Topol Awarded Israel Prize.

By Variety and Israel News Faxx Editor Don Canaan

Israeli actor Chaim Topol best known for his performance as Tevye the milkman in "Fiddler On the Roof," (See https://youtu.be/gRdfX7ut8gw) has been awarded Israel's highest honor: the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Israel's Education Ministry, which oversees the prize, announced the award on Monday.

Topol, 79, is among Israel's most decorated actors. The winner of two Golden Globes, including one for his performance as Tevye, he has also been nominated for both an Academy Award and a Tony Award.

He broke onto the Israeli screen in 1964's "Sallah Shabati," a racially tinged comedy that was one of the first true Israeli hits, and which made history for being the first Israeli film to ever earn an Oscar nomination. (See https://youtu.be/NHhEpbkLCJ8)

During his long career, Topol has also appeared on Broadway and West End stages and in films in both Israel and Hollywood. He played the title role in Joseph Losey's "Galileo," appeared as Dr. Hans Zarkov in "Flash Gordon," and aided James Bond in the role of Milos Columbo in "For Your Eyes Only."

Topol lives in Tel Aviv and is also a well known activist for children with special needs. He will share the Lifetime Achievement Award with Esther Herlitz, 93, the founder of Israel's umbrella organization for voluntary services.

Why is he known only by his last name? "I call myself Chaim Topol but even in Israel, people call me Topol. I don't know why, he told Don Canaan." The quality of an actor's performance depends upon the other cast members. "Playing opposite different people in each cast (on the road and on Broadway) brings different qualities to the show...This set of (five) daughters (in Fiddler on the Roof) is the best set I ever had," Topol said.

Canaan interviewed Topol in 1990 for The American Israelite: "When I did it first I was 30

years old...Emotionally, it becomes harder because I probably know more now than I knew when I was 30." Topol said.

Asked about his role as Tevye, Topol said: "It's a tiring job to perform every night. I'm trying to

get as much sleep as I can. But this is part of the job." He said he has grown a beard for the part and, unlike the time he played the film role "I don't have to make it gray." When he was 35, "they used liquid rubber for wrinkles around my eyes, so people expect to meet a man of 90 when they

see me."

Since Fiddler opened on Broadway in 1964, it has been performed in many countries worldwide--including Japan. Excluding himself (who played the part briefly in the Israeli version and later in the British and film productions), Topol was asked who he considered to be the best

Tevye." I'm not a referee and I'm not a critic," he said, "but the one that impressed me most was (the late Israeli entertainer) Shmuel Rodensky (in 1965). He was the one who really made me love the part."

In addition to Hebrew, Rodensky acted the part in Yiddish, but this production failed. "By the time they did it in Yiddish," he said, "everyone had already seen it twice in Hebrew."

The son of Polish immigrants who moved to Tel Aviv in 1930, Topol worked as a printer at the Davar newspaper before being drafted. His entertainment career started while in the Israeli army's theater company.

He does not see Tevye as Everyman. He sees "Tevye as Tevye. But there are some ingredients in him that people can identify with. If you are a father with daughters growing up; if you've been married 20 or 30 years and from time to time you stop for a moment and think, 'Do I love my

wife and does she love me'; you can identify with this part of Tevye."

This reporter nostalgically recalled his early years when he saw Herschel Bernardi (the second Tevye) play the part on Broadway. Just as this performance seemed to occur just yesterday, so then, many American Jews remain but a few days distant from their roots in "Anatevka" and

other shtetls.

It has been said that the only difference between a contemporary American Jew and a

Romanian-Polish-Russian shtetl Jew of old is one small thing that a grandfather took upon himself.

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Publication:	Israel Faxx
Geographic Code:	7ISRA
Date:	Mar 31, 2015
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