Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Klara Rosenthal

 

Born on 12 November 1896 in New York, America. Grandchild of Simeon Marks, owner of a garden where Goldfaden began his productions in Iasi, Romania. Father -- Nathan (Nachum) -- a Yiddish actor.

Completed public school and learned Yiddish with a rabbi. At the age of seven, she began to act in children's roles in Lateiner's "Gabriel Maler" ("Chinke-Pinke") with Boris Thomashefsky, then with Berta Kalich, Davie Kessler, Malvina Lobel and Jacob P. Adler. As a teenager, she sang duets in the Yiddish vaudeville houses together with her sister Sadie. when her father became engaged to the Green Street Theatre in Philadelphia, she moved there with her family and acted there for three seasons.

1908 -- returned to New York and and performed in the Yiddish vaudeville houses in singing numbers. 1911 -- she traveled with her father to act across the province in adolescent roles in the staged plays.

In 1912, she went over to soubrette roles in the East Side theatres, with Isidore Lillian. 1915 -- in the "Lenox" Theatre (managers: Goldberg and Jacobs), where she acted for three seasons. 1918 -- together with Samuel Goldenburg, in Philadelphia, then with Joseph Kessler in New York, later over various theatres in New York and in the province. 1926 -- with Misha and Lucy German in the Hopkinson Theatre in Detroit. In the third year she acted for several seasons in Philadelphia's

 

"Arch Street Theatre" (manager Yehoshua Gruber), then with Leon Blank in "Watchman" and "Tatns tekhterl (Daddy's Little Girl)", with Celia Adler in "Oreme reykhe yetumahle (Poor Rich Orphans)" and other plays. She returned to New York and acted in the "Lyric" Theatre with Morris Krohner and Betty Frank, in Boston with Samuel Goldenburg (Director Isidore Lillian), and then in Cherniak's "Bronx Art Theatre" with Morris Krohner and Janet Paskewitz.

R.'s first husband was the musician Charles Wiseman. Their son Harold is a sports columnist for the New York "Daily Mirror". In 1924 she married businessman Morris Hermansdorf and withdrew from the theatre.

R. is first-vice president of the Yiddish Actors Club. Her sister is the wife of the playwright William Siegel.
 

M. E.

Sh. E. from Mordecai Yachson.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 3, page 2264.
 

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