P. was born on 21 June 1860 in Boslav, Ukraine. A stepbrother of Yitzhak Perkoff, he received a traditional Jewish education, learning Gemorah with tutors. At all times he was a jolly person, a real joker, and when he used to travel with a Yiddish troupe, he didn't perform for the theatre. Owning a beautiful voice, he used to sing all their songs.

He went off to Kiev, where he worked for several years as a luggage worker, and for the last prutus attended theatre, and he was always talking about theatre.

Due to military conscription, he fled to Galicia. In Brody or in Czernowitz he began to act for Akselrad.

Meanwhile his family immigrated to London, and A. came to them in 1890. There he acted for the first time in a dramatic club for which Morris Winchevsky wrote a special play, especially characterizing himself in Chasidic and in comical women's roles. As such from the theatre he could not gain enough of an income, and his brother took him in to learn photography; however, A. was not capable [in this regard], and he [then] became a partner with a hairdresser's institute. Around 1894 he arrived in America. Here he performed with Adler in the Roumanian Opera House, and it fell through. He took to traveling across the province, acting often with "amateurs."