#zero mostel

[oldnewyork]

Zero Mostel & cast, Fiddler on the Roof, 1964 (Broadway)

[citizenscreen]

“This is how it’s done”

Mel Brooks directing Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in THE PRODUCERS (1967)

[unwelcome-ephestion]

We have lost a legend today in Chaim Topol, who immortalised Reb Tevye onscreen in Fiddler on the Roof. Zero Mostel originated the role on Broadway, but Norman Jewison was keen to hire someone who did not bring a pre existing persona to the role, and so the role went to Israeli actor Topol. He was a rogue choice - only 30, a role of a man supposed to have adult daughters, and with very little English, but Jewison's casting was inspired. Tevye would become the role of a lifetime for Topol - he would play him onstage more than 3,500 times.

During the famous If I Were a Rich Man scene, he later revealed that he was fighting a horrendous toothache, claiming that he sounded odd because of it. The scene took three days because of the pain. It's still a wonderful scene - take a look below.

L'chaim, sunrise, sunset. May his memory be a blessing.

[tygerland]

The Producers (1967)

[rcade]

“You’re making me extremely nervous…!”

[quiteunlikely-screencaps]

Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock and Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom in The Producers (1967)

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950)

[gameraboy2]

Zero Mostel Sings Harry Ruby's Songs My Mother Never Sang

[oldshowbiz]

[cafenervosa]

But if you only knew how bored I was with the work I'm doing, eight hours a day, week after week. When Saturday night comes around I'm exhausted from having done nothing with my life.

RHINOCEROS (1974)

[ID in alt text]

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[citizenscreen]

Remembering Zero Mostel on his birthday #botd

[mariocki]

The Enforcer (Murder, Inc., 1951)

"In seven more hours, Mendoza walks out of that courtroom a free man. How can that be? What's wrong with the law that we can't touch him? Oh, I know, our kind of laws are designed to protect the innocent. It's not enough that we know a man is guilty, we have to prove it."

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Does anybody know if there's a video (proshot or bootleg) of the Nathan Lane A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (or really any professional theater production?). The movie is great but it cuts some of my favorite songs.

[driveintheaterofthemind]

Vintage Poster - La Città è Salva (The Enforcer) (Italian)

Art by Luigi Martinati

Warner Bros. (1951)

[davidhudson]

Zero Mostel, February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977.

1963 photo by Robert Frank.