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1-50 of 181
- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidor Baline on May 11, 1888 in Mogilev, Belarus, Russian Empire. Towering composer, songwriter, ("God Bless America", "Always", "Blue Skies", "White Christmas") author and publisher, he came to the United States at age 5 and was educated in New York's public schools. His earliest musical education was from his father, a cantor. He earned Honorary degrees from Bucknell University and Temple University. Beginning his career as a song-plugger for publisher Harry von Tilzer, Berlin worked as a singing waiter in Chinatown. In 1909, he was hired as a staff lyricist by the Ted Snyder Company, and became a partner to that firm four years later.
In 1910, he began doing vaudeville appearances in the United States and abroad, and also appeared with Snyder in the Broadway musical "Up and Down Broadway", that ran for 72 performances. He joined ASCAP as a charter member in 1914, and served on its first board of directors between 1914-1918. Berlin enlisted the United States Army infantry in World War I, and was a sergeant at Camp Upton, New York. After the war, he established his own public-relations firm, and in 1921, he built the 1025-seat Music Box Theatre (at 239 W. 45th Street, New York) with Sam H. Harris. After Harris' death in 1941, Berlin assumed full ownership and the theatre remains a Broadway institution to this day.
Among his many awards was the Medal for Merit for his 1942 all-soldier show "This Is the Army", which toured the United States, Europe and South Pacific battle zones; all proceeds were assigned to Army Emergency Relief and other service agencies. Berlin was also a member of the French Legion of Honor and held the Congressional Medal of Honor for "God Bless America", the proceeds from which went to the God Bless America Fund. His songs were sung by Fred Astaire, Al Jolson, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Dick Powell, Alice Faye and many others. Irving Berlin died at the age of 101 of natural causes on September 22, 1989 in New York City.- Actor
- Stunts
Jack Tornek was born on 2 January 1887 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was an actor, known for A Five Foot Ruler (1917), Bombs and Banknotes (1917) and David Hartman: Counterspy (1955). He died on 18 February 1974 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.- Carl Don was born on 15 December 1910 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was an actor, known for Ransom (1996), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964) and Stardust Memories (1980). He died on 6 March 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Ms. Locke became the toast of Broadway's 1937 season when she starred with John Garfield in "Having a Wonderful Time", the Arthur Kober comedy. She was critically acclaimed as Ophelia in the Maurice Evans production of "Hamlet". Her other Broadway plays included "Fifth Column," with Lee J. Cobb, and "Clash by Night", with Tallulah Bankhead.
- Polish-born Meyer Lansky emigrated to New York with his family and grew up in the Lower East Side. It was there that he ran into Bugsy Siegel, at the time a teenaged neighborhood gangster, and the two would remain lifelong friends. When Lansky saw the kinds of money Siegel was making from his various illegal activities--mainly gambling--he decided that this was the line of work for him. His specialty was the floating crap game, and he was so successful at that and other gambling schemes that he and Siegel soon controlled a large gang that was known as the Bugs and Meyer Mob. The gang's size, and Lansky's business acumen, attracted the attention of another local gangster, Lucky Luciano, who approached Lansky and invited him to participate in his idea of forming a national criminal syndicate. The Prohibition Era was a goldmine for Lansky and other gangsters, and he, Siegel and Luciano became incredibly wealthy from bootlegging, prostitution, drug smuggling, gambling and other rackets. In the 1930s Luciano's dream of a national crime commission became a reality, and Lansky was appointed to a seat on its board of directors. Lansky's specialty was financial matters and he proved to be a genius at laundering the mob's illegal profits and squeezing every last penny from its legal and illegal investments. When his friend Luciano was sent to prison, Lansky managed to get him an early release by ensuring his cooperation with the U.S. government in its preparation for the invasion of Sicily. After Luciano was deported to Italy, Lansky took over the management of his empire. Friendship only went so far in the mob, however. His good friend Siegel got into trouble by wasting millions of dollars of "wiseguy" money building Las Vegas, and when the decision was made to have him killed, Lansky went along with it.
In the 1950s Lansky formed a friendship with Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, and the mob was given basically a blank check to run all the rackets in Cuba, especially the gambling casinos, prostitution and drug smuggling, with a large cut of the profits going to Batista. From Cuba Lansky spread his gambling and prostitution rackets to other South American countries, and even had a hand--although not a public one--in the casinos in Hong Kong and Macao. Lansky's fortunes began to wane, however, in the late 1960s when the U.S. government went after him for income tax evasion. He fled to Israel, and claimed citizenship there as a returning Jew. However, after legal wrangling with the Israeli government, Lansky's visa was revoked and he was deported back to the U.S. He stood trial, but managed to avoid conviction, reportedly because of his extensive political connections. He settled into a comfortable life in Miami, Florida, where he died of a heart attack in 1983. - Actor
- Additional Crew
Michael Mark was born on 15 March 1886 in Mogilev, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was an actor, known for Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Wasp Woman (1959) and The Great Flamarion (1945). He died on 3 February 1975 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Pyotr Aleynikov was born on 12 July 1914 in village Krivel, Mogilev uyezd, Mogilev Governorate, Russian Empire [now Shklow Raion, Mahilyow Region, Belarus]. He was an actor, known for The Great Glinka (1946), Seven Brave Men (1936) and Shumi, gorodok (1940). He died on 9 June 1965 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].
- George McKay was born on 15 April 1884 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was an actor, known for Devil's Playground (1937), The Face Behind the Mask (1941) and Underground Agent (1942). He was married to Ottie Ardine. He died on 3 December 1945 in Hollywood, California, USA.
- Kurt Katch was born on 28 January 1896 in Grodno, Poland, Russian Empire [now Hrodna, Belarus]. He was an actor, known for The Seventh Cross (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944) and The Mummy's Curse (1944). He was married to Hinda Ryfka Kleinlerer. He died on 14 August 1958 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Donald Lawton was born on 10 May 1908 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was an actor, known for Lights Out (1946), Get Smart (1965) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). He died on 18 October 1990 in Madrid, Spain.
- Shmuel Rodensky was born on 10 December 1904 in Smorgon, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire [now Smarhon, Grodno Oblast, Belarus]. He was an actor, known for The Odessa File (1974), Tuvia Vesheva Benotav (1968) and Moses the Lawgiver (1974). He was married to Nyura Shein. He died on 18 July 1989 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
- Aleksandr Raskin was born on 25 September 1914 in Vitebsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He was a writer, known for Spring (1947) and Priklyucheniya malenkogo papy (1980). He was married to Frida Vigdorova. He died on 4 February 1971 in Moscow, USSR.
- Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and its chief Begin was also noted as "leader of the notorious terrorist organization" by the British government and banned from entering the United Kingdom.
- Marc Chagall was a Russian-Jewish artist and writer in Yiddish who moved to France and developed his highly original style by blending elements of traditional Jewish culture with cutting-edge innovations in modern art.
He was born Moishe Segal (Russified: Marc Zakharovich Shagalov) on July 7, 1887, in Liozno, a suburb of Vitebsk, Russia (now in Belarus). He was the first-born of nine children in the traditional close-knit Russian-Jewish family. Chagall's father and mother were cousins. His father, Khatskel Segal, was a herring merchant. His mother, Feiga-Ita, was a housewife. Chagall studied Torah and Talmud in Hebrew with Rabbi Ochre, and then with Rabbi Jatkin for basic education at home. At that time Jews were not admitted to schools in Russia, but Chagall's parents managed to get him admitted by bribing a school principal. Chagall's favorite classes were drawing and geometry.
Young Chagall made his first artwork for the Haggadah for his family on Passover. Then he did a copy of the portrait of composer Anton Rubinstein from the magazine "Niva". His first job was as a photo-retoucher at the photo studio of Meshchaninov in Vitebsk. Chagall briefly studied in the cheder of the Zarechenskaya synagogue, the biggest temple in Vitebsk. There he also sang as a cantor's assistant and studied violin. He later took painting lessons from Yehuda Pen in Vitebsk for two months. In 1907 Chagall went to St. Petersburg. There he studied art under Nikolai Roerich at the Imperial Society of Art Supporters; then under Leon Bakst and Mstislav Doboujinsky at Zviagintseva School of Art.
From 1910-1914 he lived in Paris on a stipend of 125 francs a month from a notable Russian-Jewish lawyer, Maxim Vinaver. Chagall settled in the Montparnasse community of La Ruche. There he associated with Guillaume Apollinaire, M. Jakob, A. Salmon, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and others. During those four years in Paris he witnessed the emerging new styles of Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism and various avant-garde currents being created by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani and Giorgio De Chirico, as well as other leading artists of the time. In May of 1914 Chagall went to Germany. There he became acquainted with the artistic experiments of Wassily Kandinsky. Chagall had his first solo show at the Sturm gallery in Berlin. Then, after the onset of World War I, he went back to Russia.
In May of 1915 Chagall married his first love, Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler in Vitebsk. She was the inspirational model for his famous series of paintings with passionate flying figures. In 1916 the Chagalls had a daughter, Ida. At that time he created his most vibrant and youthful paintings depicting his wife Bella flying with him in the skies above their hometown of Vitebsk.
Chagall was appointed the Commissar of Arts in Vitebsk Province after the Russian Revolution of 1917. He organized the new Vitebsk Art School and also taught there. He moved to Moscow in 1920. There he took an active part in the stage productions of the newly formed Moscow Jewish Theatre, of which he was the Art Director from 1920-1922. Chagall designed the stage decoration for the production of "Fiddler on the Roof", based on the story by Sholom Aleichem. Chagall's work was marked by surrealistic inventiveness and continued his emergence as a cross-cultural artist.
In 1922 the Chagalls fled the troubled Russia and moved to Berlin, then to Paris in 1923, as did many Russian intellectuals. He published his book of memoirs with illustrations in 1923. Then he made illustrations for "Dead Souls" by Nikolay Gogol, and began illustrating the Bible in 1930. In 1937 Chagall became a naturalized French citizen. In 1941, however, the Chagalls fled the German occupation of Paris and lived in New York until 1947. There Chagall designed decorations for the production of "Firebird" with the music of Igor Stravinsky and choreography by George Balanchine. Chagall also made a stage set for "Aleko" with the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. In September of 1944 his beloved wife and inspirational muse Bella died.
Back in Europe, Chagall settled in Provence, France. His creativity was now inspired by his new love, Valentina (Vava) Brodsky, whom he married in 1952. His works during this period are marked with energetic and joyful feelings, expressed by vibrant lines and vivid colors. He expanded his creativity into sculpture, ceramics and stained glass, making stained glass windows for several Catholic and Protestant cathedrals in France, Switzerland and Germany. In 1960 Chagall created remarkable stained glass windows for the Synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. In the 1960s and 1970s he decorated the new Parliament in Jerusalem, the ceiling of the Grand Opera in Paris, the lobby of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York and the National Bank Building in Chicago with a series of large-scale mosaic murals that define the language of 20th-century monumental art.
Mark Chagall died at the age of 97, on March 28, 1985, in Saint-Paul de Vence, France, and was laid to rest in Saint-Paul Town Cemetery, Provence, France.
Chagall's art is the pride of museum collections across the world. In 1973, the Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (The Chagall Museum) opened in Nice, France. The Chagall family home on Pokrovskaia street in Vitebsk was turned into a memorial museum in 1992 and decorated with copies of his works in 1997. - Producer
- Actor
David Sarnoff was one of the giants of 20th Century mass media as the head of Radio Corp. of America (RCA) and the National Broadcasting System (MBC). Sarnoff, who was of Jewish descent, was born on February 27, 1891 in Belarus in the old Russian Empire and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1900.
Sarnoff quit his job as an office boy with the Commercial Cable Co. when he was refused time off to observe Rosh Hashanah. In 1906, he was hired by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America and, in an "Only in America" Horatio Alger-like story, rose to become of the head of the firm through determination and hard work.
Sarnoff learned all he could about "wireless" (radio broadcasting) technology, serving at Marconi stations (radio stations) both on land and at sea. One of his posts was at the Wanamaker Department Store in New York City, where he and other Marconi operators followed radio traffic to determine the fate of the Titanic. He would later circulate the story that he was the first operator to actually receive a Titanic S.O.S. signal via wireless.
The industrious Sarnoff rose steadily in the company, eventually becoming chief inspector and contracts manager. He pioneered the use of radio on a railroad, music broadcasting (from Marconi's station at the Wanamaker Store), and long-distance wireless telephony. Wireless telephony convinced him of the viability of mass commercial radio broadcasting (transmission from a radio station to many receivers rather than the station-to-station "point-to-point" broadcasting that was the norm). He urged the company to develop a "Radio Music Box", a proposal that was put on the back burner during World War One.
The purchase of American Marconi by General Electric prepared the groundwork for his rise to the top of the electronic communications industry. G.E. rechristened the company the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to serve as a holding company for its radio patents monopoly, To promote his idea of the Radio Music Box for the mass public, Sarnoff helped arrange the broadcast of the 1921 heavyweight title fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. Reaching an audience of over a quarter of a million listeners, it helped proved the viability of "broadcasting", the transmission of a signal to multiple receivers. There was an audience out there, and Sarnoff was determined that RCA cash in, both from the production of radio sets and the creating content to be broadcast to those sets.
The radio medium started to explode as more "amateur" radio operators bought sets. As radio become more popular, Sarnoff's rise at RCA was assured since the commercialization of radio was now viable. RCA bought its first radio station in 1926, WEAF-New York, and established the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC), America's first radio network. It also bought the Victor Talking Machine Co., a major manufacturer of sound recordings, and renamed it RCA Victor.
Sarnoff became RCA's president in 1930. The success of NBC meant that it eventually was divided into two networks, Red and Blue, becoming the dominant force in commercial radio broadcasting. (The Blue Network eventually becoming the American Broadcasting Co. when it was spun-off under threat of anti-trust action during World War II.) As head of RCA and NBC, Sarnoff established himself as the major figure in the development of radio broadcasting in America and in television.
Under Sarnoff's leadership, RCA and NBC became leaders in the development of electronic television and color television, with RCA's equipment and standards dictating national standards. He also had a presence in the movies, with RCA providing the "R" in R.K.O. Pictures (Radio-Keith-Orpheum), which initially used RCA's patents for a sound system for motion pictures.
David Sarnoff retired as CEO of RCA in 1970 and died on December 12, 1971, at the age of 80. His mausoleum in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York is outfitted with a stained-glass window depicting a vacuum tube, an essential component in the development of radio and television broadcasting.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Prolific songwriter ("Heartaches", "Allegheny Moon"), composer, author and drummer. He came to the USA in 1908 and was educated at Franklyn High School in Seattle, Washington. He led his own band in Seattle, then came to New York in 1928 where he was a drummer in night club orchestras. Journeying to England in 1934, he wrote the London stage scores for "This'll Make You Whistle", "Going Greek", and "Hide and Seek". Joining ASCAP in 1930, his chief musical collaborators included Al Goodhart, Maurice Sigler, Ed Nelson, Sammy Lerner, Dick Manning, Jerry Livingston, Milton Drake, Mack David, Mann Curtis, Leo Corday, Leon Carr, Bob Merrill, and Walter Kent. His other popular-song compositions include "I Apologize", "Auf Wiedersehen, My Dear", "Fit as a Fiddle", "Black-Eyed Susan Brown", "Jimmy Had a Nickel", "Who Walks in When I Walk Out?", "I Saw Stars", "Why Don't You Practise What You Preach?", "Little Man You've Had a Busy Day", "Roll Up the Carpet", "I'm in a Dancing Mood", "Without Rhythm", "There Isn't Any Limit to My Love", "Everything Stops For Tea", "From One Minute to Another", "I Can Wiggle My Ears", "Say the Word", "Everything's in Rhythm With My Heart", "Let's Put Some People to Work", "Gangway", "Lord and Lady Whoozis", "She Shall Have Music", "Romance Runs in the Family", "Apple Blossoms and Chapel Bells", "Goodnight, Wherever You Are", "The Story of a Starry Night", "Close to You", "O Dio Mio", "What's the Good Word, Mr. Bluebird?", "I Must Have One More Kiss, Kiss, Kiss", "I Ups to Her and She Ups to Me", "Mairzy Doats", "Fuzzy Wuzzy", "I'm a Big Girl Now", "I Had Too Much to dream Last Night", "Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba", "There's No Tomorrow", "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "If I Knew You were Comin' I'd Have Baked a Cake", "Takes Two to Tango", "Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellenbogen by the Sea", "Papa Loves Mambo", "Don't Stay Away Too Long", "Hot Diggity", "Mama, Teach Me to Dance", "Ivy Rose", "Are You Really Mine?", "Oh, Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again", "Secretly", "Hawaiian Wedding Song", "You're Cheatin' Yourself", and "If You Smile at the Sun".- Writer
- Actor
- Art Director
Tadeusz Dolega-Mostowicz was born on 10 August 1898 in Okunevo, Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire [now Hlybokaye Raion, Vitebsk Oblast, Belarus]. He was a writer and actor, known for District Attorney (1933), Bialy Murzyn (1939) and Znachor (1937). He died on 20 September 1939 in Kuty, Stanislawowskie, Poland [now Kuty, Ukraine].- Yanina Zheymo was born on 29 May 1909 in Wolkowysk, Poland, Russian Empire [now Vawkavysk, Belarus]. She was an actress, known for Cinderella (1947), The Snow Queen (1957) and Three Women (1936). She was married to Leon Jeannot, Iosif Kheifits and Andrei Kostrichkin. She died on 29 December 1987 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland.
- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Composer ("The Emperor Jones") and pianist, educated at the Vienna Conservatory (Master Class), and a student of F. E. Koch. He came to the USA in 1885 and made his debut as pianist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Berlin in 1912. From there and through 1919 he continued giving concert tours throughout Europe and the USA. Between 1931 and 1933 he was chairman of the composition department at the Chicago Musical College. His leadership positions included the presidency of the International Society of Contemporary Music, and he was a co-founder of the League of Composers and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.- Between 1887 and 1914, more than 2 million Jews, most of them desperately poor, emigrated to the United States and Canada from what later became the Soviet Bloc. Preceding them slightly was Abraham Cahan, who arrived in New York in 1882. (A convinced Socialist, he was forced to immigrate in order to avoid the roundup of dissidents that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia.) He settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and concerned himself with the welfare of the growing Jewish population. Cahan was the founding editor of The Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish-language newspaper that first appeared in 1897. (Now known simply as The Forward, it is still published each week, though with primarily English copy.) He was also a writer of fiction, and that is what brought him his widest audience: his stories and novels won the praise of the leading literary critics of the day.
- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
David Rubinoff was born on 13 September 1897 in Grodno, Poland, Russian Empire [now Hrodna, Belarus]. He was an actor, known for Thanks a Million (1935), You Can't Have Everything (1937) and Rubinoff and His Violin (1939). He was married to Darlene Azar. He died on 6 October 1986 in Columbus, Ohio, USA.- Max Lerner was born on 20 December 1902 in Minsk, Russian Empire [now Belarus]. He died on 5 June 1992 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Helena Gotlib was born in 1885 in Grodno, Grodno Governorate, Northwestern Krai, Russian Empire [now Grodno, Grodno Region, Belarus]. She was an actress, known for Di farshtoysene tokhter (1915), In die poylishe velder (1929) and Zayn vaybs man (1913). She died in 1943 in Warsaw Ghetto, Warsaw, General Government, Occupied Polish Region, Nazi Germany [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland].
- Actor
- Director
Efim Zakharovich Kopelian (Yefim Kopelyan) was born on April 12, 1912, in Rechitsa, Gomel province, Russian Empire (now Rechytsa, Homel province, Belarus). He studied architecture at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), but after a year he dropped out of college and joined the stunts at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT). In 1935 he graduated from the Acting Studio of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) and became a permanent member of the main troupe. In 1941 Kopelyan married actress Lyudmila Makarova.
Kopelyan was one of the leading actors of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre (BDT) in Leningrad for 43 years. He began his acting career under directorship of Aleksei Dikij and then Boris Babochkin. Among his highest achievements were remarkable stage works under the directorship of Georgi Tovstonogov. Kopelyan's stage partners at the BDT were a stellar troupe of actors, including such prominent film stars as Lyudmila Makarova, Oleg Basilashvili, Tatyana Doronina, Valentina Kovel, Svetlana Kryuchkova, Zinaida Sharko, Kirill Lavrov, Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Sergey Yurskiy, Vladislav Strzhelchik, Oleg Borisov, Evgeniy Lebedev, Vsevolod Kuznetsov, Nikolay Trofimov, Pavel Luspekayev, and many other remarkable Russian actors.
Kopelyan shot to fame in the Soviet Union with his legendary narration in the TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973). Kopelyan's special and enigmatic voice in that narration gained him such a wide popularity that he became a hero of many popular jokes. A brilliant film actor, Kopelyan played major film roles in the trilogy 'Neulovimye Mstiteli' (1966-1971), Opasnye gastroli (1969), and Povest o chelovecheskom serdtse (1976) among other popular Russian films. Kopelyan himself considered his part as Ataman in epic film Dauriya (1972) as his best work in film.
Yefim Kopelyan was designated the title of People's Artist of the USSR. He died of a heart failure on March 6, 1975, and was laid to rest in Necropolis of The Masters of Art "Literatorskie mostki" at Volkovskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia.- Writer
- Soundtrack
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (24 December 1798 - 26 November 1855) was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is one of Poland's "Three Bards" (Polish: Trzej Wieszcze) and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.