He also had a radio show on WBAI in New York, opened two espresso cafes in Hollywood, and campaigned for Mayors John V. Lindsay and Edward I. Koch.

“I’m sure I could have had a much bigger career had I followed the advice of agents and friends: Stick to one aspect of what you do and stay in one place to do it — California, for example,” he wrote. But as it was, Mr. Bikel traveled the world in multiple guises.

After nearly two years on Broadway opposite Mary Martin as the gruff patriarch of a family of Austrian singers (the role later played by Christopher Plummer in the movie version), Mr. Bikel announced in 1961 that he was leaving “The Sound of Music.” (This, as he recounted, after Rodgers and Hammerstein had written “Edelweiss” for him at the last minute to exploit his folk-singing talents.)

“I do not believe an actor should provide himself with an insurance policy,” he explained. “After this time everything you can do artistically to a part has been done. I don’t want to be stifled.”

Some time later he told The New York Times: “Some actors are what they are no matter what name you give them. Clark Gable looked, walked and talked exactly the same in every picture. I like to change shape, accent and gait. That way I never get stale.”

And perhaps never get all that famous.

Sometimes his roles were brief, sometimes extended, sometimes quite memorable. In “My Fair Lady,” for example, he had the small but conspicuous role of the windbag Zoltan Karpathy, a former student of Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). Karpathy thinks he can unmask impostors by listening to them speak — which he tries to do, unsuccessfully, with Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a flower girl transformed into an aristocrat by the crafty Higgins.

At other times Mr. Bikel simply suffered the fate of the subsidiary character actor, as when The Times lumped him with several other actors as having been “excellent in small roles” in the 1958 drama “I Want to Live,” starring Susan Hayward.