Hal Linden, performer, is best known to American audiences for his title role in the long-running TV comedy series, Barney Miller, in the 1970s. Before then, Linden – born Harold Lipshitz in New York – had graduated from Manhattan’s School of the Performing Arts and worked briefly as a clarinetist in a big band before taking to the Broadway stage.
Linden made his Broadway debut as the replacement for the character Jeff Moss in the Comden/Green/Styne hit musical, Bells Are Ringing. After playing Dick in the short-lived 1964 musical, Something More!, and serving as a standby in the 1965 show, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Hal Linden played the role of No Face in the 1967 musical, Illya Darling, adapted from the film, Never on Sunday, which, like the original film, starred Melina Mercouri.
After playing Yissel Fishbein in Oscar Brand and Paul Nassau’s 1968 musical, The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, Linden began devoting more time to stage plays, but his first critical acclaim came in 1970 in the starring role of Mayer Rothschild in Bock and Harnick’s hit musical, The Rothschilds. Linden won the 1971 Tony® for Best Actor in a Musical for that performance.
His most recent Broadway musical appearance, after numerous stage plays, was as the replacement in 2002 for Herr Schultz in the long-running revival of Cabaret that opened in 1998.
