B. was born on 27 November
1872 in Warsaw, Poland. His father was a tailor. He
completed a Sunday trade school, and as a youth he sang in
the Tlomatsker choral school, and from there Goldfaden
had him and Tantzman taken into the children's chorus
in the Eldorado Theatre. In 1892 together with Mitelman,
Liebert, Kaminski, Ester Rokhl Kaminska, Rotshteyn and Zilberberg, he began to act on the Yiddish stage in
Warsaw with the Russian director Olginska. B.'s first
performance was as "Komisar" in "Koldunye." In 1894 B.
toured with Shliferstein. In 1898 he joined as a [reziner]
in the troupe, in which his brother Herman had partnered
with Kaminski. In 1900, when Yiddish theatre was
forbidden, B. toured with Yiddish actors in Russian and
German quartets, until he was taken into in 1905 the
Warsaw Bagatela Theatre. In 1908 B. was engaged to Zandberg in Lodz's Grand Theatre, where he acted for
several years and there directed for the first time in
Europe Gordin's "Elisha ben Abuyah." In 1913 B. acted with
Clara Young in Warsaw, and then in a European operetta
repertoire with Neroslavska. In wartime B. found,
together with Rotshteyn and Fiszelewicz a Yiddish
theatre in Warsaw on Tvarda 7, where he also came to act
-- due to the ban on Yiddish theatre -- Yiddish plays
in Polish. After the war B. acted for a certain time
with Ester Rokhl Kaminska, then in "Sambatyon," a revue
theatre, and toured across Poland with a troupe of which
he was the initiator.
B. also had participated in
the film "Di farshtoysene tokhter (The Outcast
Daughter)?," [1915], "Der vilder foter (The Harsh
Father)"
by Libin, and "Tkies-khaf (The Vow)." |
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