Zelig
A timid man discovers he can literally become anyone around him and must decide whether to chase fame by mimicking history’s icons or preserve his own identity before he disappears completely.
“You wanted more when it was all over!”
Synopsis
A fictional documentary chronicling the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who gains celebrity status in the 1920s for his uncanny ability to physically and behaviorally mimic those around him. Clever editing integrates Zelig into actual newsreel footage featuring prominent figures such as Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 19
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Susan E MorseShot by Gordon WillisScored by Dick HymanDesigned by Mel Bourne
Box Office
1983 · Box office
📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.9× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$11.8M
Opening weekend: $60K — 1% of its US run. It had legs — it kept earning long after opening weekend.
Peak 6 theaters
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Cast & Crew
19 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Woody Allen
as Leonard Zelig
Mia Farrow
as Dr. Eudora Nesbitt Fletcher
Patrick Horgan
as The Narrator
John Buckwalter
as Dr. Sindell
Marvin Chatinover
as Glandular Diagnosis Doctor
Stanley Swerdlow
as Mexican Food Doctor
Paul Nevens
as Dr. Birsky
Howard Erskine
as Hypodermic Doctor
George Hamlin
as Experimental Drugs Doctor
Ralph Bell
as Other Doctor
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
8Parents Guide
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