Born on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1898, Molly Picon (born Margaret Malka Opiekun) was the daughter of immigrant garment workers. Her Polish-born father, Louis, did not work regularly and the family moved around quite a bit. The family lived in New Jersey and Chicago before landing in Philadelphia, where three generations--including nine cousins--lived in one apartment. Her mother Clara got a job as a seamstress at a Yiddish theater in Philadelphia, Kessler’s Theater, which gave the young girl her first exposure to the theater world.
Picon began performing at 5 years old
It was at the tender age of five that Molly made her performing debut at a talent show. Riding a trolley with her mother to the talent show, a drunk demanded that she perform on the spot for him. She agreed, performing with an imitation of the drunk as a finale. The drunk was quite impressed and collected pennies for her from the passengers. Winning first-prize at the talent show, she received a five-dollar gold piece and coins that the audience spontaneously tossed at her on stage. Thus began the career of Molly Picon.
Shortly thereafter Molly was performing song-and-dance routines at Philadelphia theaters, and had a role in a Yiddish-language version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In 1912 she debuted at the Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia, spending a few years performing in Yiddish-language musicals. At the age of 16 she dropped out of William Penn High School to accept a part in a traveling vaudeville show called The Four Seasons.
Picon auditioned for producer in Boston, then married him
The Four Seasons arrived in Boston in 1918 at the height of an influenza epidemic. Due to the epidemic, there was no work for the troupe and it disbanded. All of the theaters in Boston were closed except for one: a Yiddish-language troupe that did shows at the Boston Grand Opera House. Picon auditioned for producer Jacob “Yankel” Kalich and was hired. They fell in love and were married in 1919. “I always said influenza was our matchmaker,” said Picon. They were married in the back of a grocery store with Molly wearing a dress her mother had sewn from pieces of a theater curtain.
Picon and Kalish tour Europe, she makes films
Picon and Kalish toured Europe between 1921 and 1923. They performed in Yiddish to Jewish audiences in Vienna, Paris, London and Bucharest, as well as Czernowitz and Lemberg, two former Austro-Hungarian capitals where many Jews lived. In Austria she was in three silent films: Das Judenmaedel (The Jewish Girl, 1921), Huetet eure Toechter (Watch for your Daughters, 1922), and Misrech un majrev (East and West, 1923). Only Misrech un majrev has been preserved and is available to view today.
New York’s Second Avenue: “Yiddish Broadway”
In 1923 the couple returned to the United States to build careers on New York’s Lower Second Avenue, the “Yiddish Broadway.” Yiddish theater at the time was at a crossroads, struggling between traditional Jewish themes and being employed to present revolutionary ideas and themes. This conflict was brought about by the Russian Revolution. Additionally, Yiddish theater was seen as a means of Jewish self-affirmation for those who rejected complete assimilation in American culture. It was also a way to express being culturally Jewish without being religious.
Molly Picon is a big hit with immigrant audiences
Throughout the rest of the 1020s, Picon and Kalish built a small Yiddish theatre industry among New York’s growing Jewish immigrant audiences. With Picon starring and Kalish writing, they churned out many short Yiddish comedies. The music was composed primarily by Joseph Rumshinsky, but Picon wrote almost 100 songs herself. Many of Picon’s most popular characters were tomboy or male roles, with the star making believe that she was a boy or young man. Her Second Avenue hits included Yonkele (1923), Gypsy Girl (1925-26) and The Radio Girl (1929).
Picon famous and wealthy
Picon was famous and being noticed. The director D.W. Griffith said that she was “the most interesting actress in America.“ Murray Schumach of the New York Times wrote that she “was idolized in Jewish neighborhoods, where children and clubs were named after her during her heyday in the 1920s.” And she was making a lot of money. An article in one of Picon’s scrapbooks reads, “Molly Picon has reached the pinnacle of Yiddish stage success. Today she is the highest paid Yiddish actress in the world, her weekly pay exceeding $3,000. Eight years ago her salary was $35 a week.”
Her performances as a boy always were her strongest. A journalist in Europe wrote, “Her character studies of a little girl, a sophisticated school girl, a nervous bride, and a neglected matron, were highly amusing, but she excelled as a cheder boy…” Cross-dressing was important throughout Picon’s career. Audiences, journalists and critics alike always picked up on that as being her strong suit.
PIcon made two Yiddish films in Poland
In 1932 the couple went to Palestine where they lived on a Kibbutz. They performed in Yiddish only despite a “Hebrew only” policy. She made two films in Poland during the 1930s: Yidl Mitn fidl (Yiddle with his Fiddle, 1936) and Mamele (1938), which was the last Yiddish film made in Poland before the Holocaust. In Yidl, Picon is a boy for most of the movie. Her father has an idea for her to dress as a young boy so they can travel without her being bothered. By the end of the film she has had enough of the charade and wants to be a girl again.
After the Holocaust, Picon and Kalish traveled to Poland to entertain Holocaust survivors. They were in Poland for 21 days and did 19 performances. Conditions were difficult. They didn’t bath for the three weeks when they were there. They sung in barracks on “boards balanced on chairs, without a piano--without lights--in theaters that had no curtains or scenery of any kind…”
The audiences threw flowers to Picon after the shows. The Jews told them that they wondered why they kept on living after what they went through. They told her that "It was worth going through everything and live to hear you again."
Sources
Segal, Jerome and Kaczek, Monika. “Molly Picon and the Cinematic Archetype of a Jewish Woman.” Cinemascope, independent Film journal. Year IV, Issue 14, January-June 2010.
Molly Picon Biography. Encyclopedia of World Biography.
Letter from Molly Picon to her Mother, August 23, 1946 Paris.
Eric Brothers - Eric Brothers' forthcoming book,The Berlin Ghetto, will be published by The History Press in the U.K. in 2012.
