Fyvush Finkel, an Emmy Award-winning actor who began his career performing in the Yiddish theater, died Aug. 14 in his home in Manhattan. He was 93.
Finkel played in the 1990s CBS drama series “Picket Fences” and in the early 2000s he appeared in the Fox series “Boston Public.” He died of heart failure, the New York Times reported.
Finkel, who spent most of his early career on the Lower East Side of New York City performing in the Yiddish theater, was popular in his niche stage community when he broke into the mainstream in 1964 with the national stage production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” playing Mordcha the innkeeper.
In 1981 he took on the lead “Fiddler” role of Tevye the milkman in a national touring production. Soon thereafter, he landed a part in the off-Broadway production of “Little Shop of Horrors” and won an Obie Award for his work in the New York Shakespeare Festival revival of “Cafe Crown.”
On the big screen, Finkel had a breakout performance in the 1990 Sidney Lumet film “Q&A” as a corrupt attorney. He also appeared in “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “For Love or Money” and “Nixon.”
Finkel appeared in the Yiddish, sepia-toned prologue of the Coen brothers’ 2009 film “A Serious Man,” playing Reb Groshkover, apparently a dybbuk (in Jewish lore, the wandering soul of a dead person that has entered the body of a living person and controls his or her behavior).
Two years later he starred in the film “The Other Men in Black,” playing a grandfather who recounts stories of Hasidic life.
On television, Finkel played public defender Douglas Wambaugh in “Picket Fences,” for which he was twice Emmy nominated, winning in 1994. He soon became a favorite of “Fences” creator David Kelley, who also cast him in “Boston Public” as an eccentric high school teacher.
Two years after “Picket Fences” ended its run in 2004, Finkel was cast in a remake of the ABC series “Fantasy Island,” but the show was canceled after 13 episodes, according to Variety. — jta