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Joseph Stein.
Joseph Stein.
Screenwriter and playwright Joseph Stein, best known for his book for the Broadway musicals Fiddler on the Roof (1964) and Zorba (1968), died on Oct. 24. He was 98.
The Bronx-born Stein also wrote the screenplay for Norman Jewison’s Oscar-nominated 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof and for the Carl Reiner-directed 1967 comedy Enter Laughing, based on Stein’s own play.
“There are no limitations to the subject for a musical,” Stein once said, “just as there are no limitations to the subject for a play or a novel. The only limitation that I can see is that it has to have an honesty about the relationship of people to each other.”
Stein quote: The Guardian.
Photo: Patrick A. Burns/The New York Times