NAMES IN THE NEWS : Topol Doesn’t Fiddle With Age

Israeli actor Topol is finally acting his age, even if it’s in the same part.

Topol was only 30 when he began playing dairyman Teyve in “Fiddler on the Roof,” which opens Thursday night at the Forrest Theater here. The part calls for a man between 55 and 65, and Topol is still only 54.

“At 30, I had to put a lot of energy into the part in order to make it believable,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News in a telephone interview from St. Louis, the production’s last stop before Philadelphia.

“I was the father of girls almost my age in real life, husband to a wife in real life older than I was,” he said. “However, I admit that very early in my career I loved to play older characters, probably because it was kind of hiding behind the character rather than coming on stage and playing yourself.”