THOMASHEFSKY, BESSIE

THOMASHEFSKY, BESSIE (1873–1962), renowned Yiddish actress and comedienne. Thomashefsky, who was born Brokhe Baumfeld in Tarashcha, Ukraine, to a Talner ḥasidic family, settled in Baltimore with her family in 1883. She was an enthusiast of English-language theater, enjoying both Shakespeare and African American singers.

Bessie was introduced to Yiddish theater by Boris *Thomashefsky, whose family troupe she joined in 1888. Although she worked briefly with Abraham *Goldfaden in Boston, she rejoined Thomashefsky and married him in Philadelphia at age 16. Bessie Thomashefsky enjoyed her first critical success in Chicago, where she and her husband lived with Jacob P. *Adler. In Chicago, she first performed with legendary comic actor Sigmund *Mogulesco, who influenced her significantly. Settling in New York in 1891, she and her husband established themselves alongside other prominent actors, performing operettas and potboilers by Lateiner [Latayner], Professor Hurwitz, and others, as well as the "literary" dramas of Jacob *Gordin.

In 1900, her husband became a partner in the People's Theater, where Bessie Thomashsky achieved considerable fame. Substituting for the ailing Mogulesco, she proved herself a great comic presence. Though popularly associated with farcical trouser roles, she was acknowledged by critics and colleagues for her dramatic acting. She also played in audacious Yiddish translations of European plays, such as Oscar Wilde's Salome. In 1912, she separated from Boris Thomashefsky, an inveterate womanizer. After a brief seclusion, she returned to the stage to reinvent her career, singing and wisecracking in the title role to Rakov's comic operetta Khantshe in amerike (Khantshe in America). Its musical score, by Joseph Rumshinsky, has been described as the first to bring American rhythm to the Yiddish stage. Her character, Khantshe, became a template for the many brassy, self-confident working-class women she would play over the next decade, such as Minke the housemaid in Dem doktors vayber ("The Doctor's Wives") by Leon *Kobrin. In these roles, she engaged women's suffrage, equal rights, class conflict, gender roles, and even birth control.

From 1915 to 1918, Thomashefsky managed her own theater, in direct competition with her estranged husband, and enjoyed new levels of celebrity. The daily Warheit, a New York Yiddish newspaper, serialized her memoirs, which offered candid comments on her marriage and on theater politics. Subsequently published as Mayn lebns geshikhte: di laydn un freydn fun a yidisher star aktrise (1916), this autobiography, written with A. Tenenholtz, provides an invaluable history of early Yiddish theater in America. Through the 1920s, Thomashefsky reprised her well-known roles, effectively retiring from the stage by 1930. She moved to Hollywood in retirement, where she made at least one unsuccessful attempt to enter films.

Bessie Thomashefsky was the mother of Yiddish actor Harry Thomashefsky and Hollywood writer Ted Thomas, and grandmother of conductor Michael Tilson *Thomas.

bibliography:

L. Schlissel. "Thomashefsky, Bessie," in: P.E. Hyman and D.D. Moore (eds.), Jewish Women in America (1997), 2:1402–04; L. Kobrin. Erinerungen fun a yidishn dramaturg (1925), 2:165–71; "Tomashevski, Besi," in: Zalmen Zylbercweig (ed.) with Jacob Mestel, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (1931–1969), 2:840–45.

[Ronald Robboy (2^nd ed.)]