Alan Light · CC BY 2.0

Fyvush Finkel spent decades as a star of Yiddish theater before television introduced him to a much wider audience late in his career. He won an Emmy Award in 1994 for playing the blustery lawyer Douglas Wambaugh on Picket Fences, then found a second signature role as the crotchety history teacher Harvey Lipschultz on Boston Public, a late-career second act built on comic timing honed decades earlier on the Yiddish stage.