Also visit the Museum of Family History.

 

BECOME A FACEBOOK MEMBER 

 

   Visit                  Exhibitions                    Collections                  Research                  Learning                  About                  Site Map                  Contact Us                  Support

 


 

     

   Leon Liebgold

   

     

 

Photographers
unknown

Sitter
Leon Liebgold, July 31, 1910 - September 2, 1993

Date
unknown

Type
Portrait

Medium
Gelatin silver print

Credit Line
The Museum of the City of New York

Accession Number
66.77.18

Testimony
He was born in 1911 in Przemysl, Galicia. His parents were the Yiddish actors Bashe and Zalman Liebgold. His father was the director of Yiddish theatre in Krakow and across the Galician proivnce.

Possessing a beautiful voice, Leon became a choir boy in a temple and acted in children's roles in his father's troupe. In 1927 he became a professional actor in Vienna's "Reklam" Theatre. In 1928 he became a member of the "Vilna Troupe," where he acted until 1933, going on tour across Austria, Germany, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and other countries. In 1934 he became a member in the "cooperative" troupe in Krakow and at the end of 1934 he was engaged in Warsaw's theatre "Novoshtshi" to act in small-arts with the "Yidishe bande."

In 1935 he married the actress Lily Liliana, went on a tour across Europe with the "Yidishe bande" (which was called the "Polish bande"), and in 1939 they both came to America with the troupe. Liebgold remained there due to the outbreak of the Second World War, and he acted in 1940 with a cooperative union troupe in Chicago, in 1941 with a cooperative union troupe in Detroit.

In 1943 he became a member in the Yiddish Actors Union and became engaged in New York's Second Avenue Theatre. From 1943 until 1946 he served in the American army in the "Counter-Intelligence Core." After returning from the army he acted in New York and across the country until 1954, then traveled with his wife to guest-star in Argentina, where he had, for the first time, performed on 30 September 1954 in the Soleil Theatre."

Source of Testimony
Zalmen Zylbercweig -- "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre," Volume 3, p. 2241, 1959.


 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © Museum of the Yiddish Theatre. All rights reserved. Image Use Policy.