Paulina Lavitz
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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[]
- ^ "Will This Chicago Girl Become the Greatest Actress in America?" Chicago Sunday Tribune (January 6, 1907): 51. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Pepi Lavitz" Lives in the Yiddish Theatre.
- ^ Lucy France Pierce, "The Polyglot Theatre of the United States" The World To-Day (March 1909): 547.
- ^ Lucy France Pierce, "The Development of the Yiddish Theatre" Green Book Magazine (June 1914): 1071.
- ^ Untitled theatre note, Chicago Tribune (September 22, 1907): 13. via Newspapers.com
- ^ "Plays of Yiddish Theater Depict Life in Ghetto" Chicago Sunday Tribune (April 4, 1909): 24. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Walter Hartman, "Yiddish Co-ops Will Produce Plays at Coney" Daily News (July 15, 1935): 319. via Newspapers.com
- ^ Guide to the Records of the Hebrew Actors' Union 1874-1986, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
External links[]
- 1879 births
- 1959 deaths
- Burials at Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)
- Actors from Lviv
- American stage actresses
- Polish emigrants to the United States
- 19th-century Polish actresses
- 19th-century American actresses
- 20th-century American actresses