Funnily enough, I was just yesterday rhapsodizing about the various art aspects of the Works Progress Administration. I somehow learned doing today’s research and not sooner that Astronomers Monument, a statue I’ve loved since I was a child, was created for the Public Works of Art Project. (I don’t believe the statue ever appears in Rebel Without a Cause and, for reasons, explicitly cannot exist in the universe of the movie.) Many greats of entertainment spent time getting government money for their art. Zero Mostel was one of them, albeit not in the Federal Theater Project like Orson Welles or Burt Lancaster—he was teaching art and giving museum tours.
Mostel was born Samuel Joel Mostel, child of Jewish immigrants. His father, eventually a wine chemist, thought the boy could be a rabbi. His mother may have declared that, if the boy did not apply himself, he would make a zero of himself. She also dressed him in velvet and sent him to the Met to copy paintings as support of his love of art. He amused crowds once by copying his favourite, John White Alexander’s Study in Black and Green, upside down. Similarly, his museum tours were as much comedic performances as actually useful. Mostel was soon hired as an actual comedian.
Unfortunately, because the trade unions were among those who paid to see Sam Mostel’s art tours, he would come up against the blacklist. He informed HUAC that it was against his religion to name names and thereby be responsible for anyone but himself. He also attempted to shame the committee, which naturally did not work as if they had shame they wouldn’t have been going after comedians for legal conduct. He’d already had problems with MGM, not least for protesting an Andrew Jackson biopic for covering up [gestures vaguely at Andrew Jackson]. For years, he attempted to make a living on art. He said he enjoyed it, but still.
It wasn’t until the ‘60s that he became a major name at last. There are, if you want my opinion, three great pillars of his career. For Broadway fans, of course, there will always be Fiddler on the Roof. (Apparently Norman Jewison cast Topol in the movie instead because Mostel could be a bit of a pain to work with.) There’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. And there’s The Producers. (If we get Nathan Lane as Tevye, he’ll have done all three as well!) Apparently, he was unfailingly nice to Gene Wilder, and they remained friends. He also agreed to go out for a drink with Elia Kazan once, who had directed him in Panic in the Streets in his pre-blacklist days, and told Kazan he shouldn’t have named names.
His next planned project was The Merchant, an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice that makes Shylock a considerably more appealing character. Mostel had been hit by a number 18 bus in 1960 and was in pain from it, though the money from the lawsuit probably was nice. He lost nearly a hundred pounds on what friends would call a starvation diet. And during rehearsal, he collapsed and was unable to be revived. At his request, there was no memorial service; we do not need one to remember Zero Mostel.
I’m considering a full-length book of these columns that would include added information, and there’s more to say about Mostel; encourage me to do this kind of thing by supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!