Paulina Lavitz

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Paulina Lavitz, from a 1909 publication.

Paulina Lavitz (March 29, 1879 — September 20, 1959), also seen as Pepi Lavitz, was a Polish-born actress in American Yiddish theatre.

Early life[]

Pilpel "Pepi" Lavitz was born in Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine).[1] Her parents were in theatre work, and her younger sister Minnie (or Minna) Birnbaum also became an actress. Lavitz started acting as a child in Europe, and trained as a singer too.[2]

Career[]

Paulina Lavitz was a "leading woman" in Yiddish theatre, in Chicago and New York.[3][4] In Chicago she starred at International Theater with David Silbert in Queen Sabba in 1907,[5] and appeared with and Fernanda Eliscu at the Metropolitan Theatre in 1909.[6]

She was still acting into her fifties, appearing in the melodrama Married Slaves (1935) with a Yiddish theatre co-operative in New York.[7] There are folders related to her later career in the Records of the Hebrew Actors' Union, archived at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.[8]

Personal life[]

Pauline Lavitz married a physician and concert promoter, Dr. . They had four children. She was widowed in 1954 and died in 1959, aged 80 years, in Flushing, New York. Her remains were buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery there.

References[]

  1. ^ "Will This Chicago Girl Become the Greatest Actress in America?" Chicago Sunday Tribune (January 6, 1907): 51. via Newspapers.comopen access
  2. ^ "Pepi Lavitz" Lives in the Yiddish Theatre.
  3. ^ Lucy France Pierce, "The Polyglot Theatre of the United States" The World To-Day (March 1909): 547.
  4. ^ Lucy France Pierce, "The Development of the Yiddish Theatre" Green Book Magazine (June 1914): 1071.
  5. ^ Untitled theatre note, Chicago Tribune (September 22, 1907): 13. via Newspapers.comopen access
  6. ^ "Plays of Yiddish Theater Depict Life in Ghetto" Chicago Sunday Tribune (April 4, 1909): 24. via Newspapers.comopen access
  7. ^ Walter Hartman, "Yiddish Co-ops Will Produce Plays at Coney" Daily News (July 15, 1935): 319. via Newspapers.comopen access
  8. ^ Guide to the Records of the Hebrew Actors' Union 1874-1986, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

External links[]

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