Maurice Schwartz facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Maurice Schwartz
Born	Avrom Moishe Schwartz (1890-06-18)June 18, 1890 Sudylkiv, Ukraine, Russian Empire
Died	May 10, 1960(1960-05-10) (aged 69)
Occupation	Actor, film director, film producer, theatrical producer, screenwriter and theatre director
Years active	1910–53 (film)
Spouse(s)	1) Eva Rafalo; divorced. 2) Anna Bordofsky
Children	2

Maurice Schwartz, whose birth name was Avram Moishe Schwartz, was a famous actor and director. He was born in Ukraine on June 18, 1890, when it was part of the Russian Empire. Maurice Schwartz became well-known in the United States for his work in both theatre and movies.

He started the Yiddish Art Theatre and a special acting school in New York City in 1918. He was also the main producer and director for this theatre. Besides his stage work, Schwartz also acted in Hollywood films, especially silent movies. He even directed, produced, and wrote screenplays for some films.

Maurice Schwartz's Early Life

Maurice Schwartz was born Avrom Moishe Schwartz in a town called Sudilkov, which is in Ukraine. His family was Jewish. His father, Isaac, sold grain, and his mother was Rose. Moishe was the oldest of three boys and had three older sisters.

Like many families at that time, the Schwartzes moved to the United States in different stages. In 1898, his father Isaac went to New York with his three teenage daughters. They worked hard to earn money so the rest of the family could join them.

The next year, Isaac sent tickets for his wife and three young sons. They traveled to Liverpool, England, to catch a ship to the U.S. But Moishe got separated from his mother. He was only a child and did not speak English. He managed to get to London and lived there for two years, getting help from kind strangers. In 1901, when Moishe was twelve, his father finally found him. They traveled together to New York.

Starting a New Life in New York

When Moishe joined his family in New York City's Lower East Side, he changed his first name to Morris. His father sent him to the Baron de Hirsch school, which was created to help Jewish immigrants learn. After school, he worked in his father's small factory, which recycled old clothes.

One day, his uncle introduced him to Yiddish theatre, and Schwartz was immediately fascinated. At that time, many young people were big fans of different theatres and actors. Schwartz really admired actors like David Kessler and Jacob Adler. He started reading many classic plays by famous writers such as William Shakespeare and Henrik Ibsen.

Schwartz's father was very religious and did not want him to become an actor. So, Schwartz left home. He worked many different jobs to support himself. Eventually, he found work as an actor. He joined several traveling theatre groups, even touring through the Midwest. In 1907, he returned to New York City. His heroes, Kessler and Adler, were still very successful. Soon, Schwartz got a job with Michael Thomashevsky's Green Street Theatre in Philadelphia.

Family Life

Maurice Schwartz was briefly married to a singer named Eva Rafalo. He met her while touring with an acting company. They divorced by 1911, and he moved back to New York. Eva and her older sister Clara Rafalo were both actresses in the Yiddish theatre. After her divorce, Eva married another Yiddish stage actor, Henry Fishman.

In 1914, Schwartz married Anna Bordofsky. She was 24 years old and from Belarus. Anna had lived in the United States for about ten years. She also worked with Kessler's Yiddish theatre at first. Anna became Schwartz's business partner and helped him manage the theatre. They stayed married until Schwartz passed away.

Adopting Children After the War

In 1947, Maurice and Anna adopted two Jewish children from Poland. Their names were Moses and Fannie Englander, and they were 9 and 8 years old. Their parents had died in 1942 during World War II. The children were hidden by Belgian Christian families to keep them safe from the war. Fannie, for example, grew up speaking only French with her Belgian foster family.

After the war, Jewish groups worked hard to reunite families and find Jewish homes for orphans. Schwartz met Moses at an orphanage in Belgium in 1946 while on a theatre tour. He arranged to adopt Moses and his sister Fannie through a group called the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). This group found Fannie and brought the brother and sister together.

The Schwartzes met Fannie for the first time when she arrived with her brother at the airport in New York. They renamed the children Marvin and Risa. In New York, the Schwartzes taught them Yiddish and English, and about their Jewish heritage.

Maurice Schwartz's Career

Theatre Work

Schwartz started acting early in his life. For six years, he worked with theatre companies outside of New York, in places like the Midwest and Philadelphia. In 1911, David Kessler hired him for his company at the Second Avenue Theatre. In 1913, Schwartz joined the Hebrew Actors Union. He had to try twice and get help from important people to be accepted. After six years with Kessler, Schwartz had bigger plans.

In 1918, Schwartz started his own theatre, the Yiddish Art Theatre. He rented the Irving Place Theatre in New York City. He dreamed of creating a theatre for everyone that would perform classic and important plays. He announced in a Yiddish newspaper that he wanted "a company that will be devoted to performing superior literary works that will bring honor to the Yiddish Theatre."

Schwartz believed that actors needed to play many different roles to grow their skills. So, the next year, he started an acting school. He wanted to help young actors learn by giving them chances to try many parts. He felt that playing 25 roles would teach someone a lot about how to use their voice, movements, and makeup. One famous actor Schwartz helped was Paul Muni, who played 40 roles in Schwartz's plays. Schwartz once said about Muni, "He is a sincere actor. The theatre is more to him than just a job."

The Yiddish Art Theatre operated for over thirty years, until 1950. It performed about 150 different plays, including classic Yiddish, European, and English works. These plays ranged from stories by Sholem Aleichem to plays by William Shakespeare. Schwartz even took his company on tours to Europe in 1924 and to South America in 1929.

Some of Schwartz's most famous roles were "Reb Malech" in Yoshe Kalb, "Luka" in The Lower Depths, and Shylock in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. He also played the main character in King Lear. When he appeared in the Yiddish film Uncle Moses in 1932, he was called the "greatest of all Yiddish actors." People even called him the "Olivier of the Yiddish stage," comparing him to a very famous English actor.

By the 1930s, Yiddish theatre started to become less popular as Jewish people became more integrated into American society. This meant fewer people came to see the shows. Schwartz once said, "The Jewish stage was once a night school to which people came to learn the language [English]. Now Jewish playwrights are confused. They cannot go back to the old themes because the Americanized Jew does not know that life, and they have not sufficiently assimilated the life here to understand and write about it." He also said, "The theatre is my life. It is the only interest I have."

Schwartz also acted in English plays on Broadway and in other places. In 1928, he appeared on Broadway in plays like Inspector General. Between 1931 and 1952, he was in four Broadway shows in New York City. He even produced some of these plays himself. For example, in 1931, he acted in a play called Bloody Laughter. Later in his life, Schwartz traveled to the new country of Israel and performed on stage there.

Film Career

Because he was so successful as an actor, Schwartz also became interested in Hollywood. He appeared in his first silent film in 1910. He acted in more than twenty films between 1910 and 1953. Most of these were silent movies. He also wrote, produced, or directed several films.

Some of his most important movie roles were in Broken Hearts (1926), Uncle Moses (1932), Tevya (1939), Mission to Moscow (1943), and as Ezra in the Biblical movie Salome (1953).

Death

Maurice Schwartz passed away on May 10, 1960, in a hospital in Israel, near Tel Aviv. He is buried in the Yiddish-theatre section of the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens, New York City.

Filmography (selected)

Images for kids

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  Maurice Schwartz and Joseph Rumshinsky