Leola Wendorff
(Vaserman)
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Born in Warsaw, Poland, into
a very religious family. Father -- a former Nikolayev
soldier, who traded lumber and animals in Russia. She
learned with "small rbile" verses and Rashi, and
privately with a Russian and Polish teacher. At age
three she became an orphan of her father, and she was
then raised by a rich, religious brother, and at age
eleven she traveled with her mother to a sister's
wedding in America, where she married at a very young
age.
She worked in a shop as a
milliner of corsets, learning English at the same time
privately, and later attended lectures in psychology,
and she developed a strong interest Yiddish literature
and began to participate in a Yiddish chorus and in
productions of amateur groups. After her divorce from
her first husband, she in 1931 married actor Reuben
Wendorf and began to act in the troupes in which he had
arranged, such as the "Vilna Troupe", in the
"Folksbiene" under the direction of Kadison, later with
Abraham Littman and Misha Fishzon in Detroit, where they
settled after a time. She returned again to New York,
where she participated in English with a part of the
"Group" Theatre as "Babushka" in "Anfisa" by Leonid
Andreyev, and in Schwartz's "Yiddish Art Theatre" in
small roles in "Yoshke Kalb", "The Wise Men of Chelm",
"Three Cities" and "The Brothers Ashkenazi".
W. settled in Los Angeles,
participating in Dr. Baratov's production |
of "A farvorfn
vinkl (A Faraway Corner)", "Moshke khazir (Moshke
the Swine)", and "Di kraft fun gelt (The Power
of Money)" by Dymov, and in the guest-starring
appearance of Schwartz's "(Yiddish) Art Theatre"
in the "Mayan" Theatre (acting in the role of
"Miriam" in "Sender Blank", "Sarah" in "Brider
ashkhanazi (The Brothers Ashkenazi)", and later
with Maurice Schwartz in English, in the "Civic
Playhouse" as "Sarah" in Sholem Aleichem's "Shver
tsu zayn a yid (Hard to be a Jew)" and "The
Sister" in "Sender Blank's Family".
W. acts from time to
time in Yiddish productions, but she is mostly
dedicated to the theatre, film and television in
English. So she acted in the Yiddish play, "Burning
Bush" (director Walter Vikler), Clifford Odets'
"Awake and Sing", Jan Prisley's "Day Came to A
City", in "All You Need is a Good Break", and
"Money is Not All", in Shamir's Israeli play "Tukilometer",
in the film "Now We Out(?)" (director John
Mankovich), "Deep in my Heart" (with Jose Ferrer
as the star), and "The Silver Chalice", and in
television with "Medic", Dennis Day's comedies,
Hitchcock's play, in NBC's matinees in the
"Telephone Hour".
In 1957 W. performed
in English in "Tuviya der milkhiger (Tevye the
Dairyman), (role of "Golde") under the direction
of producer Arnold Pearl, and later in
the "Ring Theatre" in the play "My Kandido".
W. in 1958 visited
the Land of Israel and performed in word
concerts in Yiddish in twenty-five places in the
country.
M. E.
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