Zero Mostel was born 107 years ago today.
An actor and comedian of stage and screen, Mostel was best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers.
Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, using an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was a Tony Award and Obie Award winner, and was blacklisted during the 1950s. His testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities was well-publicized.
In the last four months of his life, Mostel took on a nutritionally unsound diet (later described by his friends as a starvation diet) that reduced his weight from 304 to 215 pounds.
During rehearsals for Arnold Wesker's new play, The Merchant, (in which Mostel played a re-imagined version of Shakespeare's Shylock) in Philadelphia, he collapsed in his dressing room and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
He was diagnosed with a respiratory disorder and it was believed he was in no danger and would be released soon. However, on September 8, 1977, Mostel complained of dizziness and lost consciousness. The attending physicians were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead that evening. It is believed that he suffered an aortic aneurysm. He was 62 years old.