6 Things About ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ on 50th Anniversary

By Anne Cohen June 9, 2014

On Monday, the Folksbiene theater will celebrate the 50th anniversary “Fiddler on the Roof.” In honor of this auspicious birthday, we bring you a trove of obscure fun facts about the Jewish classic. If nothing else, you can bust it out at Shabbat dinner to one-up the family. What else is useless knowledge for?

1.Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner and John Ritter all auditioned for the part of the tailor Motel Kamzoil in the 1971 film version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The role eventually went to Leonard Frey.

2.The role of Perchick has an interesting cast history: The 1971 movie adaptation cast Paul Michael Glaser in the role. This is the very same Paul Michael Glaser who then went on to be the Starsky in “Starsky and Hutch.”

In the original Broadway production, Perchick was played by Bert Convy — future “Tattletales” game show host.

3.Paul Lipson holds the record for Tevye appearances, having played the character more than 2,000 times. But Theo Bikel says he was the only one born into the role:

“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.”

4.Bette Midler played the role of Tzeitel on Broadway from 1966 to 1969.

5.The title for “Fiddler on the Roof” comes from a Marc Chagall painting called “The Fiddler.” The sets used in the movie, designed by Boris Aronson, were also based on Chagall’s work.

6.Norman Jewison, who directed the “Fiddler on the Roof” movie, isn’t actually Jewish (with a name and credentials like that, he might as well just go ahead and convert).

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO