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Leon
Schechter
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S. was born in 1900 in
Czernowitz, Bukovina.
He studied in a cheder
and in a Talmud Torah.
In 1910, his family
moved to San Remo (Italy), where he took universal
studies, while at the same time pursuing his Yiddish
studies with his father, who was a rabbi in San
Remo.
In 1914, his entire
family decided to immigrate to the land of Israel,
and in order to do so they first went to Vienna,
then they traveled via Trieste. But there his
father got sick and died.
On his elder brother
Yakov's initiative (now managing Yiddish radio
program in Miami), the whole family immigrated to
Paris, where S. studied in a local public school,
and having a beautiful voice, he entered the chorus
of the local Yiddish theatre and from time to time
found roles to play.
In 1920 his family
immigrated to Montreal and there S. started to play in
French variety show theatre. After that he entered
the Yiddish theatre managed by Bernard Elving, where
he had the opportunity to play with different guest
stars, among them Rudolf Schildkraut in "Uriel
mazik", "Shylock", "Lokshen", etc.
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S. traveled to New
York and because of the difficulties he
encountered attempting to become a member of the
Yiddish Actors Union and play in legitimate
Yiddish theatre groups, S. organized a troupe
with European Yiddish actors, and together with
Max Lasky and Charlotte Goldstein, took the
control of the Grand Theatre where they played
in the "European Cooperative Troupe", and when
the State of New York demolished the building,
they took the control of the Lipzin Theatre,
and again, when it also was demolished, they
started playing in the McKinley Square
Theatre.
After having kept
this theatre for ten years, S. was able to
become a member of the Yiddish Actors Union, and
was taken on in 1941 into the National Theatre
(with Leo Fuchs as a star), then with the [Yiddish] Art
Theatre of Maurice Schwartz with which he traveled
throughout the American provinces.
In 1948, S. came to
Miami (Florida) and together with his brother
Yakov, they opened there the first Yiddish
vaudeville theatre, where they brought the
greatest stars of the Yiddish stage for short
artistic programs.
Since 1948 until
1951, he managed such a program in the Kami
Theatre.
Since 1951, he
produced this program in the Cinema Theatre on
Washington Avenue and 12th Street in Miami
Beach.
In this theatre,
where he and his wife Gitele Stein performed
Yiddish sketches, the programs were performed in
two languages, i.e. in Yiddish and in English.
With the participation of both Yiddish and
English-Yiddish actors, they had very big
audiences of local Jewish inhabitants and also
of the tourists guests that came from the entire
country.
Sh. E. from Harry Weinberg.
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