Josh Mostel Biography

The son of Broadway and film star Zero Mostel, Joshua Mostel is every bit the "heavyweight" that his father was -- perhaps even heavier. A graduate of Brandeis University, Mostel followed his father's sizeable footsteps by going on-stage. His first major film appearance was as King Herod -- complete with anachronistic psychedelic costuming, and surrounded by go-go girls -- in Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973). Of his three regular assignments on series television, Mostel is probably least proud of his role as Blotto, younger brother of John Belushi's Blutto, in Delta House (1978), the mercifully short-lived TV spinoff of National Lampoon's Animal House. Conversely, one of Joshua Mostel's best film roles was the fish-peddling Uncle Abe in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi