Theodore Bikel

Theodore Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1924. But his Jewish origin forced him to take the path of exile as a teenager. Palestine was his first destination after the annexation of his country by Adolf Hitler in 1938. But then he would go to study dramatic art in London, and from the United Kingdom he would cross the pond ready to succeed in the epicenter of show business in the United States. Undoubtedly, his cosmopolitan profile helped him, thanks to which he mastered several languages ​​and accents, which would help him compose exotic characters and sing in 20 different languages.

Although they were small roles, his German officers in The African Queen and Duel in the Atlantic , or the Serbian King Milo in Moulin Rouge are unforgettable . He would earn an Oscar nomination for his role as a sheriff in the prison break Fugitives , and starred opposite Susan Hayward in the capital punishment drama I Want to Live . He also played a Russian in the cold war comedy The Russians Are Coming! . He liked to say that he learned more from failures than from successes, which explains why his career never suffered prolonged lapses without work.

On Broadway, his composition as Captain Von Trapp in the original stage version of “The Sound of Music”, later made into a film, would be highly praised. And although he performed “Fiddler on the Roof” more than two thousand times, the only musical in which he appeared on the big screen was My Fair Lady , where he was Zoltan Karpathy, Professor Higgins’ rival. In addition to singing, he played various instruments such as the guitar, violin, mandolin, harmonica, and balalaika. He would be a two-time Tony nominee.

He worked frequently on television, on series such as Falcon Crest and Murder, She Wrote .

Married four times, he is survived by his last wife, Aimee Ginsburg, and two children he had with Rita Weinberg Call, with whom he spent more than 40 years.