Zero Mostel

Zero Mostel is one of my favorite comedic actors! Since two of his movies in my Thursday Thirteen post, I am going to tell you a little more about him.

Zero Mostel was born 28 February 1915 in New York as Samuel Joel Mostel. He was one of eight children in an Orthodox Jewish Family. He started in the arts by painting and drawing and later earned a degree in art at the City College of New York. He then went on to teach both drawing and painting.

Mostel started his comedic career at a downtown nightclub in New York where he got his nickname Zero (because he started from nothing). He was a huge hit and was hired for 141 performances. He then went on to Broadway in 1942 to star in “Keep ‘em Laughing” which ran for 77 shows. During the WWII he entertained the troops.

Blacklisted in the 1950s for refusing to “name names” in the Communist Witchhunt he lost movie and nightclub deals. However, he was able to get roles in the theater.

His firs big Broadway hit was “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. He played “Pseudolus” with Jack Gilford playing “xx”. The play was choreographed by Jerome Robbins. It opened on May 8, 1962 and wan for 964 performances! He later revised the A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum role in the 1966 movie with Jack Gilford.

But the next performance had it beat! He opened as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1964 and it did not close for eight years! There were over 3,000 performances. Unfortunately, Mostel was not cast as Tevye in movie version of Fiddler on the Roof.

One of my favorite roles was that of Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks’ The Producers with Gene Wilder.

Both his Forum role and Producers role was successfully played by Nathan Lane on Broadway. Lane’s comedic style reminds me of Mostel!

In 1976 he revived his role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and was cast to play Shylock in The Merchant (a different take on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice). He was looking forward to the role, but was hospitalized and died from an aneurysm at the age of 62 on September 8, 1972. He had been married to Kathryn Harkin for 33 years and had 2 children.

You might recognize Mostel’s son Josh Mostel in the film Billy Madison. He was the Principal that used to be a pro wrestler!