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Chaim Topol, the spirited Israeli actor and singer who, one season following another, portrayed Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof on stages all around the world and in an Oscar-nominated turn in Norman Jewison’s 1971 film adaptation, has died. He was 87.

Topol died Thursday in Tel Aviv after a long illness, his rep, Jean Diamond, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Israel’s first international movie star, Topol also played famed Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in Galileo (1975); an American scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov, in the cult sci-fi classic Flash Gordon (1980); and Milos Columbo, a Greek smuggler and ally of Roger Moore’s James Bond, in For Your Eyes Only (1981).

As Polish family man Berel Jastrow, he was central to the plot of two acclaimed 1980s ABC miniseries, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, both based on Herman Wouk novels.

In a pairing that a matchmaker would surely appreciate,...

Chaim Topol, who became professionally known solely by his last name in a career that included starring in “Fiddler on the Roof” on stage and screen and co-starring in the James Bond movie “For Your Eyes Only” and the sci-fi film “Flash Gordon,” died Thursday in Tel Aviv after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87 years old.

Topol’s death was confirmed by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, who described him as a “gifted actor who conquered many stages in Israel and overseas, filled the cinema screens with his presence and especially entered deep into our hearts.”

Topol began his long association with the starring role of Tevye the milkman in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1967, appearing in the West End production, which ran for 2,030 performances. He starred in Norman Jewison’s 1971 film version, which carried a budget estimated at $9 million and garnered a domestic gross of $80 million.

Above: Danish poster for Maid for Murder a.k.a. She’ll Have to Go (Robert Asher, UK, 1962).Next week is a red letter week for New York cinephiles because Anna Karina is coming to town. Nouvelle vague icon, muse of Jean-Luc Godard, and one of the most alluring presences in cinema, Anna Karina, now aged 75 and still gorgeous, is gracing us with her presence at three of New York’s temples of cinema: at Bam on Tuesday, May 3, where she will talk to Melissa Anderson following a screening of A Woman is a Woman; at MoMI on Wednesday, May 4, where she will have a conversation with Molly Haskell following a screening of Pierrot le fou; and at Film Forum on Friday, May 6, where she will kick off a week long run of Band of Outsiders and the accompanying series Anna & Jean-Luc. It would be easy to fill this post...