A file photo of Theodore Bikel. (Image courtesy: AFP)
Tony- and Oscar-nominated actor Theodore Bikel, who defined the stage role of Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, died in Los Angeles aged 91 on July 21, his publicist said.
Mr Bikel, who also originated the role of Captain Georg von Trapp in the stage production of
The Sound of Music, died at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, said Harlan Boll.
The cause of death was not given. Born in Vienna in 1924, he fled the 1938 invasion of Austria by Nazi Germany, heading for the Middle East, where his acting career began a few years later at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv.
He co-founded the Israeli Chamber Theater before leaving in 1946 for London, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and took early West End roles, including
A Streetcar Named Desire with Vivian Leigh.
Mr Bikel received Tony nominations in 1958 for
The Rope Dancers and in 1960 for
The Sound of Music.
On the big screen, his first cinema credit was in the 1951 classic
The African Queen, while he scored a Best Actor in Supporting Role nomination for the 1958 drama
The Defiant Ones.
Other roles included dialect coach Zoltan Karpathy in the 1964 film version of
My Fair Lady.
But it was his role as Tevye - played by Topol in the 1971 big screen version - that dominated Mr Bikel's career with over 2,000 Broadway performances of
Fiddler on the Roof.
"He was a really lovely, entertaining, caring person," Mr Bikel's agent Robert Malcolm told Entertainment Weekly. "He was a wonderful storyteller and a deeply caring man."
He is survived by his fourth wife, Aimee Ginsburg-Bikel, two sons and three grandchildren.