An award-winning actor on screen and stage (
The Defiant Ones
,
The African Queen
,
The Sound of Music
,
My Fair Lady
,
Fiddler on the Roof
), an activist for civil rights and progressive causes worldwide, and a singer whose voice has won him great applause, Theodore Bikel here tells his own compelling life story. Born in Austria, raised in Palestine, educated in England, and wi
An award-winning actor on screen and stage (
The Defiant Ones
,
The African Queen
,
The Sound of Music
,
My Fair Lady
,
Fiddler on the Roof
), an activist for civil rights and progressive causes worldwide, and a singer whose voice has won him great applause, Theodore Bikel here tells his own compelling life story. Born in Austria, raised in Palestine, educated in England, and with a stellar career in the United States and around the world, Bikel offers a personal history parallel to momentous events of the twentieth century. In an eloquent, fiercely committed voice, he writes of the Third Reich, the birth of the State of Israel, the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950s, and the tumultuous 1960s in America. In a new postscript to this paperback edition, he looks at recent events in the Middle East and takes both sides to task for their excesses.
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Paperback
,
480 pages
Published
September 5th 2002
by University of Wisconsin Press
(first published August 19th 2002)
Whether you enjoyed Theodore Bikel as a stage actor, a film actor in such roles as the first officer of the German gunboat in "The African Queen," the southern sheriff in "The Defiant Ones" (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), the "hairy hound from Budapest" in "My Fair Lady," the submarine captain in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," U-Boat officer in "The Enemy Below," or as Rance Muhammitz in Frank Zappa's "200 Motels," as a folk singer and one of the founders
Whether you enjoyed Theodore Bikel as a stage actor, a film actor in such roles as the first officer of the German gunboat in "The African Queen," the southern sheriff in "The Defiant Ones" (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), the "hairy hound from Budapest" in "My Fair Lady," the submarine captain in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," U-Boat officer in "The Enemy Below," or as Rance Muhammitz in Frank Zappa's "200 Motels," as a folk singer and one of the founders of the Newport Folk Festival, a civil rights campaigner, an Actors Equity official, a creator and officer of The National Endowment For The Arts, his contribution to the arts in America has been huge. Born in Austria, raised in Palestine, educated in England and with a career which took him to the U.S. and around the world he's been a one-man whirlwind. This edition of his autobiography celebrates his 90th birthday and he writes about his range of activities with insight, compassion, humour, and a clear critical eye, including sections on the birth of Israel and the troubles in the Middle East.
He's a skilled storyteller and his observations of people and events contain much hard-earned wisdom. A very worthwhile biography of a compelling man. - BH.
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