---
name: "Theodore Bikel"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/theodore-bikel"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "2 May 1924"
died: "21 July 2015"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 81
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-17T20:15:01.476745+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Theodore Bikel

Actor. Born 2 May 1924 in Vienna, Austria. Died 21 July 2015.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 2 May 1924, Vienna, Austria
- **Died:** 21 July 2015
- **Active:** 1952–1994
- **Also known as:** Theodore Meir Bikel, Теодор Байкел, تئودور بیکل, Theodor Meir Bikel
- **Average Fi1m score:** 81, as actor, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 84 (1), 1970s 86 (1), 1990s 74 (1)
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 1 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 0 of 1 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Drama 3, Action & Adventure 1, Adventure 1, Crime 1, Mystery 1, Romance 1
- **Screen time:** 2 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $11m across 1 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q215721, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000942/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/6609

## Biography

Theodore Bikel (1924–2015) was an Austrian-born actor, folk singer and musician. He fled Vienna with his family after the Nazi occupation and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His film debut was as the First Officer in *The African Queen* (1951).

Bikel received an Academy Award nomination for his role as Sheriff Max Muller in *The Defiant Ones* (1958). On stage he created the part of Captain von Trapp in the original Broadway production of *The Sound of Music* (1959) and played Tevye in *Fiddler on the Roof* more than two thousand times. He co-founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and appeared in numerous television series including *Star Trek: The Next Generation* and *Columbo*.

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, nytimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Babylon 5* (1994), Fi1m 74, as Rabbi Koslov — [page](https://film.one/tv/babylon-5.md)
- *Columbo* (1971), Fi1m 86, as Oliver Brandt — [page](https://film.one/tv/columbo.md)
- *The African Queen* (1952), Fi1m 84, as First Officer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-african-queen.md)

## Also known for

- *My Fair Lady* (1964), Zoltan Karpathy
- *Knight Rider* (1982), Graham Deauville
- *Little House on the Prairie* (1974), Yuli Pyatakov
- *Murder, She Wrote* (1984), Rosanno Bertolucci, Yuri Lermentov, Inspector Van Horn, Professor Harold Crenshaw
- *JAG* (1995), Farmer with Plane
- *The Defiant Ones* (1958), Sheriff Max Muller
- *Beauty and the Beast* (1987), Eli
- *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* (1955), Sergeant Ottermole

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/theodore-bikel