On the twenty-first day of our Holiday tour, we fly past
Zero Mostel, a slightly off-kilter angelic talent, whose exceptional presence may have been too large for movies.
Zero's seraphim, swathed in what looks like my grandmother's drapes, circa 1965, seems to be readying himself to help us celebrate all festivals of light at this darkest time of year, whether Christmas or, as is occurring at sundown this evening, the first night of Chanukah.
Brooklyn-born
Samuel Joel Mostel was the son of a skilled vintner of sacred wines who struggled to make a living. Despite their economic straits, as a boy,
Zero's mother dressed him in velvet suits and, taking advantage of New York City's artistic wealth, sent the artistically adept lad to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to copy the masters. Perhaps in self-defense,
Mostel also developed a keen sense of the absurd laced with his occasionally ribald sense of humor as he grew up. One of his antics including enthralling amused gallery patrons by copying paintings upside down. Studying art at CCNY during the Depression, he eventually graduated and worked for a pittance from the Public Works of Art Project.
Zero gave many art lectures for the PWAP, lacing his lectures with funny asides that made him extremely popular and encouraged his extroverted side.
However, it wasn't until 1941, when at age 27,
Zero or Zee to his friends) found a way to utilize his rapid paced multi-lingual skills into routines that slayed cosmopolitan audiences at Cafe Society, a downtown supper club. Radio and Broadway followed, along with a serious attempt to play in
The Beggar's Opera, as did, inevitably, attempts to make it in the movies, with
DuBarry Was a Lady (1944), as a hokey seer, and later, as a cowed minion of Jack Palance's Mr. Big in Elia Kazan's
Panic in the Streets (1950). The actor, who had worked with Kazan on stage, reportedly thought that the director's repeated demands for takes involving running was a bit unnecessary. Since the film did not lead to any offers of employment, it might have seemed fairly futile to
Zero, had he not had a wife and two children to support by this time. He tried again repeatedly in two of Humphrey Bogart's outings,
The Enforcer (1951) in which Zero played a flaky hit man, Big Babe Lazick, and in a warmed over serving of the Casablanca pie called
Sirocco (1951), playing a duplicitous informer (is there any other kind?). I do like
Mostel's turn as the understandably aggravated literary agent for that know-it-all Mr. Belvedere (Clifton Webb) in one of the more amusing entries in that series,
Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell (1951) and his milquetoast suitor in blessed Thelma Ritter's
The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951).
Thanks to the unwelcome intervention of HUAC, who seemed to think that Zero's attendance at left wing meetings two decades before might constitute a threat to national security,
Mostel's career on film took a long hiatus. It probably didn't help that, when asked during his reluctant appearance before them, where he worked in Hollywood, the actor quipped "18th Century Fox". Nor, one might surmise, would his creation of a pompous character for his nightclub act, "Senator Polltax T. Pellagra", have endeared
Zero Mostel to the politicians.
Despite these setbacks,
Mostel's best work, often transferred from the stage, beginning with a phenomenal appearance as Estragon in Samuel Beckett's
Waiting for Godot (1961) that was broadcast several times in the '60s, and his triumphal and hilarious appearance as the slave/conman "Pseudolus" in
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum (1966) are treasured by those who've seen them. While many more people have seen
The Producers (1968) that shapeless fitfully mirthful movie, while brilliant, contains some sparkling
Zero moments, (such as his fervid courtship of Estelle Winwood), but even with affection for him intact, this viewer finds that abrasive movie trying at best. Better work came in some equally uneven films, including a brilliant turn as Potemkin in the forgotten movie,
Great Catherine (1968) which starred Jeanne Moreau and Peter O'Toole. Another odd shaped gem from this period is the lively
The Great Bank Robbery (1969), which I thought was similar to a Tex Avery cartoon come to life. Bernard Malamud's
The Angel Levine (1970) was both beautifully acted and deeply flawed by the pacing and changes in tone of the film. Fortunately,
Mostel's performance in Ionsesco's
Rhinoceros (1974) still lingers in memory as his finest (and most controlled) performance. Still, after musing on
Zero Mostel's memorable contributions to filmdom, I do wish that his ultimate role, Tevye in Sholom Alecheim's
Fiddler on the Roof--so cherished by those of us who grew up listening to his magnificently nuanced performance on the lp of the musical--might have been captured on film. It seems to be one of those perennial "what ifs" of cinema history.
"Larger than life" is an overused phrase, but, when applied to the rotund, disheveled cherub whose unruly talents enriched the scene whenever they appeared on stage or screen, the empty phrase has meaning once again. At the beginning of his performing career, a press agent gave
Mostel the cognomen 'Zero', referring to him as a "man who made something out of nothing." Laughter is never "nothing". Thank you,
Zero and Happy Chanukah to all.
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*You can see some of
Zero Mostel's paintings that were auctioned off in recent years
here.
