A canny, rubber-faced and physically agile comic actor, Mr. Adler made his Broadway debut playing the itinerant peddler Ali Hakim in the 1979 revival of "Oklahoma!" directed by William Hammerstein. The following decade brought Broadway appearances in the short-lived original comedy "Oh, Brother!" and the equally brief 1987 revival of the 1920s play "Broadway."

He found his greatest success in the early 1990s, netting Tony nominations for his work in "Those Were the Days" (1990) and "Crazy for You" (1992). The former, a revue, was a project close to his heart: a collection of songs and sketches from the days when Second Avenue was a bustling showbiz thoroughfare known at the Yiddish Rialto, and his parents were two of its stars. The revue included songs by such one-time Yiddish theatre luminaries as Sholom Secunda and Joseph Rumshinsky. Mr. Adler himself provided "additional material."

Mr. Adler also performed extensively in regional theatre. He played in Cole Porter's "Red, Hot and Blue" at the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2001 and the Muny (St. Louis summer theatre), in "Anything Goes," in 1999. Other roles include Tevye in "Fiddler On The Roof," Fagin in "Oliver!," Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls," Bill Snibson in "Me and My Girl," Hysterium in "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum," Cogsworth in "Beauty and the Beast," and famed lyricist Sammy Cahn in "Come Fly With Me." He toured in his own one-man evening "Song and Dance Man," which celebrated all of his performing heroes.

Mr. Adler passed away at the age of 63.

source: Playbill