Theodore Bikel

Theodore Bikel (Theodor Meir Bikel, 1924‑05‑02 – 2015‑07‑21) was a multifaceted Austrian‑American artist whose career spanned eight decades, encompassing stage, screen, and music. Born in Vienna, Austria to a Jewish family, he fled with his parents to Mandatory Palestine in 1938, where he first appeared onstage with the Habimah Theatre and helped found the Cameri Theatre before moving to London to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1945. His London debut in 1948 led to a string of British B‑movies, and his 1955 Broadway debut in Tonight in Samarkand launched a long‑running U.S. career that included the creation of Captain von Trapp in the original production of The Sound of Music and the record‑breaking portrayal of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, a role he performed over 2,000 times. In film he earned an Academy Award nomination for The Defiant Ones (1958) and appeared in classics such as The African Queen, My Fair Lady, and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. A celebrated folk singer, Bikel recorded more than twenty albums in twenty‑one languages, co‑founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, and popularized songs like “Edelweiss” that he himself composed for the stage. Beyond performance, he was a tireless unionist, serving as President of Actors’ Equity (1977‑1982) and of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America until 2014, while also championing civil‑rights, human‑rights, and Zionist causes. His personal life included four marriages—Ofra Ichilov, Rita Weinberg Call (with whom he had two sons, Robert and Daniel), Tamara Brooks, and Aimee Ginsburg—and a legacy that endures in theatre, cinema, and the folk music tradition.