Sheldon Harnick, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ lyricist, dies at 99

Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist of “Fiddler on the Roof,” died Friday at home in Manhattan, a spokesman said. He was 99.

Harnick most famously wrote the beloved 1964 Broadway musical about a Jewish shtetl enduring rapidly changing times alongside the late composer Jerry Bock and book writer Joseph Stein. 

Based on the book “Tevye’s Daughters” by Sholem Aleichem, the show, featuring classic songs such as “Tradition” and “Sunrise, Sunset,” was a gamble on Broadway in the 1960s.

According to the documentary “Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles,” famed director Jerome Robbins kept asking producer Hal Prince, “What is this show about?”

“For God’s sake, Jerry,” Prince replied. “It’s about tradition!”

Its tryout in Detroit, Michigan, where it ran over three and a half hours, was poorly received by critics.

Despite those hurdles, “Fiddler,” starring Zero Mostel as Tevye and Beatrice Arthur as the Matchmaker, became a huge hit on Broadway, running eight years (a long time back then) and spawning multiple revivals and the Oscar-nominated 1971 Norman Jewison film starring Topol. 

Harnick’s lyrics are ingrained in the minds of millions: “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch;” “If I were a rich man”; “To life! To life! L’Chaim!”  

The original production won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Bock and Harnick won the Tony for Best Composer and Lyricist.

One actor who played Tevye the milkman during the 2005 revival of “Fiddler” was Harvey Fierstein, who mourned Harnick in a statement.

“As a devotee of theater, as a Jew, as a person who admires brilliance and gentility, I loved Sheldon Harnick and today he left us,” Fierstein said. “But, oh, the gifts he left us!”

With Bock, who died in 2010, Harnick also wrote the Broadway musicals “Fiorello!,” “Tenderloin” and “The Apple Tree,” among others. The pair’s 1963 musical comedy “She Loves Me” was revived on Broadway in 2016 in a production starring Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi and Jane Krakowski. 

A lover of music from an early age, Harnick was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1924 and attended Northwestern University School of Music where he first began writing theatrical songs for their annual student revue.

He moved to New York, and met Bock in the late 1950s. Their first collaboration, 1958’s “The Body Beautiful,” was a flop, but soon after, “Fiorello!” — about Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia — was a success.

After Bock and Harnick’s creative partnership ended, the lyricist worked with composers Mary Rodgers, Richard Rodgers and Joe Raposo. 

But Harnick’s most enduring legacy is “Fiddler” — a show loved all around the world by audiences of all backgrounds. 

“We wanted to make it universal,” Harnick told Tablet magazine. “I was standing in the back, and at the intermission, Florence Henderson came running up the aisle and she said to me, ‘Sheldon! This is about my Irish grandmother!’ And I thought, that’s exactly what we wanted to accomplish. And we did.”