Clara Gold

Gold was born in New York City in 1888. Her father was a house painter. Not long after she was born, the entire family moved back to Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (today Lviv, Ukraine). The family returned to the United States when she was thirteen.

She got her start in acting as a chorus girl in the Windsor Theater. She then became a Vaudeville and variety artist at various venues and music halls in New York.{{cite book |last1=Yablokoff |first1=Herman |title=Arum der ṿelṭ miṭ Yidish ṭeaṭer oyṭobiografishe iberlebungen un ṭeaṭer-dertseylungen in loyf fun a halbn yorhunderṭ Yidishe un ṿelṭlekhe geshe'enishn |date=1968 |location=New York |pages=245–6 |url=https://archive.org/details/nybc200862/page/n263/mode/1up |language=yi}} When she entered the actor's union she became a character actor on the mainstream Yiddish stage in New York and Philadelphia, including at the Liberty Theatre with Julius Adler and later Anshel Schorr, at the Prospect Theater, and at the Lyric Theatre. According to Pesach Burstein, Gold was illiterate and memorized all of her lines by ear before any new performance.{{cite book |last1=Burshṭeyn |first1=Pesaḥḳe |title=Geshpilṭ a lebn |date=1980 |publisher=P. Burshṭeyn |location=Tel Aviv |pages=147–8 |url=https://archive.org/details/nybc206180/page/n164/mode/1up |language=yi}}

File:Shweig Telebende disc label Gus Goldstein and Clara Gold Actuelle Records.jpg

In 1916 she was invited to Victor Records to make test recordings for them as a solo singer; the disc was not released but she was soon invited back. Starting in 1917, she started making Yiddish-language comedy and theatre discs for Victor and also for Columbia Records. Most of her early recordings were made with actor Gus Goldstein and consisted of scenes featuring the popular Yente Telebende character (the source of the term Yenta, and a character which had previously been played by Bina Abramowitz).{{cite book |last1=Buhle |first1=Paul |title=From the Lower East Side to Hollywood : Jews in American popular culture |date=2004 |publisher=Verso |location=London |isbn=1859845983 |page=40 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Sapoznik |first1=Henry |title=Klezmer! : Jewish music from Old World to our world |date=2006 |publisher=Schirmer Trade Books |location=New York |isbn=0825673240 |page=82 |edition=2nd}} In 1919 she also recorded some Yiddish songs arranged by the Klezmer recording artist Israel J. Hochman.{{cite book |last1=Sapoznik |first1=Henry |title=Klezmer! : Jewish music from Old World to our world |date=2006 |publisher=Schirmer Trade Books |location=New York |isbn=0825673240 |page=87 |edition=2nd}} In 1922 and 1923 she then made a series of discs with OKeh Records, including some with Goldstein and some as a solo singer.{{cite book |last1=Laird |first1=Ross |title=Discography of OKeh Records, 1918-1934 |date=2004 |publisher=Praeger |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=0313311420 |pages=188–9}} Her final recordings seem to have been with Victor Records in July 1929.

File:Max Bulman Itsik Lipinski Clara Gold and Annie Lubin photo from Forverts 22 February 1925.jpg

In the 1930s, after the general collapse of the recording industry due to the Great Depression, she continued to act on the Yiddish stage. She was in a production at with Nellie Casman at the Odeon Theatre on Clinton Street in 1930.{{cite news |title=YIDDISH THEATRES BEGIN THEIR SEASON |work=New York Times |date=24 September 1930 |location=New York |page=26 |language=en}} She performed for a time in Detroit in 1931.{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=James |title=The Detroit Yiddish Theater |date=1967 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit |pages=99–100}}{{cite news |last1=Ehrenreykh |first1=H. |title=Gerekht - a star darf tsohlen |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/frw/1931/10/30/01/article/23/ |work=Forverts |date=30 October 1931 |location=New York |language=yi}} She was a regular cast member at the Liberty Theater once again under Louis Birnbaum starting in 1932.{{cite news |title=Music and Drama. |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/jweekly/1932/02/19/article/31/ |work=The Jewish News of Northern California⁩ |date=February 19, 1932 |location=San Francisco |page=3 |language=en}} During the late 1930s and early 1940s she often performed in supporting roles at the Hopkinson Theatre in Brooklyn.{{cite news |title=Jewish Drama at Hopkinson Friday |work=The Brooklyn Daily Eagle |date=27 January 1943 |location=Brooklyn, New York |page=9 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Yiddish Melodrama Has Premiere |work=Brooklyn Daily Eagle |date=15 October 1936 |location=Brooklyn, New York |page=23 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Yiddish Musical Opens at Hopkinson |work=Brooklyn Times Union |date=8 January 1937 |location=Brooklyn, New York |page=5A |language=en}} She continued to appear on stage during and after the war; her final appearances seem to have been at the Bronx Art Theatre in fall 1946 in Anna Chernak and Sophie Geby's "The Woman that God Forgot".{{cite news |title=6 Legit, 2 Vauders Survive Decline of Yiddish Theatre for '46-47 Season |url=https://lantern.mediahist.org/catalog/variety163-1946-09_0233 |work=Variety |date=25 September 1946 |page=58 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Yiddish Musical Opens Monday |work=The New York Times |date=13 September 1945 |location=New York |page=32 |language=en}}{{cite news |title=Bronks art teater hot a groysen sukses. |url=https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/dertog/1946/10/11/01/article/99.1/ |work=Der tog |date=11 October 1946 |page=10 |language=yi}}

She died on December 12, 1946.{{cite web |title=Clara Gold in the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 |url=https://www.ancestry.com/sharing/53346?token=rD8OOVMCKsY3hKFnLlkAIVxi2VwlXbZ%2BpyaDKMPaSqQ%3D |website=www.ancestry.com |access-date=2 October 2022}} She was buried in the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance section at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens.{{cite web |title=CLARA GOLD |url=https://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/interment/?id=81114 |website=Mount Hebron Cemetery |access-date=2 October 2022}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://rsa.fau.edu/artist/85 Clara Gold recordings] in the Florida Atlantic University Recorded Sound Archive
• [https://search.library.wisc.edu/search/digital?filter%5Bfacets%5D%5Bnames_facet~Gold%2C+Clara%2C+1888-%5D=yes Clara Gold recordings] in the Mayrent Collection at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

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Category:1888 births

Category:1946 deaths

Category:Actresses from New York City

Category:20th-century American women singers

Category:20th-century American singers

Category:Yiddish theatre performers

Category:Victor Records artists

Category:Okeh Records artists

Category:Columbia Records artists

Category:American vaudeville performers

Category:Burials at Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)