Zero Mostel was born Samuel Joel Mostel on February 28, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York, one of eight children of an Orthodox Jewish family. Raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the young Zero, known as Sammy, developed his talent for painting and drawing at art classes provided by the Educational Alliance, an institution serving Jewish immigrants and their children. Sammy often would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to copy the paintings. Sam Mostel matriculated at the City College of New York, then entered a master's program in art at New York University after graduating from CCNY in 1935. He dropped out after a year and worked at odd jobs before being hired by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project to teach drawing and painting at the 92nd Street "Y", the famous Young Men and Young Women's Hebrew Association located on Manhattan's 92nd St., in 1937. Mostel married Clara Sverd, a CCNY classmate, in 1939, but the marriage was troubled due to personality conflicts. The couple separated in 1941 and divorced in 1944. While still teaching, Mostel supplemented his income by providing gallery lectures at various museums under the aegis of the WPA. His lectures were full of jokes as Mostel personally was a clown, and subsequently he was hired to perform at private parties. Mostel auditioned as a comedian at the downtown nightclub Cafe Society in late 1941, a jazz club. Initially rejected, owner Barney Josephson hired Mostel after Pearl Harbor, figuring his patrons, now at war, could use some laughs. It was Ivan Black, the club's press agent, who gave Sam Mostel the nickname Zero, explaining, "Here's a guy who's starting from nothing." Debuting at the Cafe Society on February 16, 1942, Zero was a hit with audiences and the critics, Simultaneously, Zero began appearing in the play "Cafe Crown" at the Cort Theatre, which opened on January 23, 1942 and played through May 23rd, closing after 141 performances. Zero made some impromptu appearances on stage, but he wasn't officially part of the cast of the play, which was staged by 'Elia Kazan' 's "The Merchant," a pro-Jewish reimagining of 'William Shakespeare''s "The Merchant of Venice." Mostel had great hopes that his Shylock would be the crowning achievement of his career and put him back on top. His huge talent and larger-than-life persona seemed to do better on stage. This was not to come to pass. He fell ill after a tryout performance in Philadelphia in September and was hospitalized. On September 8, 1977, Zero Mostel died from an aortic aneurysm at the age of sixty-two. One of the greatest, most unique, and definitely irreplaceable talents to grace the American stage and movies had passed away. We are unlikely to look on his likes again.
One of the "12" blacklisted by the house of Un-American activities commitee in the 1950s.
Father of sons Josh Mostel (b. 1946) and Tobias Mostel.
Tony Award winner 1961 for "Rhinoceros."
Tony Award winner 1964 for "Fiddler On The Roof."
Blacklisted in the 1950s.
Nathan Lane starred on Broadway, and in the 2005 movie, as Max Bialystock in The Producers and on Broadway as Pseudolus in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". Zero Mostel played both characters in the earlier film versions.
He drank so much coffee that he was once hospitalized for caffeine poisoning.
According to his wishes, he had no funeral or "any memorial service to mark (his) passing."
Won three Tony Award: as Best Actor in1961 for "Rhinoceros," and as Best Actor in 1963 for "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and in 1965 for "Fiddler on the Roof." He was also nominated in 1974 as Best Actor for "Ulysses in Nighttown."
He testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on October 14, 1955. In a playful mood, he told the Committee that he was employed by "19th Century-Fox." He told the Committee that he would gladly discuss his own conduct but was prohibited by religious convictions from naming others. His refusal to name names resulted in his "blacklisting," and he did not star in a film for another 11 years.
In the 1950s, he bumped into Elia Kazan on the street in New York City, and the two reminisced. Kazan said Mostel chided him for putting Mostel through the paces in Panic in the Streets , forcing him to run more than he ever had. But as the drinks set in, legend has it, Mostel kept muttering, in reference to Kazans HUAC testimony, "Ya shouldnt a done that. Ya shouldnt a done that."
Was a staunch liberal Democrat.
He was to originally star in Red and Blue which along with the short films The Ride of the Valkyrie, directed by Peter Brook and The White Bus directed by Lindsay Anderson were to be released as a film titled Red, White and Zero and was listed in a 1968 United Artists publicity brochure.
If you know my name, how can I be a zero? Smart, huh?,Jerome Robbins may be a talented choreographer, but he is no mensch.
