Fiddler actress and Sondheim casting director turn 92 – The Hollywood Reporter

Joanna Marlin in 1980’s “Fame”

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Joanna Marlin created the role of her daughter Tzeitel in the film. fiddler on the roof An actor who starred in Broadway musicals and was a casting director for Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince and Bernardo Bertolucci has died. She was 92 years old.

Merlin died Sunday in Los Angeles, along with his daughters and documentary filmmaker Rachel Dretzin, of complications from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone marrow disease.Be kind: pray and obey.) and actress Julie Dretzin (The Handmaid’s Tale) was announced.

Merlin also played dance teacher Miss Berg in the Alan Parker film. fame (1980), and recurred for more than a decade as Judge Lena Petrovsky on NBC. Law and Order: SVU.

Her acting resume included the film hester street (1975), all that jazz (1979), Baby, it’s you (1983), killing fields (1984), mystic pizza (1988), class action lawsuit (1991) and city ​​of angels (1998) and other TV shows naked city, defenders, east side/west side, hometown and Good Wife.

Merlin was in the cast of Sondheim’s original Broadway production. company, follies, a little night music, pacific overture, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Merrily We Roll Along Like Lillian Hellman candideAndrew Lloyd Webber Evita and prince’s About the 20th century.

She also cast John Carpenter’s work. Little China’s Big Problem (1986), by James Ivory. jefferson in paris (1995) Best Picture Oscar winner directed by Bertolucci last emperor (1987), for which she received the Altios Award from the American Foundry Society.

Joan Ratner was born in Chicago on July 15, 1931, the second child of Russian Jewish immigrants Toni Merlin (a sculptor) and Harry Ratner (a grocer). She and her family moved to Los Angeles, where she graduated from Fairfax High School, where she enrolled.University of California Los Angeles

Her daughters said she and her sister Harriet grew up in a politically progressive household, with their parents participating in the early labor movement and supporting the evolving movement for racial equality and women’s rights. Ta. It was an upbringing that influenced both sisters and was reflected in their own social activities.

As a young Hollywood actress, Merlin, who took her mother’s maiden name as her stage name, studied with Michael Chekhov, a prominent actor and director at the Moscow Art Theater who had fled political repression in the 1920s. She was a member of Chekhov’s theatrical studio and his last pupil.

Merlin made his screen debut in a Cecil B. DeMille film. ten commandments (1956), and Her Bow on Broadway appeared five years later. beckett Opposite Laurence Olivier. She began playing her eldest daughter Tzeitel. violiniston Broadway in 1964.

In 2008, Merlin produced, co-wrote and starred in a one-woman film. beautiful hills of brooklynshe and director Ragnar Freidank adapted Ellen Cassedy’s play.

Marlin co-founded the Non-Traditional Casting Project in the 1980s. The project became the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and was recognized at the 2011 Tony Awards. And in 1999, she launched the Michael His Chekhov Association (MICHA) to preserve and share his legacy and practice. Since its founding, she has trained over 2,000 actors, directors and teachers around the world.

Marlin, a longtime faculty member in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, is the author of the following books: Auditions: An actor-friendly guidewhich includes a foreword by Prince, has been in continuous print since its first publication in 2001.

Her husband of 42 years, lawyer David Dretzin, died in 2006, and it was her sister who famously encouraged Charles M. Schulz to include the black character Franklin in his work. peanuts Manga strip, died in 2020.

In addition to their daughters, survivors include Julie’s husband, writer/director/producer Sam Catlin;preacher, Breaking Bad); Rachel’s husband and producer Barack Goodman (american experience); and grandchildren Noah, Jesse, Ruby, Ben, and Eli.

We will announce a commemorative plan.