This collection primarily consists of correspondence and subject files pertaining to Theodore Bikel's careers in music, stage, film, and television, as well as personal and family matters, and political and social activism. Also included are sheet music, scripts, and screenplays; clippings and ephemera; audiovisual material; awards; and a small amount of photographs.

Actor, folk singer, and political activist Theodore Bikel was born in Vienna, Austria on May 2, 1924. In 1938, Nazi Germany invaded Austria and Bikel's family emigrated to British administered Palestine, where he lived on a kibbutz. Bikel got his start in acting at the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv. He emigrated to Great Britain following World War II to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, performing several roles on the London stage in the 1940s. Bikel made his Broadway debut in Tonight in Samarkand in 1955, making the decision soon after to emigrate to the United States. In 1959, he originated the role of Baron von Trapp in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music, opposite Mary Martin. His best-known stage role was that of "Tevye" in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, with more than 2000 performances over several decades. Bikel's film debut was in The African Queen (1951); he also appeared in The Defiant Ones (1956), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966), among others. He was cast in numerous television roles during his career in both sitcoms and dramas. His stage, film, and television roles encompassed a wide variety of nationalities.

120.8 Linear Feet (249 boxes, 56 flat boxes)

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