The Ethel Barrymore of Second Avenue

Jennie Goldstein

"The Ethel Barrymore of Second Avenue"

Jennie Goldstein was born on May 8, 1896 on the Lower East Side of New York. She was the daughter of Samuel and Beckie (Schaffer) Goldstein. Her father was a butcher supporting a wife and six children. Jennie attended the local public schools and Hebrew school, and studied music privately.

When Jennie was 6 years old, actress Rosa Margulies noticed her pretty voice and began offering her child roles at the Windsor Theater, including Hanele di neytorin (Hannah the seamstress) with Bertha Kalich. Jennie kept accepting roles and was soon making $9 a week. Jennie played in two more roles: Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin's טהרת המשפחה Family Purity—for which Sigmund Mogulesko wrote her the song Oyf yener zayt (On the other side)—and Der umbakanter (The stranger) which were performed in the Thalia Theater.

At the age of 13 Jennie left school and began to play adult roles for Max R. Veyner. Her first such role was called Yoysef Lateyner's Dos Yidishe harts (the Jewish heart).  In 1909, she moved to Clinton Street Vaudeville. As a teenager, Jennie became a successful vaudeville performer. She was advertised as "the small but great artist, Miss Jennie Goldstein, who will sing her success songs" at a Concert and Literary evening in 1910.

Jennie met an actor named Max Gabel (Gebil) in Vaudeville when she was only 16 years old and they were soon married. Gabel wrote melodramas starring Max and Jennie starred such as Alts far libe (Everything for love) and Kol shofar (Voice of the Shofar), which was written specially for Jennie. These plays were very successful and enjoyed extended runs. The couple performed in Winnipeg, the Lipson Theater, the Grand Music Hall and Peoples Theater where Jennie and Gabel were co-directors.  In 1924, Jennie toured in London and the American provinces. She wrote lyrics for some of her songs and recorded them for radio and phonograph recordings.  Jennie became one of the few women in Yiddish Theater to write lyrics and music for songs that she performed on stage and recorded commercially.

Jennie and Gabel divorced in 1930. From 1932-1933 Jennie embarked on a solo career, briefly managing the Prospect Theater and starring in Yiddish films In 1936, Jennie remarried to a lawyer named Charles W. Groll. In 1939, Jennie starred in her only film role called Tsvey shvester (Two Sisters). After divorcing Gabel, Goldstein operated her own theaters, an uncommon practice for Yiddish actresses at the time, in a business dominated by male-owned venues. Her ventures included the Prospect Theater in the Bronx, and the National Theatre in Manhattan.

Jennie was known for playing unhappy heroines and, later, their mothers. In one memorable role, Jennie played a tragedienne “wringing her heart and wracking her sob-filled voice as she repeated the travails of the innocent immigrant girl seduced by the villainies of the cruel and heartless New York sweatshop world.”

During the 1940’s Jennie shifted gears and she decided to try her hand at comedy. During this period, she decided that due to World War ll, audiences had had enough to cry about. Therefore, Jennie began performing her Comedy acts at Jewish organizational functions. In the 1950’s, Jennie performed as a Comedian in two Broadway shows and on television.  

Goldstein was divorced from Gabel in 1930 and embarked on a new period in her career. She managed the Prospect Theater in the Bronx in 1932–1933 and starred in the Yiddish film Two Sisters (1939), her sole movie performance. Many theatre-goers in the 1920s and 1930s packed the Yiddish theatre to see Jennie Goldstein, who often played tragic roles. At the peak of her career, a Yiddish newspaper critic said of her, "Nobody can make you cry like Jennie Goldstein."

She married Charles W. Groll, a lawyer, in May 1936. During the 1940s, as opportunities in the Yiddish theater waned, Jennie transformed herself into a comedienne. She became a popular entertainer at Jewish organizational functions, performed in two Broadway shows in the 1950s, and appeared on television. Interested in Jewish communal life, she was a member of the board of the Bikur Cholim Convalescent Home and a member of the Daughters of Israel Day Nursery and the Hebrew Actors Union.

Throughout her career, Jennie played tragic roles in Yiddish melodramas as well as comic roles both of which won the hearts of her audiences. She skillfully played tragic roles in Yiddish melodramas and comic roles with equal skill.   In later life, she volunteered for various organizations, including the Hebrew Actors Union and the Bikur Cholim Convalescent Home.  Jennie Goldstein was one of the foremost Yiddish theater tragediennes, beloved by the public and acclaimed by critics for her ability to make audiences cry and for her outstanding voice.

Jennie traveled throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America. In 1927, she celebrated 25 years on the stage with a banquet at the Pennsylvania Hotel. Teater un Kunst was one of many periodicals to mark her jubilee, creating a visual montage of some of her roles.  Jennie played in nightclubs and the Catskills, and was a guest in Mickey Katz’s humorous revue called Borscht Capades, which also featured Mickey’s young son, Joel Grey.

Jennie also recorded successful comedy albums. She performed on Broadway in The Number by Arthur Carter and Camino Real by Tennessee Williams. While working on a television program for CBS, Jennie Goldstein became ill and died of a heart attack on February 9, 1960.  She was 64 years old.  Jennie was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens, New York, in the plot of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance. Her star adorns the Yiddish Theater Walk of Fame on Second Avenue.

 ~Blog by Renee Meyers