Monday the Folksbiene theater is remembering “Fiddler on the Roof” for its 50th anniversary. Today I’m remembering that following its original star, the late Zero Mostel, came a symphony of Fiddlers.
Chaim Topol: “I did it all over the world. Israel, London, Japan, Australia, 4,000 US performances. In Hebrew ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ got changed to ‘If I Were a Rothschild’ because that name they knew.
“Before I did the film, which a billion people saw, only certain people came. Afterward we were packed with Greeks, Turks, Chinese. Familiar with the material, they did it in their schools, knew every gesture. They’d wait outside the stage door.”
Theodore Bikel: “I knew shtetl life better than anybody. I am who I am. Others had to reach for Tevye’s soul. My model was my pious, religious, learned grandfather who once said, ‘God has given up on our people, so I abandon God.’ And he gave up the synagogue. Two years later, back praying, he said: ‘Maybe this will help.’ You can’t get more Tevye than that.
“When the lyricist Sheldon Harnick saw me do it he said, ‘This is no shtick. From where did these bare bones come? I’m seeing Tevye for the first time.’
“Luther Adler was picked for the first national company. He suggested they cut ‘If I Were a Rich Man.’ Luther only lasted a few weeks.”
Tevye’s chorus includes Alfred Molina, now shooting a movie in LA, and Harvey Fierstein, who’s doing everything.
Alfred Molina remembered a 2004 moment at a Tony luncheon where I asked if he’d learned anything playing Tevye. He responded churlishly: “No!”
Now: “Critics said we’d taken the soul out of the play, and why’s a non-Jew playing Tevye? It’s like asking can Liev Schreiber play Henry V. I was tense. I’m sorry. I now know playing in an iconic musical carries great weight.”
P.S. A Zero Mostel gift to a pal backstage during “Fiddler” was grabbable at celebrity memorabilia place Norma Jean’s. A 23-inch silver-finished “Fiddler” figure. Yours for $125.
Spacey keeps his distance
Talented Frank Underwood in “House of Cards” is talented in many ways. As the Old Vic’s artistic director, Kevin Spacey’s fans packed the stage door. He developed a plan. After the curtain, 10:30 p.m., he learned to grab programs and paper scraps, and sign autographs to 10:45. This way he didn’t have to actually meet les miz. Less chit chat, less time, less hassle, less masses, less smiling.
Pay attention
After filming Judd Apatow’s “Trainwreck” with Bill Hader and Amy Schumer on East 63rd, the cast clambered into a van for a Sutton Place “dusk” shot . . . SOMETHING called Transparency International of Berlin measured corruption in 41 countries. Least corrupt? New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore. Most corrupt, they claim: China, Indonesia. America — 14th least-corrupt — is slightly behind Japan and France.
Odds & ends
Coming up is a play by Elia Kazan’s granddaughter. Zoe Kazan’s been onstage, in movies and has written dramas since the junior year in Yale . . . ANIMAL Planet’s bearded, tattooed, balding, earring-wearing cat daddy Jackson Galaxy from “My Cat From Hell” series has a book out come October. “Catification.” How to make your home feline friendly, it’s catnip for calicos, Abyssinians, Persians.
Antique dealer Vito Giallo: “Leon Black, who owns Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ for 120 million, bought my cast-iron bench, which somehow accidentally broke upon the trucker’s delivery. After having it welded, he resold it for a lady’s country home. The day after this second delivery, lightning struck a tree. The tree fell on the bench crushing it beyond repair.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.