Paulina Lavitz (March 29, 1879 — September 20, 1959), also seen as Pepi Lavitz, was a Polish-born actress in American Yiddish theatre.
Early life Pilpel "Pepi" Lavitz was born in Lemberg, Galicia (now Lviv, Ukraine)."Will This Chicago Girl Become the Greatest Actress in America?" Chicago Sunday Tribune (January 6, 1907): 51. via Newspapers.com Her parents were in theatre work, and her younger sister Minnie (or Minna) Birnbaum also became an actress. Lavitz started acting as a child in Europe, and trained as a singer too."Pepi Lavitz" Lives in the Yiddish Theatre.
Career Paulina Lavitz was a "leading woman" in Yiddish theatre, in Chicago and New York.Lucy France Pierce, "The Polyglot Theatre of the United States" The World To-Day (March 1909): 547.Lucy France Pierce, "The Development of the Yiddish Theatre" Green Book Magazine (June 1914): 1071. In Chicago she starred at International Theater with David Silbert in Queen Sabba in 1907,Untitled theatre note, Chicago Tribune (September 22, 1907): 13. via Newspapers.com and appeared with Regina Prager and Fernanda Eliscu at the Metropolitan Theatre in 1909."Plays of Yiddish Theater Depict Life in Ghetto" Chicago Sunday Tribune (April 4, 1909): 24. via Newspapers.com
She was still acting into her fifties, appearing in the melodrama Married Slaves (1935) with a Yiddish theatre co-operative in New York.Walter Hartman, "Yiddish Co-ops Will Produce Plays at Coney" Daily News (July 15, 1935): 319. via Newspapers.com There are folders related to her later career in the Records of the Hebrew Actors' Union, archived at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.Guide to the Records of the Hebrew Actors' Union 1874-1986, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Personal life Pauline Lavitz married a physician and concert promoter, Dr. Max Brav. They had four children. She was widowed in 1954 and died in 1959, aged 80 years, in Flushing, New York. Her remains were buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery there.
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