Theodore Meir Bikel, who was born on May 2, 1924, said he watched from a window at home as neighbors cheered German troops marching down the street when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938. He sang in 21 languages.
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Bikel’s own big-screen career spanned more than 150 appearances, including his 1951 movie 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“. Bikel earned his first Tony nomination in 1958 for his featured performance in The Rope Dancers, and in 1959, landed the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in the original production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music opposite Mary Martin. His Broadway performances stretched from the 1940s to a 1978 staging of The Inspector General.
The musical, set in the fictional Jewish shtetl, or settlement, of Anatevka in 1905 czarist Russian Federation, is based on a series of stories by Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem, collectively titled “Tevye and his Daughters”. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his portrayal of von Trapp. He cofounded the Newport Folk Festival alongside Pete Seeger, Oscar Brand, and George Wein in 1959, and in 1962, had the honor of becoming the first singer besides Bob Dylan to perform “Blowin’ in the Wind” in public. Bikel was 80 years old when he received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2005.
The union also released a statement today: “Actors’ Equity Association mourns the passing of our dear friend, our brother and former President Theo Bikel”. Asner stated. He was also devoted to Jewish causes, the Democratic Party and human rights groups. He was one of six leaders of the American Jewish Congress arrested while protesting in 1986 outside the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC over that government’s restrictions on letting Jews leave the country.
Bikel spent much of his career on the Broadway stage and left a lasting legacy with his decades of work.
“Professionally, I can count three or four separate existences”, he said.
Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Miriam (née Riegler) and Josef Bikel, on May 2, 1924.
As a youth living on a Jewish kibbutz, he loved the communal life.
“I typically stood on heaps of manure, leaning on a pitchfork, singing Hebrew songs at the highest of my voice – songs that extolled the great thing about callused arms and the the Aristocracy of labor, which I was not doing too properly”, he wrote in his 1994 autobiography. He went on to study drama in London before moving to the United States.
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He co-founded the Israeli Chamber Theater before leaving in 1946 for London, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and took early West End roles, including “A Streetcar Named Desire” with Vivian Leigh.
