Yetta Zwerling Silverman (December 25, 1894 â€" January 17, 1982) was
a Yiddish movie star during the 1930s and 1940s.Yetta Zwerling was
born in Kalievo, near Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (present-day
Choliv, near Lviv, Ukraine). Her father had a fruit business and was
also a klezmer. Her sisters Bessie and Mamie sang in the Yiddish
theater chorus and brought Yetta in as well.She emigrated to the
United States with her family, finishing high school there and playing
juvenile roles in variety theaters and English-language vaudeville.
During her vaudeville years she also sang Yiddish songs like Vu Bistu,
Yukel? and Bei Mir Bist du Schoen.Her first "legitimate role" in
Yiddish theatre was as Hanele in Zolotarevsky's Yeshiva Bokher
(Schoolboy). She toured and ended up in New York, playing Yiddish
vaudeville with Sam Klinetsky at the Grand Theater, then doing four
years of English-language comedy with Leon Errol and then six seasons
in Philadelphia with Anshel Shor, who improved her Yiddish and gave
her the opportunity to play the soubrette opposite Leon Blank, Celia
Adler, Sam Kestin, Dayna Feynman, Samuel Goldenberg and Boris
Thomashevsky. She then played at the National Theater in Student
Prince and with Bertha Kalich in Di neshomeh fun a froy (The Soul of a
Woman).
a Yiddish movie star during the 1930s and 1940s.Yetta Zwerling was
born in Kalievo, near Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (present-day
Choliv, near Lviv, Ukraine). Her father had a fruit business and was
also a klezmer. Her sisters Bessie and Mamie sang in the Yiddish
theater chorus and brought Yetta in as well.She emigrated to the
United States with her family, finishing high school there and playing
juvenile roles in variety theaters and English-language vaudeville.
During her vaudeville years she also sang Yiddish songs like Vu Bistu,
Yukel? and Bei Mir Bist du Schoen.Her first "legitimate role" in
Yiddish theatre was as Hanele in Zolotarevsky's Yeshiva Bokher
(Schoolboy). She toured and ended up in New York, playing Yiddish
vaudeville with Sam Klinetsky at the Grand Theater, then doing four
years of English-language comedy with Leon Errol and then six seasons
in Philadelphia with Anshel Shor, who improved her Yiddish and gave
her the opportunity to play the soubrette opposite Leon Blank, Celia
Adler, Sam Kestin, Dayna Feynman, Samuel Goldenberg and Boris
Thomashevsky. She then played at the National Theater in Student
Prince and with Bertha Kalich in Di neshomeh fun a froy (The Soul of a
Woman).
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