Samuel (Zero)
Mostel was born in Brooklyn, New York City,
on 28th February, 1915. The son of Jewish
immigrants, Mostel attended art classes at the Educational Alliance
with Ben
Shahn.
After
graduating from high school, Mostel enrolled in the City College of
New York. This was followed by a year at New York University.
In
1937 Mostel joined the Federal
Art Project (part
of the Works Projects
Administration) and taught
art at the 92nd Street Young Men and Young Women's Hebrew Association.
He
also gave lectures at various museums. Mostel talks were very humourous
and he was soon being invited to perform at private parties and local
clubs. It was during this period that a press agent at one of the
clubs gave him the nickname Zero because he was a "guy who's
started from nothing".
Mostel
joined the United
States Army in
1943 but was discharged because of an unspecified physical disability.
For the rest of the Second World War Mostel
entertained American troops overseas.
After
the war Mostel continued to work as a standup comedian in nightclubs.
He also started acting and appeared in the film Panic
in the Streets in 1950. This was followed by Sirocco
(1951), The Guy Who Came Back (1951),
The Enforcer (1951) and The
Model and the Marriage Broker (1951).
Mostel
held left-wing political views and when the House
of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began an investigation
into the Hollywood Motion Picture Industry it was not long before
he was called to give evidence. Mostel
denied he was a member of the Communist
Party but he refused to provide information about the political
opinions of his friends.
Mostel
was now blacklisted and this made it very difficult
for him to work in the entertainment industry.
Around 320 artists, including Larry
Adler, Stella Adler, Leonard
Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Joseph
Bromberg,
Charlie
Chaplin,
Aaron Copland, Hanns
Eisler, Edwin
Rolfe,
Carl Foreman, John
Garfield,
Howard
Da Silva,
Dashiell
Hammett, E.
Y. Harburg,
Lillian
Hellman,
Burl Ives, Arthur
Miller,
Dorothy Parker, Philip
Loeb, Joseph
Losey, Anne
Revere,
Pete Seeger,
Gale
Sondergaard,
Louis
Untermeyer,
Josh
White, Clifford
Odets, Michael Wilson, Paul
Jarrico, Jeff Corey, John
Randolph, Canada
Lee, Orson Welles,
Paul Green, Sidney
Kingsley, Paul
Robeson, Richard
Wright and Abraham Polonsky,
were also blacklisted.
For the next few years Mostel found it difficult to find work in clubs
and theatres and had to supplement his income by trying to sell his
paintings. In 1958 a friend managed to get him the part of Leopold
Bloom in the Off-Broadway production of Ulysses.
He was a great success and won an Obie.
With
the blacklist over Mostel returned to work in TV. In January 1960
Mostel was involved in a serious road accident and spent over five
months in hospital. After his recovery he appeared in several hit
Broadway shows including Rhinoceros,
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Forum and Fiddler on the Roof.
Mostel
also appeared in the films A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), The
Producers (1968), The Great Bank
Robbery (1969), Rhinoceros
(1973), Once Upon a Scoundrel
(1973) and Journey Into Fear (1975).
In 1976 Mostel appeared in The Front,
a film about the Hollywood Blacklist.
Zero Mostel died of a heart-attack on 8th September 1977.
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