Sad news again.

Sheldon Harnick, Tony- and Pulitzer-winning lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me among many other musicals, has ascended that staircase "leading nowhere, just for show" for the very last time at the ripe old age of 99.

Here are just a few of his standards, by way of a tribute...

[from Barbara Cook: Mostly Sondheim, a one-woman revue we went to see in the West End in 2003]

Sublime.

RIP, Sheldon Mayer Harnick (30th April 1924 – 23rd June 2023)

Sheldon Harnick, Tony- and Pulitzer-winning lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and She Loves Me among many other shows, celebrated his 90th birthday yesterday.

As a solo writer or in collaboration with the likes of Jerry Bock, Richard Rodgers, Cy Coleman or Michel Legrand, the man's tally of songwriting credits is phenomenal.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Broadway première of his Fiddler on the Roof.

So, to mark these two very special milestones, let's hear my favourite (and highly appropriate, given the precarious situation I am currently going through in work) song from that show:


"I'd build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show."

Indeed.

Sheldon Harnick (born 30th April 1924)

Happy 75th birthday today to Chaim Topol, the creator of one of the most iconic Jewish characters of the stage and screen.

Despite many other appearances in movies and on TV, it is with his portrayal of the frustrated, rule-driven patriarch Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof that Topol is forever associated - returning to the part time and time again, most recently on the US stage in 2009.

And of course, what better way to celebrate than with this most appropriate song - the anthem of many of our lives, surely?