Jennie
Goldstein (c. 1897-1960) was once known as the "Ethel
Barrymore of Second Avenue."
Many theatre-goers in the 1920s and 1930s packed the
Yiddish theatre to see Jennie Goldstein, who often played
tragic roles. At the peak of her career, a Yiddish
newspaper critic said of her, "Nobody can make you cry
like Jennie Goldstein."
At the age of fifteen, her
father, a poor butcher supporting a wife and six kids,
agreed to let Jennie act. She then received her first
starring role, and at the tender age of eighteen she managed a
small playhouse on the Bowery.
When she was young, she
played self-sacrificing wives, daughters and sweethearts;
as she got older, she played self-sacrificing mothers.
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