{"id":1622,"date":"2014-07-07T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2014\/07\/07\/from-vaudeville-to-fiddler-reintroducing\/"},"modified":"2014-07-07T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T14:00:00","slug":"from-vaudeville-to-fiddler-reintroducing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2014\/07\/07\/from-vaudeville-to-fiddler-reintroducing\/","title":{"rendered":"From Vaudeville to “Fiddler”: (Re)introducing Molly Picon, the “Jewish Charlie Chaplin”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re delighted to kick off a series close to our hearts: the story of Molly Picon, for decades a household name in Yiddish theater and vaudeville, then a Broadway star, performer with the USO and radio personality–not to mention Yente the Matchmaker in\u00a0<\/em>Fiddler in the Roof<\/a>.\u00a0Some called her<\/a>\u00a0"the\u00a0Jewish Charlie Chaplin"; others, “the Jewish Helen Hayes.” We think she stands grandly on her own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Former Center for Jewish History intern Sarah Ganton follows the story of her life as told through the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society, one of the five partners of the Center of Jewish History. Join us in celebrating this remarkable, vivacious, and endlessly talented woman. And don’t miss the next installment in our series, “The Molly Picon Story, Part 2: A Star (and a Romance) Is Born<\/a>.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"image\"<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Autographed headshot\u00a0of Molly Picon,\u00a0undated. From\u00a0the Collection of the American Jewish Historical Society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1943, approximately forty years into Molly Picon\u2019s long and storied career, Louis Nizer wrote of her: \u201cI suspect she is the Joan of Arc of the Yiddish Theatre. She is the glorious, heroized personification of her people\u2019s joy and tears, their song and dance, their versatility and charm. That is why she is their darling. They pay her tribute because she is a living tribute to them.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Though modern audiences may only remember her as Yente the matchmaker in the hit film\u00a0Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>, it is obvious from her collection of papers in both the AJHS and YIVO that she was much more than that.<\/p>\n

Molly Picon was born in New York on either February 28 or June 1, 1898. In her autobiography,\u00a0Molly!<\/em><\/a>, she writes, \u201cVarious records list me as having been born either February 28th or June 1st. Naturally, I celebrate both dates.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Her father, Louis Picon, was in fact married to both her mother, Clara Ostrovsky, and a previous wife in his home country of Poland, and thus was not present for much of Molly\u2019s and her younger sister Helen\u2019s childhoods. Clara, known as Mama Picon and her daughters soon left New York to move in with her parents, living in a home with two grandparents, the Picons, and eight or nine of Molly\u2019s cousins.<\/p>\n

By her own description, Molly was \u201ca small skinny kid who loved to\u00a0kibbitz\u00a0<\/em>with the neighbors.\u201d[3]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0While her mother sewed costumes for the Columbia Theater, Molly\u00a0kibbitzed\u00a0<\/em>away, learning song and dance routines from her neighbors and performing duets with her mother in their living room. Present at one such performance were actors from a Yiddish theater troupe for whom Clara was fitting costumes, and they convinced Mama Picon to put her daughter on the stage.<\/p>\n

Mama Picon sewed Molly a fancy new dress and off the duo went on the trolley car to the Bijou Theater, where amateur night was every Friday night and children could perform for talent scouts. But Molly\u2019s first professional performance, like much in her life, was anything but ordinary. On the trolley car she and Mama Picon encountered a skeptical drunk, and little Molly proved right then and there that she was a force to be reckoned with: \u201cI got up in the car and did my whole act…Then the drunk took off his derby and passed it around to the people in the car and collected two dollars in coins, which he gave to me. So I consider that my first professional performance.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Molly went on to win Amateur Night at the Bijou Theater in effectively her second professional performance, earning a five-dollar prize and a new stage name: Baby Margaret. Baby Margaret soon became the consummate vaudeville professional, singing in English and Dutch, dancing traditional Russian dances, playing whatever child\u2019s part came her way in plays at the Columbia Theater, and, notably, playing Topsy in\u00a0Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em>\u00a0in both Yiddish and German.<\/p>\n

She was young yet, but Molly knew she had found her lifelong career: \u201cSomething inside me shone bright and clear, and I\u00a0knew<\/em>\u00a0I would stick to the theater all my life…as the wardrobe mistress\u2019 daughter, I got a love of the stage because there I could make believe I was all the things I could never be in real life.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Indeed, Molly would leave high school after two years to tour on the vaudeville circuit full time, where we will catch up with her in the next post.<\/p>\n

Sarah Ganton is a former intern at the Center for Jewish History.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Next in our series:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Molly Picon Story, Part 2: A Star (and a Romance) Is Born<\/a><\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Louis Nizer, writing in a program for a reception honoring MP, given by the Ladies Welfare League of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance at the Molly Picon Theatre, 1943 (AJHS MP Papers, box 50 folder 1051).\u00a0Link to the finding aid.<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Picon, Molly with Jean Grillo.\u00a0Molly! An Autobiography.\u00a0<\/em>New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. pg. 109.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Louis Nizer, writing in a program for a reception honoring MP, given by the Ladies Welfare League of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance at the Molly Picon Theatre, 1943 (AJHS MP Papers, box 50 folder 1051)<\/p>\n

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[2]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Picon, Molly with Jean Grillo.\u00a0Molly! An Autobiography.\u00a0<\/em>New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. pg. 109.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Picon, 14.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[4]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Picon, 15.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[5]<\/sup><\/sup>\u00a0Picon, 20.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re delighted to kick off a series close to our hearts: the story of Molly Picon, for decades a household name in Yiddish theater and vaudeville, then a Broadway star, performer with the USO and radio personality–not to mention Yente the Matchmaker in\u00a0Fiddler in the Roof.\u00a0Some called her\u00a0"the\u00a0Jewish Charlie Chaplin"; others, “the Jewish Helen Hayes.” We think she stands grandly on her own.\u00a0 Former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74,75,10,509,507,510,8,100,367,430,432,431,442,50],"class_list":["post-1622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-ajhs","tag-american-jewish-historical-society","tag-center-for-jewish-history","tag-charlie-chaplin","tag-fiddler-on-the-roof","tag-helen-hayes","tag-history","tag-jewish","tag-jews","tag-molly-picon","tag-music","tag-theater","tag-vaudeville","tag-yiddish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}