 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saddening news, thanks. I'm sure we all have favorites among his film or TV appearances. The one time I saw him in person was the most impressive, to me, performing a solo mini-concert one evening at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. This was unfortunately the first Newport festival which did not find its highlights preserved on commercial LP's. It was also, as it happens, the Newport festival infamous for being the occasion when Bob Dylan shocked his followers by going electric...
Not many people nowadays may remember that Bikel was a guitarist/singer who had a substantial career totally aside from his acting gigs. Impressionable high schooler that I was, I found him thrilling and enthralling that night in Newport. And, I recall an ad lib moment which delighted the crowd. A jet passing overhead made a loud atomic Boom just as Bikel was relating the backstory of the murder ballad he was about to sing. BIKEL: "...and so one day he killed her --" (BOOM!) "-- with a KNIFE!" AUDIENCE: (Laughter.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sad news. I've got many "Milken Archive" CDs of Jewish classical music with Bikel as the narrator.
Also liked his guest role on "Columbo":
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Only have his Reprise LP "A New Day" that is beautiful.
His version of "Urge for goin'" (written by Joni Mitchell) is among my top 30 songs of all time.
You'll be missed Mr. Bikel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mr. Bikel starred in one of my favorite 10 episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE: 4 O'Clock (as Oliver Crangle)
|
|
|
|
|
|
And not to forget, the versatile Mr. B showed up in Frank Zappa's 200 MOTELS. What a cool guy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
If memory serves, he was nominated for a Supporting Oscar for his lawman in THE DEFIANT ONES. (Parenthetically, Lon Chaney Jr. was excellent in a single-scene role in this major motion picture. Looking back, it would seem that, first as producer and then as director, Stanley Kramer provided Chaney with virtually all of his precious few quality parts in the 50's, also including HIGH NOON and NOT AS A STRANGER.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'm very thankful that I got to see him as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof a few years back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"I'm Zoltan Karpathy, that marvelous boy."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
