Miriam Kressyn

Miriam Kressyn (March 4, 1910 – October 28, 1996), one of the "First Ladies of the Yiddish Theater", acted and sang on stage, film and radio; she wrote plays as well.

Personal life Kressyn was born in Białystok, Poland, the seventh child of Mashe and Yankev Kressyn. It was a poor family; her father made his living traveling to village fairs. Not being able to support the family, he emigrated to the United States, bringing two of his daughters, but three years later he traveled home alone. Miriam became a member of the kleyn bund but threatened with arrest for "smuggling literature" she went to America with the whole family and settled in Boston.

"By the time she arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1925, Miriam was fluent in six languages." Her mother sold a feather-bed to pay for her education. She also attended New England Conservatory of Music on a scholarship. When Julius and Anna Nathanson, playing in Freeman's Goldene Kaleh in Boston, happened to hear Kressyn, they persuaded her to join their chorus. She played small roles with Max Gebil in Khuppah-kleyd (Wedding dress), with Ludwig Satz in Der gazlen (The Thief) and with Leon Blank in The Three Brides. She didn't consider this to be a career, as she was studying law at Northeastern University.

In the late 1940s she created a Yiddish version of Philip Vordan's Anna Lucasta (a Broadway hit being performed by an all-negro cast) with Ben-Zion Witler playing the romantic lead; the play was a great success. In the 1960s she became Professor of Yiddish at Queens College, New York, where she also directed Yiddish plays. She continued to teach drama at Queens College until shortly before her death in 1996 at age 86. Kressyn was the recipient of many awards.

Filmography The Jewish Gypsy, 1930, with Hy Jacobson, director Sydney Goldin The Sailor's Sweetheart, 1933, with Hy Jacobson, director Sydney Goldin Der Purimshpiler, 1937, with Zygmunt Turkow and Hymie Jacobson, also Ajzyk Samberg, Maks Bozyk, Berta Litwina, Eni Liton, Jakum Fiszer, and others. Set of the shtetl was built on a backlot in Warsaw; exteriors shot partially in Kraków. Dialog by Itzik Manger. Geleb un gelakht (Live and Laugh), 1933, with Hymie Jacobson, Max Wilner, Pincus Lavenda, Yudel Dubinsky, Celina Breene, Seymour Reichtzeit, Chaim Tauber, Mae Simon, Eddie Friedlander, Eva Miller, Cantor Josef Rosenblatt, Tamara, Menasha Skulnick, Joseph Buloff, Boris Rosenthal, Jack Shargel, Meyer Machtenberg, Sadie Banks.