Dead Picket Fences Actors Make Good Neighbors

Or

Picket Tombstones

(Props to Monty)

Fyvush Finkel, who simultaneously kept Yiddish theater alive and set it back 30 years, has died at the age of 93 of heart problems. With his giant nose and mushy features, Finkel had the visage of a snow sculpture left in the sun too long, which he used to great comedic effect. He started early on the Yiddish theater circuit, which consisted largely of Old World language adaptations of English classics, giving us Schlomo and Juliet, schmaltzy family melodramas with lots of yelling, and vaudeville standards, like the waiter who rebukes a customer for griping about a filthy napkin: “Eleven people used that napkin. You’re the only one who complained.” As Yiddish speaking audiences and Borscht Belt venues died out, Finkel needed a new outlet, and he found it in Anatevka, as the original Mordcha the innkeeper in Fiddler on the Roof, then in other roles in the revivals and traveling companies as he worked his way up to Tevye. Finkel was eventually inflicted upon the American public as cranky lawyer Douglas Wambaugh, tormenting the preternaturally quirky residents of Rome, Wisconsin on Picket Fences, for which he won an Emmy in 1994 as best supporting actor in a dramatic series. Finkel reprised his schtick as addled racist history teacher Harvey Lipschultz in David E. Kelley’s next series Boston Public.