Fyvush Finkel

Philip "Fyvush" Finkel was born on October 9, 1922, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York City, the third of four sons of Jewish immigrant parents. His mother, Mary ("Miryam"), was a housewife originally from Minsk, Belarus, and his father, Harry ("Cwi Hirsh") Finkel, was a tailor from Warsaw. He adopted "Fyvush," a common Yiddish given name, as his stage name. Finkel died in Manhattan on August 14, 2016, at the age of 93, from heart problems.

Finkel took his first steps on stage at age nine and spent nearly 35 years performing in the Yiddish theaters of Manhattan's Lower East Side, as well as working as a standup comic in the Catskills' Borscht Belt. He played child roles until his mid-teens, after which he enrolled in a vocational high school to study furriery, a trade he never practiced professionally. Upon graduating, he joined a Jewish stock company in Pittsburgh for 38 weeks, an experience he later credited as foundational to his adult development as a performer. As the ethnic theater venues that had sustained his career began to decline in the early 1960s, Finkel transitioned to Broadway.

His Broadway career spanned 1964 to 1989. He made his Broadway debut in the original 1964 production of Fiddler on the Roof, joining the cast in 1965 as Mordcha, the innkeeper, in a run that continued through July 2, 1972. He returned to the show in the limited-run 1981 Broadway revival, this time in the role of Lazar Wolf, the butcher, and subsequently portrayed the lead role of Tevye the milkman in the national touring company. During the same period, he succeeded Hy Anzell as Mr. Mushnik in the Off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors. In 1988, his portrayal of Sam in the New York Shakespeare Festival revival of the Yiddish classic Cafe Crown earned him both an Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play.

Finkel's screen career began with his film debut in the Yiddish sketch-comedy revue Monticello, Here We Come in 1950. Decades later, he appeared in a 1977 episode of Kojak and the 1985 miniseries Evergreen before returning to film in the detective comedy Off Beat in 1986. That same year, he appeared opposite Robin Williams in a PBS American Playhouse adaptation of Saul Bellow's novel Seize the Day and took a role in the film adaptation of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs. A role as a lawyer in Sidney Lumet's Q & A in 1990 brought him to the attention of television producer and writer David E. Kelley, who cast him as public defender Douglas Wambaugh in the CBS series Picket Fences, which ran from 1992 to 1996. Finkel received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the role in 1994, remarking at the televised ceremony that he had waited 51 years for that moment. He also received an American Comedy Award for the performance in 1993.

Following Picket Fences, Finkel appeared in the short-lived ABC revival of Fantasy Island in 1998 and subsequently reteamed with Kelley to play Harvey Lipschultz, a history teacher, in the Fox series Boston Public, which ran from 2000 to 2004. His film appearances during the 1990s and 2000s included Nixon and The Crew, and he provided voiceovers for episodes of The Simpsons and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, as well as the animated direct-to-video feature The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. He guest-starred on television series including Chicago Hope, Law & Order, and Early Edition. In 2009, he appeared in the Coen brothers' film A Serious Man, and in 2013 made a guest appearance on Blue Bloods.

Finkel continued to perform on stage throughout his later career, including Fyvush Finkel: From Second Avenue to Broadway in 1997 and Classic Stage Company's production of David Ives's historical drama New Jerusalem in 2007. He was married to Trudi Lieberman from March 1947 until her death in 2009. The couple had two sons: Ian, a musical arranger and xylophonist, and Elliot, a concert pianist.