Joseph Stein
Joseph Stein (1912-2020) won the Tony Award and Drama Critics Circle Award for Fiddler on the Roof. His other musicals include Zorba! (Tony nom., Drama Critics Circle Award), Rags (Tony nom.), The Baker’s Wife (Laurence Olivier Award, London), June, Take Me Along, Irene (starring Debbie Reynolds), The King of Hearts, and So Long, 174th Street.
He also co-authored, with Alan Jay Lerner, the musical Carmelina; with Will Glickman, Mr. Wonderful (starring Sammy Davis Jr.) and Plain and Fancy; with Kander and Ebb, All About Us, based on Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth; and, with Stan Daniels, the musical adaptation of Stein’s play Enter Laughing. His other plays are Before the Dawn and Mrs. Gibbons’ Boys.
Joseph Stein began his career in TV and radio, writing for The Sid Caesar Show, Your Show of Shows, The Henry Morgan Show and many others, and for personalities including Tallulah Bankhead, Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and Zero Mostel. He wrote the screenplays of Enter Laughing and Fiddler on the Roof, for which he won the Screen Writers Guild Award.