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When I think back to New York in the 60s and covering "the Broadway beat" for the Toronto Telegram, some of my fondest memories are of Heshie Bernardi and the many kindnesses he showed me Born into a celebrated Yiddish Theatre family on October 20, 1923, Heshie was a kid actor in Edgar Ulmer's Yiddish language films shot on Long Island. Blacklisted in the 1950s, Blake Edwards made Bernardi a household name by casting him as Lt. Jacoby in his hip detective series Peter Gunn. Heshie was also the king of voice-overs (Charlie the Tuna, Jolly Green Giant etc.). He was the third Tevye on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof and, for many of us, the best of the bunch. He spoke to me about the show backstage at the Imperial Theatre in 1966.

Hershel Bernardi in the 1981 Revival of "Fiddler on the Roof."