Bessie Thomashefsky, born Briche Baumfeld-Kaufman, was a Russian-born Jewish American singer, actress and comedian, a star in Yiddish theater beginning in the 1890s.
14 Facts About Bessie Thomashefsky
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Bessie Thomashefsky was the wife and stage partner of Boris Thomashefsky, the most popular Yiddish leading man of his era.
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Bessie Thomashefsky was born Briche Baumfeld-Kaufman in 1873 in Tarashcha, Kiev province, Ukraine.
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Bessie Thomashefsky's family emigrated to America in 1879 and finally settled in 1883 near Baltimore.
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Bessie Thomashefsky attended school until she was 12 and then went to work in a stocking factory and a sweatshop.
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In 1887,14-year-old Bessie met her future husband when she went backstage at a Baltimore production of Aliles Dam by a Yiddish touring company to meet the beautiful young "actress" she had seen on stage, only to discover that "she" was the 19-year-old Boris Thomashefsky, and that he was the manager of the company.
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In 1888, Bessie ran away from home to join the Thomashefsky Players, and was given an ingenue role starring in Abraham Goldfaden's Shulamith, which was performed at the Boston Music Hall.
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Boris Thomashefsky 8.
In 1889,16-year-old Bessie had a daughter, Esther, with Boris and in 1891 they were married.
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Bessie Thomashefsky wanted an accounting of the money and couldn't find it.
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Boris Bessie Thomashefsky began and carried on a long-term affair with Yiddish actress Regina Zuckerberg.
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Bessie Thomashefsky was the leading actress in a number of theaters by Boris Thomashefsky and was a member of the Hebrew Actors' Union, which was the union of Jewish actors in the United States.
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Bessie Thomashefsky took over the management of the People's Theater in 1915 and the following season the theater was renamed Bessie Thomashefsky's People's Theater.
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Bessie Thomashefsky focused on serious social issues of the day, particularly those affecting women, like suffrage and birth-control.
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Bessie Thomashefsky lived in California until her death in 1962, aged 89, and was buried with her husband in the Yiddish theater section of the Mount Hebron Cemetery, New York.