Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 29, 1993 TAG: 9304280277
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOHN ENGSTROM SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
You won't find many people who can even pronounce his name.
Even writing his name looks like you're typing with your elbows.
But Fyvush ("FIVE-ish") Finkel gets the greatest entrance lines and the most fan mail of any actor on the CBS drama "Picket Fences," easily outdistancing stars Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker.
At 70, with six decades of acting experience in his repertoire, Finkel can steal scenes with the best of them, as he proves weekly playing flamboyant Jewish lawyer Douglas Wambaugh.
David E. Kelley, writer-creator of "Picket Fences" and a former attorney, gives Finkel-as-Wambaugh some wonderfully outlandish clients.
The announcement of his chosen side has become his signature: "Douglas Wambaugh for the one-armed plaintiffs . . . Douglas Wambaugh appearing for the midget . . . Douglas Wambaugh for the Catholic . . . Douglas Wambaugh, champion of the underdog."
Searching for a homeless guy known as The Potato Man, Wambaugh quizzes bystanders: "Anybody see my client, Mr. Hash Brown, Mr. Au Gratin?"
Spying an evidence bottle containing a pickled hand - collected by a serial mutilator - Wambaugh proclaims: "Ah, my client."
It took Finkel 60 years to find the perfect marriage of actor and role and become an "overnight" success.
"I love it, I'm having the greatest time," he bubbled as he entertained a small gathering of TV critics in Los Angeles. "Listen, this is once-in-a-lifetime for any character actor."
Jeanmarie Murphy-Burke, publicist for the show, helps Finkel deal with his new fame. She boils it down this way: "He is in hog heaven."
An apt description but perhaps a little nonkosher for Finkel, a Brooklyn native whose chatter rolls with the rhythms of Yiddish and who goes by "my real name, my Jewish name."
"Fyvush is simple," he explained. "It's Yiddish for Philip.
"I've been in the Yiddish theater all my life, since I was 9 years old 'til I was 43. Then, when `Fiddler on the Roof' came out, I went into the American theater."
He has played in English-speaking mainstream theater ever since, including a dozen years in "Fiddler" on Broadway and on tour. There have been other on- and off-Broadway roles, earning him Obie and Drama Desk nominations, and several films ("Brighton Beach Memoirs," "Seize the Day").
Series creator Kelley spotted Finkel in the 1990 Nick Nolte film "Q & A."
"When he saw the film, he yelled at his partners, `There's our Wambaugh!' " is how Finkel describes the discovery.
Kelley then wrote Wambaugh with Finkel in mind, so Wambaugh fits Finkel like a custom kid glove. Like Wambaugh, Finkel is an over-the-top guy, dramatic, outgoing, fearless and full of gestures. He's also delightful.
"It's like working with a child, in the best sense," co-star Baker said at the same gathering, "because he has these completely uninhibited responses to everything. He doesn't edit what he says. It just all comes out, and he's always bubbly and always happy.
At a "wrap" party, celebrating the end of shooting for the first "Picket Fences" season, the cast was treated to a video collection of hilarious outtakes.
The entire tape was edited to appear to be a paid advertisement for attorney Douglas Wambaugh. Included was a large section of Wambaugh's famous courtroom lines, with Judge Bone (Ray Walston) uttering his usual retort - "Shut up!" - time after time.
The cast and crew aren't the only ones taken with Finkel.
"I get hundreds of letters," he said. "One lawyer wanted an 8-by-10 photo. He said he wanted to hang it in his office and when he goes to court he's going to behave like I do. I sent him a letter immediately: `Please don't do it! You're not going to get away with it. I get away with it because it's television, but you're not going to. They'll disbar you!' "
"He's never really had fan mail before," said Murphy-Burke. "I think he was unfamiliar with what to do when people started writing to him. I gave him suggestions and he's been pretty much handling it since. He and his wife sit down and do it, and he answers almost every one."
Says Finkel: "These actors who yell `I only owe them a performance' and keep away from the public - to me that's stupid. If you're an actor, you belong to the public. Naturally your family comes first, your career second, but you belong to the public.' "
"Like a doctor. He belongs to the public. A doctor, he takes an oath. We don't take an oath, we look for an agent."
"Picket Fences" airs 10 p.m. Thursdays on WDBJ (Channel 7).
by CNB