I have just lost a friend and the world lost a giant of song, stage and film
Theo Bikel, 1924-2015 RIP
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Theodor Bikel, an Austrian Jew born in Vienna in 1924, was doing theater before he emigrated to the USA. A brilliant linguist, he used to say he spoke 35 languages, 17 of which were Yiddish.
A great actor, he had a role in "The African Queen" with Humphrey Bogart before I was even born. He played the Soviet submarine captain in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!" which was of my favorite films of the 1960s. He played in "The Sound of Music," and was a memorable Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof" for countless times on the Stage. I was there for his "Theodore Bikel, the first 85 years" concert in Carnegie Hall in 2009, and got to meet Tom Paxton and Peter Yarrow and Noel ("Paul"
Stuckey (Mary Travers was ill and died shorty afterward). Theo was a brilliant folk singer, and was featured at the Newport Folk Festival in the 1960s along with Bob Dylan. He had roles in TV series like "Dynasty" and "Law And Order." He was EVERYWHERE. In his last years, he did a lot of Yiddish theater in Poland and Israel.
One time, when we had just celebrated the New Year, Theo told me, "get your guitar. We will sing Russian songs." So, I got my guitar, he grabbed his, and we snuck off to an empty room in the hotel we were staying in, and played duets of Russian folk songs for nearly an hour. Here, one of my all time musical heroes invites ME to play a duet! At 1 AM on January first, a concert that would have sold out a medium sized hall in New York, Los Angeles, or probably even Tel Aviv for all I know (I've never been to Israel), took place in a small conference room of a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. The audience consisted of my wife and two local janitors who had no clue who Theo was, or what we were singing, but they sure knew that one of us (namely Theo), was amazingly good at what he was doing. To me, a lover of old Russian folk songs, this was the equivalent of being offered to do a guitar duet with Eric Clapton or Mark Knopfler or Leo Kottke. It was like Jaco Pastorius inviting an amateur bassist to come up on stage and do "Birdland" with him.
Theo didn't instantly warm to new acquaintances. We were introduced by Suzie Katz, a professional photographer from San Francisco and a mutual friend. But we had SO many mutual interests, it didn't take long before we became friends, too. I'm not Bob Dylan or Humphrey Bogart or anything, but we had plenty of musical tastes in common, and that makes up for plenty if you're a musician.
Auf Wiedersehen, alter Freund, Du wirst vermisst.
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And what a man he was!
I hope your good memories of all the good times will sustain you as you pass through this time of grief...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/entertainment/obit-theodore-bikel-thr-feat/index.html
and in 1961, he founded the Newport Folk Festival!
Amazing man!
heard about it this morning.
I was informed of my elder sister's passing yesterday... knew it was coming too but still hits home when it actually happens. Have to work today, the blessing there is that I'm so busy I can't think about anything but work while I'm there... but I look like hell and have to greet the vacationing public, hope I don't scare anyone. This whole season it seems that I go to work to escape my personal hellish life of late.
I try to ease the sadness by accepting that the suffering for them has ended, at the very least.
*sigh*
He was, indeed, a giant in the world of theatre and film.
What a marvelous personal reminiscence of playing Russian songs together!
