We Mourn The Loss of Bruce Adler, Star of Crazy For You

Bruce Adler, an actor and song-and-dance man with roots in the Yiddish theater who hoofed successfully onto Broadway and was nominated for two Tony Awards, died early Friday in Davie, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. He was 63 and lived in Davie as well as in Manhattan.The cause was liver cancer, said Jeanne Nicolosi, Mr. Adler's theatrical agent. He had only recently canceled a commitment to play Tevye in a summer stock production of "Fiddler on the Roof" in St. Louis, she said.Mr. Adler, a versatile performer with a comic flair, came from a show business family. He was the son of Julius Adler and Henrietta Jacobson, who were stars of the old "Yiddish Rialto" along Second Avenue in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. One of his Tony nominations was for "Those Were the Days," a 1990 revue of songs and sketches recalling the Yiddish theater scene that flourished in New York City from the 1880s to the 1930s.He was nominated again in 1992 for "Crazy for You," a hit musical that was fashioned from a trove of George and Ira Gershwin songs knitted together with an original book by Ken Ludwig. Mr. Adler played an impresario, a la Flo Ziegfeld; his duet with Harry Groener of "What Causes That," requiring deft comic timing and coordination, was an audience favorite.Mr. Adler was born on Second Avenue on Nov. 27, 1944, and grew up as the son of local celebrities. Not only were his parents stars, so were his mother's brothers, Hyman and Irving Jacobson. His grandfather, Joseph Jacobson, had studied in Russia to be a rabbi but came to the United States in the 1880s, where both he and his wife, Bessie, became performers. Young Bruce joined his parents onstage as early as age 4, and they often performed together from then on.Mr. Adler served in the U.S. Army from 1966 to 1968. His first marriage, to Isabelle Farrell, ended in divorce. Among his survivors are his wife, Amy London, whom he married in 2003; a son, Jake; and two stepchildren.Mr. Adler, who contributed the singing voice of the narrator of the animated film "Aladdin," made his Broadway debut in the 1979 revival of "Oklahoma!" and appeared in several other Broadway and off-Broadway shows. He was especially active in regional theater; in recent years, he performed most often in South Florida.