Zvika Pick got his big break into the public consciousness came when he was picked to star in the lead role of Claude in the musical Hair in 1970. He followed with a large number of hits and won Israel’s singer of the year awards several times.
In the 1990s, Pick gained renewed popularity when he began a concert tour with the Jerusalem band Nosei Hamigba’at (Carriers of the Hat), and wrote the music for the song Diva with which Dana International won the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest. In 2002, the musical Mary Lou, based on Pick’s songs, was staged at the Habima theater.
Pick was considered one of the greatest Israeli creative musicians and trailblazers, bringing disco and pop music to the fore. He collaborated with Ehud Manor, Ofra Haza, Mirit Shem-Or, Ricky Gal, DJ Ofer Nissim, Sarit Hadad, and many more.
Pick had five children from two different women: three from Mirit Shem-Or and two from fashion designer Shira Manor who was 36 years younger than him.
In 2018, Pick suffered a stroke on board a flight from London to Israel and was hospitalized for an extended period. Since then he has said in interviews that he underwent a long rehabilitation process and had to learn Hebrew from scratch, as well as learn to walk and manage independently.
Pick was born in 1949 in the city of Wroclaw, Poland, as Henrik Pick, the son of Boris and Paulina Pick. His grandfather ran a musical conservatory and his uncle was a professor of music. At the age of 5, he began to study classical music and after the family arrived in Israel, in 1957, he continued his music studies at the conservatory in Ramat Gan. In the mornings he went to regular school and in the evenings, he practiced Tchaikovsky and Bach. At age 15 he appeared as a guitarist, keyboard player, and singer in bands and was deeply influenced by the Bee Gees, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones.
