of that anniversary, this week we are publishing a series of article about the impact of ‘Fiddler’ and its legacy. You can read more of the stories here Given the vaunted position of “Fiddler on…
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Music WATCH: Zero Mostel Sings A Yiddish Classic
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. After four years of scouring Youtube for Yiddish-language videos to feature in the Forverts’ weekly cultural supplement Oneg Shabes, I thought that I had pretty much found them all. Luckily, there are still some treasures out there to be uncovered. Case in point: Rokhl Kafrissen recently posted…
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Culture Everything You Wanted To Know About ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ But Didn’t Ask
Wonder of Wonders By Alisa Solomon Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32 Those searching for razzle-dazzle bar mitzvah entertainment need look no further than the Amazing Bottle Dancers, a group of athletic young men who’ll burst into your special event, hoist the guest of honor up onto a chair, perform the suspenseful “bottle dance” from the…
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Culture Zero Mostel’s Long Shadow on ‘Rhino’
As part of its 30th Next Wave Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music will be showcasing Eugène Ionesco’s classic absurdist play “Rhinoceros.” The critically acclaimed production, performed in the original French by Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville under the direction of Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, represents an all too rare occasion to see a this ebullient and…
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The Schmooze May You Be Like Jerry and Like Joseph
Yesterday I was watching Nightly News with Brian Williams and was surprised to see that Sparky Anderson got a five-minute tribute but Jerry Bock, the beloved composer of “Fiddler on the Roof,” didn’t get a mention. I have a personal stake in this, as I write musicals and often worry about posterity. Mr. Bock leaves…
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The Schmooze ‘Fiddler’ Writer Joseph Stein Dies
It’s hard not to hum “Sunrise, Sunset” (swiftly flow the years…) when reporting the death of Joseph Stein, the playwright who wrote the Semitic-kitsch musical classic “Fiddler on the Roof.” According to the BBC, Stein died at a New York hospital from complications after a fall; the writer had been in care suffering from prostate…
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The Schmooze How an Actor Died of the Blacklist
Fifty-five years ago today, union activist and thespian Philip Loeb checked himself into the Taft Hotel in Midtown Manhattan under a false name and took a fatal dose of sleeping pills. Targeted by the insidious blacklist, Loeb could no longer find work in his beloved acting profession and had reached rock bottom. Tonight, a panel…
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