Samuel Joel “Zero” Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Max Bialystock in the original film version of The Producers. He was blacklisted during the 1950s, and his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities was well-publicized. He was a Tony Award and Obie Award winner.
Mostel was born to Israel Mostel, an Eastern European Jew, and Cina "Celia" Druchs, also from a Jewish family, who was born in Poland and raised in Vienna. The two immigrated to the United States (separately: Israel in 1898 and Cina in 1908), where they met and married. Israel already had four children from his first wife; he had four more children with Cina. Samuel, later known as Zero, was Israel's seventh child.
It is said that Samuel Mostel got his nickname "Zero" since his parents were not kind with words and always told him that he would only ever amount to "Gournisht," which is Yiddish for "zero" or "nothing." The rest is history.
David Pressman is an American human rights lawyer and former aide to United States Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. He advises a number of highly-visible individuals on foreign policy and related advocacy strategies. In 2008 Los Angeles Times referred to him as George Clooney's "consigliere." With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, Pressman co-founded Not On Our Watch, a leading advocacy and grantmaking organization focused on raising awareness about mass-atrocities.
Pressman served as an advisor to Secretary Janet Napolitano and Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. Recently he was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Director for War Crimes and Atrocities on the National Security Council at the White House, where he will coordinate the Government's efforts to prevent and respond to mass atrocities, genocide, and war crimes.
Joshua "Josh" Mostel (born December 21, 1946) is an American actor who is best known for his roles in Jesus Christ Superstar and two Adam Sandler films (Billy Madison and Big Daddy).
Mostel was born in New York City, New York, the son of Kathryn Celia (née Harken), an actress, dancer, and writer, and comic actor Zero Mostel. His brother Tobias is a painter, ceramic artist and professor of art, teaching in Florida.
Mostel started his career as a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He graduated from Brandeis University. When a student at Brandeis, he once pushed a couch into a pond and set it afire, taking bets as to whether the couch would burn or drown first. His broadway debut was in 1971 with Unlikely Heroes. In 1979, Mostel briefly starred in the television version of the film Animal House, Delta House, as "Blotto" Blutarsky, the brother of the character Bluto (played by John Belushi in the original film). He has since appeared in many films and Broadway productions.
Mostel now lives in New York, with a summer home on Monhegan, Maine.