Theodore Bikel

Overview

Theodore Bikel is one of the most versatile and respected actors and performers of his generation. A master of languages, dialects and accents, he has played every sort of film villain and semi-bad guy imaginable, and always adds depth, dimension and even sympathy to characters that would end up as cardboard cutouts in the hands of lesser actors. His memorable supporting roles include a German naval officer in The African Queen (1951), the king of Serbia in Moulin Rouge (1952) and a German submarine officer in The Enemy Below (1957). He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Defiant Ones (1958). Equally at home on the stage, Bikel is remembered for creating the role of Captain Von Trapp in the original Broadway cast of "The Sound of Music" opposite Mary Martin. He also appeared on stage in "Tonight in Samarkand", "The Lark" and "The Rope Dancers". Bikel is fluent in more than half a dozen European and Middle Eastern languages, and sings folk songs in nearly 20 languages, skillfully accompanying himself on guitar, mandolin, balalaika and harmonica. He was a regular on the early 1960s TV show Hootenanny (1963), a weekly cavalcade of folk music. Over the years he has performed on college campuses and in concert halls all over the country, and has recorded a number of record albums of folk music from around the world.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jim Bell <jmbl887@aol.com>

Had appeared as a member of a Mensa-like society in The Bye-Bye Sky High I.Q. Murder Case (1977)). In real life, he actually was a Mensa member.
Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the song "Edelweiss" specifically for him to perform on Broadway in "The Sound of Music".
Had performed the role of Tevye ("Fiddler on the Roof") over 2,000 times at various venues.
He made guest appearances on both of the longest running prime time dramas in US television history: Gunsmoke (1955) and Law & Order (1990).
Bikel's folk song record album, "Songs of a Russian Gypsy" (1958) became an unexpected hit and remained highly popular through the early 1960s. This became Elektra Records' best selling album at the time.

You learn more from the flops than from the hits.
What moves me is neither ethnocentric pride nor sectarian arrogance. I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures. But it is mine.
No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed by mere declarations.
I tried for awhile to be an agricultural worker and was hopelessly bored. I would stand around in heaps of manure and sing about the beauty of the work I wasn't doing.
I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

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