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1-50 of 86
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Jay Hunt was born on 4 August 1855 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a director and actor, known for The Black Sheep of the Family (1916), What Love Can Do (1916) and The Promise (1917). He was married to Florence Hale. He died on 18 November 1932 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Thomas Commerford was born on 1 August 1855 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ex-Convict (1913), Frauds (1915) and The Hobo's Rest Cure (1912). He died on 17 February 1920 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
- Director
- Cinematographer
- Writer
James Williamson was born on 8 November 1855 in Kirkaldy, Scotland, UK. He was a director and cinematographer, known for Attack on a China Mission (1900), Stop Thief! (1901) and Spring Cleaning (1903). He died on 18 August 1933 in Richmond, Surrey, England, UK.- Marie Corelli was born on 1 May 1855 in London, England, UK. She was a writer, known for Leaves From Satan's Book (1920), The Treasure of Heaven (1916) and Innocent (1921). She died on 21 April 1924 in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, England, UK.
- Jacob Adler, the legendary "Great Eagle"' ("adler" is the German word for "eagle") of the Yiddish theater, was one of the great American stage actors, ranking with Edwin Booth, John Barrymore and Marlon Brando. Adler also is famous as the patriarch of an acting dynasty that stretched over 100 years from the late 19th century to the 21st and was essential to the evolution of the American theater from melodrama to a new heights of realism and seriousness. Adler's life story not only elucidates the Golden Age of the Yiddish theater but is a testament to the survival of a culture in a world where many elements threatened to extirpate it.
Adler was born in Odessa in Imperal Russia on February 12, 1855 and was stricken with the theatrical bug as a teenager. He joined a Yiddish theatrical company, the Rosenberg Troupe, in the 1870s. The Rosenberg Troupe was one of three Yiddish theatrical companies in Russia, the other two being Goldfaden's Troupe and Sheikevitch's Troupe. During his theatrical apprenticeship with Rosenberg, Jacob Adler proved himself to be an outstanding actor and a superb dancer but a bust as a balladeer. His poor singing thus cut off the lucrative operetta field for him. He compensated by becoming a great actor.
Adler gained experience as a member of the Rosenberg Troupe, touring Imperial Russia and putting on shows in Yiddish speaking communities. His first wife, Sonia Oberlander, was a member of the troupe. Adler was mentored by the eponymous head of the Troupe.
Jacob Adler became famous in the Polish and Russian Yiddish communities by playing the title role in Karl Gutzkow's drama, "Uriel de Acosta". Acosta (1585-1640) was a marrano (a Christianized Jew of medieval Spain) who fought for enlightenment in the Jewish community of Holland, which was under Spanish suzerainty. The play was hugely popular, but the popularity of the Yiddish theater and its tackling of serious, didactic fare rather than melodramas and musicals beloved by the masses made it suspect as a subversive influence.
The "modern" Yiddish theater can be seen as evolving out of the Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment) rather than from the religious Purimspiel. The unenlightened and viciously anti-semitic Russian oligarchy launched a series of pogroms in the 1880's that almost wiped out Jewish culture in Russia. Jews started emigrating from Russia en masse, with whole villages sometimes uprooting and leaving for more hospitable climes such as North America. Jewish culture was dealt a further blow when Czar Alexander III issued a ukase banning the Yiddish theater. Jacob Adler had no choice but to leave Russia; he emigrated to England at the end of November 1883.
Adler caught on as an actor with 'Dramatic Clubs'. In London, the Odessa-born Adler had a hit with the play "The Odessa Beggar." He had an even bigger hit in Schiller's "The Robber," which brought him international fame. However, after six years in England, Adler decided to emigrate to the United States of America, moving to the great melting pot that was New York City. In his memoirs (written in Yiddish), Adler recalled that "...when I came to America in 1889, I was already known by the proud name 'Nesher Hagadol' ('The Great Eagle') and was an actor famous throughout the Yiddish theatrical world."
In the Big Town, The Great Eagle starred in various Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue in the Bowery, the "Jewish Broadway." There were hundreds of thousands of Jews in the New York Metropolitan Area in the Gay Nineties, and many spoke Yiddish as their first or only language. The theater was their major entertainment form in an era in which there was no radio, let alone television. It was not unusual for an impoverished Jewish family to spend half of its week's wages wrestled from laboring in Lower East Side sweatshops at a night at the theater. Adler was successful enough to be able to open his own theater in the Bowery, the Union Theater on Broadway and Eighth Street. (He also later opened the National in the same area.)
Adler focused on producing dramatic plays as he was not successful in operettas and had a didactic bent. He wanted the theater to be socially significant rather than remain just a vehicle for vulgar entertainment like the melodramas beloved by the Jewish denizens of the Lower East Side. Adler linked up with playwright Jacob Gordin and revolutionized the Yiddish Theater, and, a generation later, American theater as a whole.
Gordin wrote "Sibina", "The Wild Man", and "The Yiddish King Lear", Adler's greatest triumph. First assaying the role in November 1891, King Lear brought Adler even greater fame and solidified his reputation a great actor. Sara Heine Adler, his second wife, said of the night he first took the stage as Lear: "He was not an actor that night, but a force."
The great success of Ader in Gordin's Lear represented the incorporation of the world classical canon into the American (and international) Yiddish theater. It also meant that "better" or more high-brow theater targeting the Yiddish-speaking Jewish audience could thrive. It had been an axiom that the 'Shund' tradition of Jewish Broadway, a focus on sensational melodrama, was the vehicle for success as it attracted the Jewish masses. The undisputed champion of the 'Shund' tradition was Boris Thomashefsky, who had mocked "The Great Eagle" as he had been more financially successful with his cheap melodramas than Adler was with his more prestigious theatrical offerings.
However, with King Lear, Adler had not only an artistic triumph but a great financial success. Jacob Adler had made the "Jewish Broadway" safe for "better theater." A similar process would happen in the 1930s and 1940s when the Group Theatre, a company that included two of his children and which had roots in the quality Yiddish theater Adler had pioneered, would revolutionize the Great White Way of Old Broadway itself with a socially conscious "better theater". Jacob's daughter Stella Adler, the Yiddish- and Group Theatre-affiliated actress who became a premier acting coach in the US, said about her father's success with The Yiddish King Lear that "The whole profession caught fire. Good theater apparently could 'make it'... Every actor wanted to play Gordin. Every actor wanted to play the classics, and the people came."
Adler achieved even greater success when, in 1903, he trod the boards on Broadway as Shylock in a production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." He had another supreme triumph, humanizing a character that until then had been a one-dimensional, stereotypical villain, nearly always played by a gentile in a red fright wig.
In 1910, Adler made his first and only feature film for the Selig movie studio, "Michael Strogoff" an adaptation of Jules Verne's adventure story directed by J. Searle Dawley. The movie was one of the first full-length adaptations of a Verne work. "Michael Strogoff" was a first rate production with lavish production values, which were unusual for a movie from the Selig studio, but which bears testimony to the fame and respect Adler engendered. The film was notable for its climax, which entailed the burning of a Siberian city.
Adler' wrote his memoirs in Yiddish, which were published in the Yiddish-language socialist newspaper 'Die Varheit' ('The Truth') from 1916-19. Adler fell ill in 1922, and though he recovered, his illness had aged him and sapped his powers. When he returned to front his theater before the adoring crowds, putting back on the grease-paint to play in Gordin's drama "The Stranger", he was a success, but had clearly lost the stamina necessary for the stage. He died on April 1, 1926 in New York City, aged 81.
His second wife Sara Heine Adler, herself a great actress who regaled a young Marlon Brando with tales of her late husband and his acting philosophy that had a great influence on the tyro thespian, died in 1953. They had brought into being an acting dynasty, most notable in the successes of their son, Luther, and their daughter, Stella. Stella's grandson David Oppenheim is an actor who runs the influential acting school she founded.
Jacob Adler's legacy was to effect the transformation of the Yiddish Theater into quality theater. His son Luther and daughter Stella, as members of the Group Theatre, an organization with roots firmly planted in the Yiddish theater, helped do the same to Broadway in the 1930s. He also helped influence a new generation of actors who came to prominence in the 1920s and 1930s, most notably Paul Muni, who started in the Yiddish theater, which largely died out even before the Holocaust due to assimilation, the decline of Yiddish as a living language among American Jews, and the competition posed by radio and movies as a new form of cheap entertainment.
The nearly 70-year-old Adler, in the last chapter of his memoirs, explained the significance of the Yiddish theater and its enduring legacy: "Only dipped in blood and lit with tears of a living witness can the world understand how, with our blood, with our nerves, with the tears of our sleepless nights, we built the theater that stands today as a testament to our people." - Director
- Cinematographer
- Producer
William Friese-Greene was a prolific English inventor and professional photographer born in Bristol, England. He studied at the Queen Elizabeth's Hospital school. In 1871, he was apprenticed to the Bristol photographer Marcus Guttenberg, but later successfully went to court to be freed early from the indentures of his seven-year apprenticeship. He married the Swiss, Helena Friese, on 24 March 1874 and, in a remarkable move for the era, decided to add her maiden name to his surname. In 1876, he set up his own studio in Bath and, by 1881, had expanded his business, having more studios in Bath, Bristol and Plymouth. In Bath he came into contact with John Arthur Roebuck Rudge, a scientific instrument maker, who built what he called the Biophantic Lantern, which could display seven photographic slides in rapid succession, producing the illusion of movement. Friese-Greene was fascinated by the machine and worked with Rudge on a variety of devices over the 1880s, various of which Rudge called the Biophantascope. Moving his base to London in 1885, Friese-Greene realised that glass plates would never be a practical medium for continuously capturing life as it happens. Hence he began experiments with the new Eastman paper roll film before turning his attention to experimenting with celluloid as a medium for motion picture cameras. In 1888, he had some form of moving picture camera constructed, the nature of which is not known. On 21 June 1889, he was issued patent no. 10131 for a motion-picture camera, in collaboration with a civil engineer, Mortimer Evans. It was apparently capable of taking up to ten photographs per second using paper and celluloid film. In 1890 he developed a camera with Frederick Varley to shoot stereoscopic moving images. This ran at a slower frame rate, and although the 3D arrangement worked, there are no records of projection. He worked on a series of moving picture cameras into 1891, but although many individuals recount seeing his projected images privately, he never gave a successful public projection of moving pictures. His experiments with motion pictures were to the detriment of his other business interests and in 1891 he was declared bankrupt. From 1904 he lived in Brighton and, in 1905, he patented a two-colour moving picture system using prisms. Eventually, the arrival of the war and personal poverty meant there was nothing more to be done with colour for some years. On 5 May 1921, Friese-Greene, then a largely forgotten figure, attended a stormy meeting of the cinema trade at the Connaught Rooms in London to discuss the current poor state of British film distribution. Disturbed by the tone of the proceedings, Friese-Greene got to his feet to speak. The chairman asked him to come forward onto the platform to be heard better, which he did, appealing for the two sides to come together. Shortly after returning to his seat, he collapsed. People went to his aid and took him outside, but he died almost immediately of heart failure.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Effie Ellsler was born on 17 September 1855 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Daddy Long Legs (1931), The Actress (1928) and The Lady of Scandal (1930). She was married to Frank Weston. She died on 8 October 1942 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Arthur Azevedo was born on 7 July 1855 in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. He was a writer, known for A Capital Federal (1923), Entra na Farra (1943) and Teu Tua (1979). He died on 22 October 1908 in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
- Actor
- Cinematographer
Charles Sutton was born on 17 March 1855 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. He was an actor and cinematographer, known for The Cub Reporter (1912), Pardners (1917) and Vanity Fair (1915). He was married to Mary Isabella Bailey. He died on 20 July 1935 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA.- Arthur Wing Pinero was born on 24 May 1855 in London, England, UK. He was a writer, known for Mid-Channel (1920), Bonds of Love (1919) and The Gay Lord Quex (1917). He was married to Myra Holme. He died on 23 November 1934 in London, England, UK.
- Elisabeth Christensen was born on 24 November 1855 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She was an actress, known for Häxan (1922), Møllerens Datter (1912) and Et pokkers Pigebarn (1912). She died on 29 July 1923 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- Stevan Sremac was born on 11 November 1855 in Senta, Austria-Hungary [now Serbia]. He was a writer, known for Pop Cira i pop Spira (1957), Zona Zamfirova (2002) and Ivko's Feast (2005). He died on 12 August 1906 in Sokobanja, Serbia.
- Eduard von Keyserling was born on 2 May 1855 in Tels-Paddern, Kurland, Russia. He was a writer, known for The Treehouse, Comédie d'été (1989) and Die Galgenbrücke (1989). He died on 28 September 1918 in Munich, Germany.
- Writer
- Editor
Charles T. Dazey was born on 13 August 1855 in Lima, Illinois, USA. He was a writer and editor, known for The Kentucky Derby (1922), Manhattan Madness (1916) and The Midnight Trail (1918). He was married to Lucy Harding. He died on 9 February 1938 in Quincy, Illinois, USA.- Gerald Griffin was born on 12 December 1855 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for A Pair of Cupids (1918), Feathertop (1916) and The Sunbeam (1916). He died on 16 March 1919 in Venice, California, USA.
- Raymond Blathwayt was born on 25 February 1855 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Great Moment (1921), Wild Honey (1922) and Sacred and Profane Love (1921). He died on 10 December 1935 in Bromley, Kent, England, UK.
- Paul Deschanel was born on 13 February 1855 in Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium. He was married to Germaine Brice de Ville. He died on 28 April 1922 in Paris, France.
- Eric Lewis was born on 23 October 1855 in Northampton, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Brown Sugar (1922) and The Happy Ending (1925). He died on 1 April 1935 in Margate, Kent, England, UK.
- Eugene V. Debs was born on 5 November 1855 in Terre Haute, Indiana, USA. He was married to Kate Metzel. He died on 20 October 1926 in Elmhurst, Illinois, USA.
- H.C. Bunner was born on 3 August 1855 in Oswego, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Windows (1955), A Sisterly Scheme (1919) and Your Show Time (1949). He was married to Alice Learned. He died on 11 May 1896 in Nutley, New Jersey, USA.
- Clementine Plessner was born on 7 December 1855 in Vienna, Austrian Empire [now Austria]. She was an actress, known for Taras Bulba (1924), Kaliber fünf Komma zwei (1920) and Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (1918). She died on 27 February 1943 in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia [now Terezín, Czech Republic].
- Nikolay Sinelnikov was born on 12 February 1855. He was an actor, known for Put v Damask (1927). He died on 19 April 1939.
- Ludwik Solski was born on 20 January 1855 in Gdów, Galicia, Austrian Empire [now Malopolskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Geniusz sceny (1938), Ziemia obiecana (1927) and Tajemnica lekarza (1930). He died on 19 December 1954 in Kraków, Malopolskie, Poland.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Otto Elg-Lundberg was born on 26 August 1855. He was an actor, known for Charlotte Löwensköld (1930) and The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924). He died in 1942.- Additional Crew
Henry Dana was born on 1 January 1855 in Chelsea, Middlesex, London, England, UK. Henry is known for King John (1899) and Henry VIII (1911). Henry was married to Juliette Ann X. Henry died on 4 September 1921 in Bayswater, London, England, UK.- Thecla Åhlander was born on 3 June 1855 in Norway. She was an actress, known for The Hell Ship (1923), Elisabet (1921) and The Blizzard (1923). She died on 8 April 1925.
- Composer
- Music Department
Michele Esposito was born on 29 September 1855 in Castellammare di Stabia, Campania, Italy. Michele was a composer, known for The Post-Bag (1938). Michele died on 26 November 1929 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.- Elena Maróthy-Soltésova was born on 6 January 1855 in Korpona, Austria-Hungary [now Krupina, Slovakia]. Elena was a writer, known for Johanka (1982). Elena died on 11 February 1939 in Martin, Czechoslovakia [now Slovakia].
- Arthur Nikisch was born on 12 October 1855 in Mosonszentmiklós, Hungary. He was married to Amélie Heussner. He died on 23 January 1922 in Leipzig, Germany.
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Georges Rodenbach was born on 16 July 1855 in Tournai, Belgium. He was a writer, known for Más allá del olvido (1956), Die tote Stadt (1983) and Brugge, die stille (1981). He died on 25 December 1898 in Paris, France.- István Bársony was born on 15 November 1855 in Keresztes (now Sárkeresztes), Hungary. István was a writer, known for Az ingovány (1918). István died on 12 March 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
- Herbert Kelcey was born on 10 October 1855 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Sphinx (1916) and After the Ball (1914). He was married to Effie Shannon. He died on 10 July 1917 in Bayport, Long Island, New York, USA.
- Soundtrack
Julian Edwards was born on 11 December 1855 in Manchester, England, UK. He was married to Philippine Siedle (diva). He died on 5 September 1910 in Yonkers, New York, USA.- Paul Bach was born on 6 November 1855 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for Sklaven der Rache (1921). He died in 1936 in Germany.
- William Sharp was a Scottish poet, novelist and mystic, probably best known for his play "The Immortal Hour" and "The Sin-Eater and Other Tales" an intriguing and gripping collection of tales that mixes mystery, Gothic horror, crime, and thriller. He wrote or edited almost forty books in his own name, as well as more than ten as Fiona MacLeod. William Sharp was educated at Blair Lodge Academy, Polmont, and from 1867 at Glasgow Academy. Gifted at languages, in 1871 he entered Glasgow University, where he came under the influence of the charismatic professor of English, John Nichol. By 1883 Sharp had been appointed London art critic of the Glasgow Herald, and his rise into the literary coterie of London continued. In 1890 he took a trip through Europe and developed or completed a feeling of deep dislike towards city living.
- Charles Beetham was born on 16 December 1855 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Man from Snowy River (1920), A Daughter of Australia (1922) and Tall Timber (1926). He died on 28 July 1937 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
- Ada Deaves was born on 30 November 1855 in Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for Mice and Men (1916). She was married to Thomas H. Gossman. She died on 16 September 1920 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Popular on both sides of the Atlantic, British author and playwright, Stanley John Weyman, was considered by many to be one of the best historical romance writers of his day. Some lamented the fact that in 1928 his death rated only scarce mention, at least in America, by the national press.
Weyman's more popular works included "The King's Stratagem," (1891, "The Gentleman Of France Being The Memorys Of Gaston De Bonne Sieur De Marsac" (1893) and "Under the Red Robe" (1894)) - Cenek Fencl was born on 29 May 1855 in Hrimézdice, Cechy, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Ceské nebe (1918), Certisko (1919) and Princezna z chalupy (1919). He died on 12 August 1928 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].
- Actor
- Soundtrack
George Thorne joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1881 as principal patter-baritone playing the roles of Mr Wells in "The Sorcerer", Sir Joseph in "HMS Pinafore", Major-General Stanley in "The Pirates of Penzance", Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe", King Gama in "Princess Ida", Ko-Ko in "The Mikado", Robin Oakapple in "Ruddigore", Jack Point in "The Yeomen of the Guard", Duke of Plaza Toro in "The Gondoliers", and Scaphio in "Utopia Ltd.". He married D'Oyly Carte choristor Geraldine Thompson, who sang with the company in 1883. Thorne himself left the company in 1899, after an impressive 18 years.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Elith Reumert was born on 9 January 1855 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was an actor and director, known for Lille Klaus og store Klaus (1913), Nøddebo præstegaard (1974) and Grænsefolket (1927). He died on 20 June 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Félix Mortreuil was born on 29 November 1855 in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. Félix is known for Chemineau chemine (1906) and Damia, la chanteuse était en noir (2017). Félix died on 28 October 1928 in Paris, France.- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Anatol Liadov was born on 10 May 1855 in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire [now Russia]. He was a composer, known for Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), The Invisible Boy (2014) and The Price of Milk (2000). He died on 28 August 1914 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire [now Russia].- Robert H. Fordyce was born on 19 October 1855 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He died on 8 June 1928 in Wyckoff, New Jersey, USA.
- Betzy Kofoed was born on 14 October 1855 in Kristiansand, Norway. She was an actress, known for Kærlighedens Firkløver (1915), Telefondamen (1917) and Zigøjnerblod (1915). She was married to Carl Emil Petersen and Jens Koefoed. She died on 23 January 1923 in Skive, Denmark.
- Writer
- Producer
Sydney Rosenfeld was born on 26 October 1855 in Richmond, Virginia, USA. Sydney was a writer and producer, known for The Senator (1915), Children of Destiny (1920) and The Purple Lady (1916). Sydney was married to Genie H Johnson. Sydney died on 13 June 1931 in New York City, New York, USA.- Olive Schreiner was born on 24 March 1855 in Wittebergen, Basutoland [now South Africa]. She was a writer, known for The Hunter (1973), The Story of an African Farm (1980) and The Story of an African Farm (2004). She was married to Samuel Cronwright. She died on 11 December 1920 in Wynberg, South Africa.
- John Hays Hammond was born on 31 March 1855 in San Francisco, California, USA. He died on 8 June 1936 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Composer, songwriter ("Sleep"), conductor, organist, teacher and publisher. Adam Geibel came to the United States and was educated at the Pennsylvania Institute for the Blind in Philadelphia (where he later would teach piano, violin, harmony and composition over a seventeen-year career). He studied music with David Wood and earned an honorary Music Degree from Temple University. Between 1885 and 1925 he was chief organist for the John Stetson Mission Sunday School, and he founded a publishing company. Joining ASCAP, his chief musical collaborators included Earl Burtnett and Richard Buck, and his other popular-song and sacred compositions include "Kentucky Babe", "Evening Bells", "The Nativity", "The Incarnation", "Light Out of Darkness", "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus", "Some Day He'll Make It Plain", and "Let the Gospel Light Shine Out".- Jan Klecanda was born on 5 March 1855 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria [now Czech Republic]. Jan was a writer, known for Páter Vojtech (1929), Prach a broky (1926) and Adjunkt Vrba (1929). Jan died on 10 May 1920 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic].