Bertha Kalich
| Bertha Kalich | |
|---|---|
A publicity portrait of Bertha Kalich dated 1910.
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| Born |
Beylke Kalakh 17 May 1874 Lemberg, Galicia |
| Died | 18 April 1939 (aged 64) Queens, New York |
| Education | Lemberg Conservatory |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Known for | Star in American Yiddish Theatre |
| Notable work | Maeterlinck's Monna Vanna on Broadway |
| Spouse(s) | Leopold Spachner; 2 children |
Bertha Kalich, (also spelled Kalish) (17 May 1874 – 18 April 1939) was a Jewish actress, born in Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine). Though she was well-established as an entertainer in Eastern Europe, she is best remembered as one of the several "larger-than-life" figures that dominated New York stages during the "Golden Age" of American Yiddish Theatre during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Historians estimate that, during her career, Kalich performed more than 125 different roles in seven different languages.
Kalich was born Beylke Kalakh in what was then Austria-Hungary, the only child of Solomon Kalakh, a poor brush manufacturer and amateur violinist. Her mother was Babette Halber Kalakh, a seamstress who often made costumes for local theaters. Babette was an active opera fan and her devotion inspired a love for the stage in her daughter. They often attended performances together and when young Bertha came of age, her parents scraped together their meager funds to send her to private music and drama schools. At age thirteen, she joined the chorus of the local Polish theater and later attended the prestigious Lemberg Conservatory.
While still barely a teen, Kalich sang in the chorus for La Traviata in the Lviv Polish Theatre Opera. A fellow actor, Max Gimpel then offered her a job at his pioneering Yiddish-language theater group, Yankev Ber Gimpel. During this period of her life, Kalich had been performing in Polish, Russian, and German, but when Gimpel's leading lady left for America, Kalich became his prima donna, winning the title role in Avrom Goldfaden’s operetta Shulamis. After a series of performances in Budapest, Goldfaden offered her a permanent position with his company, and Kalich left later that year for Romania. She was able to pick up Romanian in a matter of months, and was subsequently able to appear in major roles there with the state theater. According to historian Daniel Soyer, "she was such a success that anti-Semitic theatergoers, who had come with the intention of pelting her with onions, threw flowers instead."
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