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Lives in the Yiddish
Theatre cir mid to late 1930s Detroit, Michigan Harry and Mary Jordan et al Harry Jordan with wife Mary (left) and her sister Ida Honig (right), also an actress who lived and performed in New York. Here they are taking a break during a performance at the Littman's People's Theatre. Mary Jordan (nee Hoffman) was also in the theatre. Rose Glassman had rushed over to Mary's mother's house on Blaine one day to say that they needed chorus girls at the Yiddish theatre. Mary and sister Ida went, and their father Sam (Solomon) Hoffman had a fit. It was 1932 and Mary was right out of high school. They got $1.50 a performance! |
Here are some more
recollections as told by Mary Jordan to her family: > The actor Michal Michalesko was gorgeous! People hung around to see the actors after the show. Michal was a leading man, or the love interest in a play. Celia Pearson was a "glamour girl." In one play she was going to marry Michal. He was blamed for killing someone. She was pregnant by him but he was in jail. She was ready to marry another man, but at the last minute Michal is freed from jail upon being found innocent. She tells him, "We have a child." In Yiddish she means to tell him that the child is in an orphanage, but she got the words mixed up and mistakenly said, "He's in an old folks' home." There was a moment of silence as the audience digested these words! > His wife, Anju, from Russia, divorced her husband to marry Michal. She stayed in New York while he was in Detroit. Michalesko came to the Jordan house upon Harry's invitation, and Mary fed him. He had to have his grapefruit broiled. > Aaron Lebedeff, who came from New York, another well-known actor and entertainer, always had a carnation in lapel and his nails were always manicured. He always played the lead role for an older gentleman. Another man would play the "love interest." Lebedeff used to go to Mount Clemens for the baths. He brought a butler who cared for him. He came ailing and left feeling wonderful. > Lucy German played the eternal mother role in New York. In the summer, she would travel to other cities like Detroit to work. As Mary describes her, "Her hands played theatre." > Menashe Skulnick was a star comedian. He played the "schlemazel" and always made you laugh. > Mary reminisced how when she and Harry were first married they lived on $7.50 a week. They would entertain every Sunday. Actors from the Yiddish theatre or people from Crawford Clothes where Harry worked, came for dinner. Harry was thrilled to invite all the people for dinner. Mary made all the food from scratch, e.g. borscht. > Next to the
restaurant called the "Cream of Michigan," located on 12th Street in
Detroit, there was an open-air store where Mary shopped; she bought the
best vegetables and fruit. There was also a kosher butcher across the
street where Mary used to buy the best cuts of beef. There was also
another store called Smiths. It was like an A&P but smaller and had a
bakery. Toward Philadelphia and 12th there was a fish market where Mary
bought her fish there for yontif. > The Russian Village was on 12th Street. Jewish people would go there for a drink or a sandwich. |
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