Zero Mostel was a force of nature — an unnatural force of nature. He was wonderful and grotesque, and he fascinated and appalled, on stage and off.
He was one of those originals — like Grock, Chaplin and perhaps Marceau — who are not just more than the sum of their parts, but are also more than the sum of their roles.
Now, there’s the smash Broadway opening of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” with Nathan Lane’s portrayal of its devious hero, Max Bialystock, and his foolproof method of creative accounting that could turn a Broadway flop into his personal crock of gold.
Many theatergoers will be reminded of the original 1968 cult movie and Mostel.
This is not the first time the irrepressible Lane has replaced, as it were, the inimitable Mostel. They both won Tony awards for their performances as the slave Psuedolus in the Stephen Sondheim musical “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” — Mostel in 1962, in the show’s original production, and Lane in a 1996 revival.
Naturally, Mostel is, in a sense, irreplaceable. Who could even resemble this elephantine pixie who trampled over scripts and actors with a mixture of scowling leer and leering scowl?
He was a badly tied bundle of contradictions, yet he had a charisma the word was invented for, and a way of acting that took no prisoners.
Yet when he was done, you had seen something, felt something. And while it may not have been acting as most people would have thought of it, undoubtedly it went beyond impersonation into life.
I first saw Zero Mostel in London in 1959 at the tiny Arts Theater in Burgess Meredith’s production of “Ulysses in Nighttown.” Mostel was Leopold Bloom, wandering through James Joyce’s Dublin like a tormented yet oddly amiable lost soul looking for some fugitive home.
Seeing him again in New York — first as Psuedolus in ’62, then as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” a couple of years later and, finally, as a homosexual poet in “The Latent Heterosexual” at the Dallas Theater Center — I came to realize that Mostel was one of the few great performers who was the same on stage and off. His life seemed to be an essay in performance art.
I met him for the first time in Dallas in 1968, where he was appearing with Jules Munshin in “The Latent Heterosexual.”
It was a terrible play, but Zero was almost on his best behavior, and enchanting. I did notice, however, that he was quite incredibly rude to the luckless Munshin (one of the three sailors in the movie “On the Town”), who seemed to take it in stride.
Later, as I watched Zero operate, I realized that this outrageousness was a part of his persona, and seemingly carefully cultivated.
On one occasion, at a party at the Four Seasons that I was hosting, he managed to shove his best friend, the adorable Jack Gilford, into the pool.
I soon found it tactful whenever I encountered him to talk about his painting — he was an interesting if undisciplined artist — rather than anything else.
And I regretfully never did talk to him about his years on the blacklist as an unfriendly witness at the hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Yes, the guy had had some singularly tough times in his flamboyant past.
Nor did I ask how he got that name — Zero.
Arthur Sainer’s excellent biography, “Zero Dances,” published a couple of years ago, says it came in 1942, when he successfully auditioned for his breakthrough nightclub stint at Barney Josephson’s Cafe Society downtown.
His given name, Sam Mostel, rang no bells.
Then, suddenly, that dear old press agent Ivan Black said, “Barney, why don’t you call him Zero? He’s starting from nothing.”
But as we all know, it ain’t where you start, it’s where you finish.