About his origin, data of his birth, and how he came to
the Yiddish theatre, there is no specific information.
The musician Herman Fiedler
recounts that K. came from Brody, Galicia, but grew up
in Odessa. Boris Thomashefsky was certain that K. was
from Warsaw.
In 1884 we found him acting
with Adler in London in the role of "Naftali" in
Goldfaden's "Shtume kallah".
The actress Dina Feinman
recounts that he loved Yiddish very much, and he had
therefore taken up the Yiddish stage in London.
K. later went away to
America, and here he was one of the first Yiddish
actors.
The historian of Yiddish
theatre B. Gorin discusses the conditions of the Yiddish
theatre in New York in the year 1887:
"The minor actors did not
make a living from the theatre. It will not be an
exaggeration to say that every time a minor actor acts
in a theatre he makes three dollars a week. But during a
holiday week an actor makes a few tens of dollars, and
even the great actors did not gain as much as a good
shepherd when he works a little harder. The actors
[then] decided to found a union. The founder of the
union was Gold, Nachamkus, Schwartz, Kurazh, Sam Adler
et al.
According to the actor Boaz
Young, in 1892-93 K. was a former actor, had a
delicatessen business, and had managed in New York with
Adler's troupe in the "People's Theatre".
Dina Feinman recounts that
about the profession, K. was a furrier and later had a
large fur business in New York on West 9th Street.
Boris Thomashefsky relates
that K. was an itinerant character actor.
K. may have passed away in
New York, but no data is known about it.
M. E. from
Boris Thomashefsky, Dina Feinman, Herman Fiedler.
-
B. Gorin -- "History of
Yiddish Theatre", Vol. II, p. 60.
-
Boaz Young -- "Mayn lebn
in teater", New York, 1950, p. 78.
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