Mount Hebron Flushing, NY
The men and women interred at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens County, New York.
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Jack Gilford was born in Brooklyn, New York, as Yankel Gellman. He began his career in the Amateur Nights of the 1930s moving on to nightclubs as an innovative comedian doing satire and pantomime. He was a regular at the Greenwich Village nightspot, Cafe Society and hosted shows featuring Zero Mostel, Billie Holiday and jazz greats like Hazel Scott. It is said that he invented the expression, "The butler did it!", as part of one of his movie satire routines. He also did a facial pantomime of "Pea Soup Coming to a Boil". During the 1950s, he was a victim of the The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) blacklisting which stalled his TV career until the early 1960s. But after that, he became a regular popular comic character actor on dozens of TV series and movies. He was most recognized for being the rubber-faced guy on the "Cracker Jacks" commercials for a dozen years, from 1960-1972.
He was nominated for Tony awards on Broadway for best supporting actor in the musical, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", and "Cabaret". The song "Meeskite" was written for him by John Kander & Fred Ebb.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film, Save the Tiger (1973), starring opposite Jack Lemmon, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.- Mina Bern was born on 5 May 1911 in Bielsk Podlaski, Podlaskie, Poland. She was an actress, known for It Could Happen to You (1994), Celebrity (1998) and Flawless (1999). She was married to Ben Bonus. She died on 10 January 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
A composer ("Sweet Georgia Brown"), author, violinist and conductor, he was educated at the NY College of Music, City College of New York, and the Columbia School of Mines. Beginning his vaudeville act while selling violins in a New York department store, he organized his own orchestra in 1922, playing a long engagement at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York, then toured Europe. He toured with Maurice Chevalier, and was featured on radio for twenty years. Joining ASCAP in 1934, his musical collaborators were Kenneth Casey, Al Goering, Walter Hirsch, and Maceo Pinkard. Song compositions include "Who's Your Little Whoosis?", "I Can't Believe It's True", "Holding My Honey's Hand", "A Bowl of Chop Suey and Yooey", "After The Dance Was Over", "Was Last Night The Last Night?", "Ain't That Marvelous (My Baby Loves Me)", and "Strange Interlude".- Max Bozyk was born in Lodz (pronounced Wooj - but often Anglicized to sound like Ludz), Poland, in 1888, where he first performed in Yiddish theater and films. It was also there that he met his wife Reizl Bozyk, who accompanied him on stage as the second half of a comedy team. Touring in 1939 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he and his wife elected not to return to Poland after Hitler's invasion of their home country. Instead, they with their only daughter (their only son had remained in Poland and subsequently died in the holocaust) emigrated to the U.S. in 1941 and quickly established themselves as regulars in Yiddish productions on stage, as well as in Yiddish films. He was often likened to the French comedian [link-nm0272794] for his ability to evoke laughter and tears, almost simultaneously, and for the way in which he moved with subtle, abject gestures of the shoulders and head to enhance the comedic effect. His involvement with the Yiddish theater extended to a stint as president of the now-defunct Hebrew Actors Union, an organization for which he also served many years on the executive board. He was also a member of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance and the Yiddish Artists & Friends. A performer to the last, he collapsed in his wife's arms after completing a monologue from the writings of Sholom Aleichem. Unable to revive him, he was pronounced dead at New York's Roosevelt Hospital.Plot: Yiddish Theatrical Alliance Section/Block 67, ref. 1, section A-D, line 19, grave 21.
- Louis "Lepke" Buchalter--the nickname Lepke means "Little Louis" in Yiddish)--was one of the top Jewish-American gangsters of the Depression Era and the only major mob boss to ever have been executed by authorities for his crimes. He was born February 6, 1897, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His introduction to crime was pushcart shoplifting, and he had already served two prison terms by 1919. He and his friend Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro strong-armed their way to control of the unions representing garment workers on the Lower East Side, enabling him to shake down factory owners by threatening to hit them with strikes. Control of the unions also guaranteed income and capital by diverting union dues and bank accounts. From their base in the garment industry, Buchalter branched out into shaking down other area businesses with his protection racket. Though he was later to enjoy greater power and income from his ventures after becoming a major mob boss, he kept control over the garment industry unions as they were so highly lucrative.
In the early 1930s Buchalter and Italian-American gangsters Lucky Luciano and Johnny Torrio--the former boss of the Chicago mob and mentor of transplanted New Yorker Al Capone--allied themselves. Luciano's Jewish-American associates Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky formed "Murder Inc.", a group of professional killers who would be on call 24/7 to handle any "problems" that afflicted La Cosa Nostra. Murder Inc. originally was a group of mostly Jewish-American "torpedos" from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. Opeating out of the back of a candy store, they proved highly effective in maintaining mob discipline and eliminating problems such as eyewitnesses, informants and "customers" unable or unwilling to pay loan sharks. The band of brothers-in-arms eventually were used to fulfill most murder "contracts." As Siegel and Lansky (the latter widely regarded as the financial brains of organized crime in America) had moved on to other, larger pastures, control over Murder Inc. was ceded to Buchalter and Albert Anastasia (known in underworld circles as "The Mad Hatter" and, more ominously, "The Lord High Executioner".)
The group of killers was credited with carrying out many contract killings throughout the country, including the slaying of Jewish-American bootlegger and northern New York State crime boss Dutch Schultz at the Palace Chophouse in Newark, New Jersey, on October 23, 1935. The Schultz murder was a major event for Buchalter and Murder Inc., signaling their arrival as a major force in organized crime (another Jewish mobster, Louis Amberg, was murdered by the group the very same day). Among Jewish-American gangsters, Buchalter arguably was the most violent and the most feared. He reportedly killed as many as 100 men himself, and may have ordered 1000 or more hits, nationwide, from his underlings, which included 'Abe Kid Twist Reles' (played by Peter Falk in Murder, Inc. (1960), which brought him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod) and Frank Carbo, who later established himself as "The Czar of Boxing" (the Mafia, via Anastasia, Carbo and Carbo's partner Blinky Palermo, took over the sport of boxing and manipulated the odds and fixed the fights to abet their bookmaking operations. Carbo ran New York boxing, which WAS boxing until the 1960s, when he and Palermo were convicted and sentenced to prison). The FBI--whose director J. Edgar Hoover denied the very existence of the Mafia until 1957, possibly due to their blackmailing him because of his alleged homosexual proclivities--investigated Buchalter during the early 1930s, but he managed to avoid arrest due to the bribing of federal judges and the Mafia's political connections (until the Richard Nixon administration, the Mafia was associated with the Democratic Party. Gore Vidal, in one of his essays, estimated that organized crime provided approximately 15% of the Democratic Party's budget in the 1960s. In mobbed-up cities like Chicago, a Democratic Party ward headquarters was synonymous with local Mafia headquarters/clubhouse). The FBI continued to hound Little Louis, anxious to convict him on a narcotics trafficking charge, while New York City special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey went after him as one of many targets of the "Syndicate" he was dedicated to obliterating. Fearing the implacable Dewey (who would use his fame as the country's most successful crimebuster, the man who put away Lucky Luciano and other organized crime bigwigs, to the state house in Albany and two bids for President as the Republican nominee in 1944 and '48), Buchalter was tricked by a childhood friend into surrendering to federal authorities on a narcotics trafficking charge on the stipulation he would not get turned over to Dewey. Convicted, he was sent to Leavenworth for 14 years, later extended to 30 because of Lepke's involvement in union racketeering.
After being arrested for murder, "Kid Twist" Reles turned informant for New York state authorities in 1940 and fingered Buchalter for four murders, including that of Brooklyn candy store owner Joseph Rosen, a former garment industry trucker, in 1936. Reles, himself a professional killer who was seeking to avoid the electric chair for his own crimes, said he overheard the order for the Rosen hit given by Buchalter himself. New York City District Attorney William O'Dwyer, who planned to run for mayor, arraigned Buchalter and other of his Murder Inc. associates on the basis of Kid Twist's testimony to the grand jury.
The trial of the Murder Inc. boss was scheduled for November 12, 1941, and Lepke was transported from Leavenworth to New York City to stand trial for the Rosen murder. However, on the morning of the trial, Reles--who was being by guarded by six New York City police officers in Room 623 of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island--"fell" from the sixth-floor window to his death. The detectives said it was a suicide, but the angle of trajectory of his body indicated that he had been pushed or thrown out of the window. Albert Anastassia, the "Lord High Executioner" himself, had allegedly put a $100,000 bounty on the Kid's head, though it was widely believed that Mafia boss Frank Costello "touched" the detectives guarding the Kid, bribing them to ensure that Reles would never get to the courtroom to testify. What is known is that Kid Twist, the would-be "stool pigeon", became known after his death as "The canary who sang, but couldn't fly."
Lepke had run out of luck, however. O'Dwyer obtained a conviction based on the testimony of another Murder, Inc. turncoat, Albert Tannenbaum. In December 1941 the jury convicted Buchalter of first-degree murder four hours after being handed the case for their perusal and judgment. Buchalter was sentenced to death by electrocution in the electric chair. In October 1942, the conviction and sentence was upheld by the New York State Court of Appeals, and New York City requested that Buchalter be turned over by the federal government for execution of sentence.
Lepke put up the greatest fight of his life to avoid his fate, calling in favors from the Mafia's friends in the U.S. Justice Department and the court system and managed to remain at Leavenworth until January 1944, when he was turned over to New York. His execution was slated to take place on March 2, but it was postponed when the state's highest court of appeal decided on one final review. Gov. Dewey was forced to grant his former nemesis Buchalter, along with fellow defendants Emanuel Weiss and Louis Capone, a 48-hour reprieve. Ultimately, the court confirmed the conviction and sentence. Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, one of the most powerful figures in organized crime history, was executed at the state penitentiary in Ossining (the fabled Sing Sing) in the electric chair affectionately dubbed "Old Sparky" on March 4, 1944. He 47 years old.
After Lepke's conviction Albert Anastassia was the sole boss of Murder, Inc., but with the incarceration and deportation of Lucky Luciano he moved up in the Mafia ranks, eventually taking over the Mangano Family (later known as the Gambino Family), after the family don, Anastassia's nemesis Vincent Mangano, disappeared. With Frank Costello's support, he was elevated to boss of the Magano Family after The Mad Hatter successfully claimed he had hit Mangano in self-defense, as the don was determined to kill him. Costello wanted Anastassia as a don in order to counter the ambitions of Vito Genovese, the real-life model for Don Corleone in The Godfather (1972).
As a boss, Anastassia's brutal ways eventually worked against him. In 1952 he violated a cardinal rule of the mob--don't kill outsiders. Anastasia ordered the murder of one Arnold Schuster, a young tailor's assistant, after seeing Schuster on television taking credit for fingering fugitive bank robber Willie Sutton (the man who said he robbed banks because "that's where the money is"). In a rage, Anastasia ordered Schuster to be killed, telling his men, "I can't stand squealers! Hit that guy!"
The murder of an outsider opened up the Mafia to unwanted public scrutiny. Genovese used the incident to begin undermining Anastassia, but it wasn't until Anastasia's own ambitions alienated Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky (the inspiration for "Hyman Roth" in The Godfather Part II (1974)) that Genovese could act. When Anastasia horned in on Lansky's highly lucrative Cuban gambling operations, Lansky gave Genovese permission to eliminate the interloper, which Genovese arranged as part of his greater plan to undermine Frank Costello's role as "Prime Minister of the Mob" and establish himself as "Capo di tutti capi" ("Boss of Bosses").
On the morning of October 25, 1957, Anastasia was assassinated in the barber shop of the Park Sheraton Hotel (now the Park Central Hotel, on 56th Street and 7th Avenue) in New York City by two men wearing scarves. Anastasia's bodyguard was not on the scene, having decided to go for a walk after parking the boss's car in an underground garage. The Anastasia hit was carried out with an efficiency of which the Lord High Executioner's former Murder, Inc. partner, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, surely would have approved. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Joseph Buloff was born on 20 January 1899 in Vilna, Russian Empire [now Vilnius, Lithuania]. He was an actor, known for Silk Stockings (1957), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and The Loves of Carmen (1948). He was married to Luba Kadison. He died on 27 February 1985 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Block 67, Line 1/2, Grave 17, Yiddish Theatrical Alliance- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lillian Lux was born on 20 June 1918 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Body (2001), Law & Order (1990) and De Mike Burstyn show (1978). She was married to Pesach Burstein. She died on 11 June 2005 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Pesach Burstein was born on 15 April 1896 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Girls' Paradise Eilat (1964) and De Mike Burstyn show (1978). He was married to Lillian Lux. He died on 6 April 1986 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Block 67, Section A-D, Line 17,- Sergei Dovlatov was born on 3 September 1941 in Ufa, Bashkir ASSR, RSFSR, USSR [now Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia]. He was a writer, known for The End of a Beautiful Epoch (2015), Po pryamoy (1992) and Napisano Sergeyem Dovlatovym (2012). He died on 24 August 1990 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Block: 9, Reference: 20, Section: H, Line: 14, Grave: 4
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Shep Fields was born on 12 September 1910 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for Bringing Up Father (1946), Citizens Band (1977) and The Big Broadcast of 1938 (1938). He was married to Zook Kline and Evelyn Feinstein. He died on 23 February 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Celia Adler was born on 6 December 1889 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Broadway Television Theatre (1952), Where Is My Child? (1937) and Naked City (1958). She was married to Nathan Forman, Jack Cone and Lazar Freed. She died on 31 January 1979 in Bronx, New York, USA.Plot: Yiddish Theatre Section
- Madeline Lee was born on 30 May 1923 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Cocoon: The Return (1988), The Savages (2007) and Big City Blues (1997). She was married to Jack Gilford. She died on 14 April 2008 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Harold Huber was born on 5 December 1909 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Thin Man (1934), Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937) and The Lady and the Mob (1939). He was married to Ethel Silverberg. He died on 29 September 1959 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Block 76C Lot 48C Grave 4- Bertha Kalich was born on 17 May 1874 in Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary [now Lviv, Ukraine]. She was an actress, known for Ambition (1916), Marta of the Lowlands (1914) and Love and Hate (1916). She was married to Leopold Spachner. She died on 18 April 1939 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Ida Kaminska was born on 4 September 1899 in Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]. She was an actress, known for The Shop on Main Street (1965), Tkies khaf (1924) and On a heym (1939). She was married to Marian Melman and Zygmunt Turkow. She died on 21 May 1980 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Alan King was born on 26 December 1927 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Casino (1995), Cat's Eye (1985) and Rush Hour 2 (2001). He was married to Jeanette Sprung. He died on 9 May 2004 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Block 104, Path 5, Lot 3215, grave 6- Abraham Landau was born on 25 December 1895. He died on 24 October 1935 in Newark, New Jersey, USA.Plot: Block 28, Reference 1, Section A-E, Line PP6, Grave 9.John A. Kennedy Lodge.
- Fred Lebow was born Fischel Lebowitz on June 3, 1932 in Arad, Romania. After surviving the Nazi occupation of Europe during World War II (Lebow and his family were Orthodox Jews), Lebow made his way through Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and Ireland prior to immigrating to America. Fred attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan, New York City. Following brief periods in Cleveland and Kansas City, Lebow eventually returned to New York City and made a name for himself in the garment district marketing knockoffs.
An avid fan of long distance running, Fred joined the New York Road Runners Club in 1969 -- he went on to become the president of this particular club a few years later -- and co-founded the New York City Marathon in 1970, which was initially done as a four lap run through Central Park. The New York City Marathon was expanded to the five boroughs of New York City in the Bicentennial year of 1976. Outside of the New York City Marathon, Fred also organized such events as the Empire State Building Run-Up, the Fifth Avenue Mile, and the L'eggs Mini-Marathon (the latter was the first strictly women's race).
Lebow was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1990. On November 1, 1992 at age sixty Fred ran in the New York City Marathon: Accompanied by longtime friend and champion runner Grete Waitz, who won the New York York City Marathon nine times altogether, Lebow finished the marathon in five hours, thirty-two minutes, and thirty-five seconds. Fred died at age sixty-two on October 9, 1994. During his lifetime Lebow had completed sixty-nine marathons in thirty countries. He was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2001 and the New York Road Runners Hall of Fame in 2011. - Shifra Lerer was born on 30 August 1915 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was an actress, known for Deconstructing Harry (1997), A Stranger Among Us (1992) and God, Man and Devil (1950). She was married to Michael Michalovic and Ben-Zion Witler. She died on 12 March 2011 in New York, New York, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Barely 5' tall, the little "yente" with the big, expressive talent and mischievous twinkle in her eye, Yiddish icon Molly Picon, entertained theater, radio, TV and film audiences for over seven decades. Born Malka Opiekun to Polish-Jewish parents in New York on February 28, 1898, she would gradually assist in popularizing the Yiddish culture into the American mainstream as well as overseas. Raised in Philadelphia, she began performing at age 5 in song-and-dance routines.
Breaking into the big time with a vaudeville act called "The Four Seasons" in 1919, she eventually made an endearing comedic name for herself as the "Sweetheart of Second Avenue" of New York's Lower East Side Yiddish Theatre District. The indefatigable Picon was a real live wire and played very broad, confident, dominant characters on stage, which ended up making it hard for her to be taken seriously in dramatic pieces.
Molly's marriage in 1919 to Yiddish playwright and stage star Jacob Kalich, was a fruitful one. He became her mentor, collaborator, co-star, the author of many of her popular plays and the manager of her career. Molly and her husband toured much of Europe in 1921 so that she could perfect her Yiddish. After returning to the United States, she starred in more than 200 Yiddish productions, performing comic renditions of "The Working Goil" and "The Story of Grandma's Shawl."
As for film, she appeared in such Yiddish/Jewish pictures as Hütet eure Töchter (1922) and Good Luck (1923). Come the advent of sound, she would be fondly remembered for her native-language showcases of the 30s, notably in Yidl mitn fidl (1936), the story of a traveling musician who dresses as a boy to avoid unwarranted male advances and as a Yiddish Cinderella, a dutiful but unappreciated daughter who cares for her father and his large family, in Mamele (1938), the last Jewish film made in Poland. During one musical vignette, Picon portrays her character's grandmother in several stages of life. In 1931, she opened the Molly Picon Theatre in New York and by 1934 had her own radio program.
One of America's finest storytellers, Molly made her English-speaking Broadway debut in 1940 as a Jewish widow in the dramatic "Morning Star," then returned in 1942 with her Yiddish musical offering "Oy Is Dus a Leben!" and with the 1948 comedy "For Heaven's Sake, Mother." She remained a strong stage presence throughout the 1940s and 1950s as she included more and more English-speaking plays as well. In the 1960's she returned to Broadway with delightful appearances in "Milk and Honey," How to Be a Jewish Mother" and "The Front Page."
Molly grew with delightful ease into matronly roles, became synonymous with the well-meaning but overbearing and coddling "Jewish mama." Such amusing, unflappable film roles would be found in the social comedy Come Blow Your Horn (1963) as Sinatra's meddling Italian mother; the musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971) as Yente the turn-of-the-century matchmaker (her husband had a minor role as Yankel); the delightful madam in the rollicking slapstick comedy For Pete's Sake (1974) starring Barbra Streisand; and as Mom Goldfarb in the Burt Reynolds action vehicles The Cannonball Run (1981) and Cannonball Run II (1984). Molly also began embracing TV on occasion, appearing to both humorous and heartwarming effect in such popular 60's programs as "Dr. Kildare," "Gomer Pyle" and "Car 54, Where Are You?"
Following her husband's death in 1975, Molly slowed down considerably. She suffered from Alzheimer's disease in her later years and died at age 94. Picon wrote her first biography about her family in So Laugh a Little in 1962, and much later (1980), her autobiography, Hello, Molly! She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. Vicariously known as the "Jewish Charlie Chaplin" and "Jewish Helen Hayes," she was a patriot and humanitarian at heart, with an energy, creativity and ability to entertain that couldn't help but make her one of entertainment's most beloved citizens.- Music Department
Michael Rabin was born on 2 May 1936 in New York City, New York, USA. He is known for Rhapsody (1954), Music for You (1951) and The Bell Telephone Hour (1959). He died on 19 January 1972 in Manhattan, New York, USA.- James H. Scheuer was born on 6 February 1920 in Manhattan, New York, USA. James H. was married to Emily Malino. James H. died on 30 August 2005 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Additional Crew
Mr. Schwartz is a pioneer in both the science fiction and comic book fields. He is credited with publishing the very first SF fanzine, "The Time Machine", in 1930. In 1934, he started the Solar Sales Service, a literary agency that represented such classic SF writers as 'Alfred Bester', Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch. In 1939, he, along with fellow fans Samuel Moskowitz and other, organized the very first World Science Fiction Convention in NYC; the convention is still held annually to this day.
In 1944, Schwartz became an editor at All-American Comics (later merged with DC). He was unfamiliar with the media (he read his first comic book just before his job interview), and spent several years working on various genre titles.
In 1956, with interest in superhero comics at an all time low, Schwartz was given the opportunity to update a character from the 1940s, "The Flash". Instead of reusing the same character, Schwartz and his team rebuilt the character from the ground up. The new "Flash" was a hit, and Schwartz began using the same technique to revive such Golden Age characters as "Green Lantern", "Hawkman", and so on. Because of this, Schwartz has been given much of the credit for starting the Silver Age of comics. Schwartz continues his work with DC Comics to this day. He greatly scaled back his work as editor, but still found time to work with writers new and old (including longtime client and friend Ray Bradbury). He passed away on the 8th February 2004, in Winthrop Hospital, New York, due to complications from pneumonia. He was 88. He is survived by his son-in-law, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. The Science Fiction and Comic book world mourned his passing.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Schwartz moved to the U.S. in 1902 and in 1926 founded the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York. Also in 1926, Schwartz starred in and directed his first film, Broken Hearts (1926). His best known Hollywood film role was that of Ezra in the 1953 production of Salome (1953). In 1959, Schwartz traveled to Israel hoping to establish a theatre there, but he passed away after staging only one production. In 1991, Schwartz's film Tevya (1939) was selected by the Library Of Congress to be added to the National Film Registry as one of the great American films of all time.- Menasha Skulnik was born on 15 May 1890 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for The United States Steel Hour (1953), Monticello, Here We Come (1950) and Kraft Theatre (1947). He was married to Sarah Kutner and Anna Roman (actress). He died on 4 June 1970 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Producer
Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.Future Burial Site: Plot: Section 104, near the road- Actor
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Boris Thomashefsky was born on 12 May 1868 in Kiev, Russian Empire [now Ukraine]. He was an actor and writer, known for Bar-Mitzvah (1935), Hear Ye, Israel (1915) and The Jewish Crown (1915). He was married to Bessie Baumfeld-Kaufman (actress). He died on 9 July 1939 in New York City, New York, USA.Plot: Yiddish Theatrical Association, Section 67- Mendy Weiss was born on 11 May 1906 in New York City, New York, USA. He died on 4 March 1944 in Sing Sing Prison, New York, USA.Plot: Block 115, Lot 8, Ref.1, Grave 10
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Julius Rudel was born on 6 March 1921 in Vienna, Austria. He was an actor, known for Batman Begins (2005), Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Foul Play (1978). He was married to Rita Gillis. He died on 26 June 2014 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.