איינע פון די אמאליגע גרויסע אידישע זינגערס איז געווען אהרן לעבעדאוו, איך האב ליב אלע זיינע שטיקלך די צוויי וואס געפילט מיר די מערסטע איז
וואט קען יו מאך עס איז אמעריקע, א קאמעדיע ניגון אויף די מצב היהדות אין אמעריקע ווי מען מאכט די חתונה צוזאמען מיטן ברית צו שפארן געלט.. און
א אידיש מיידל דארף א אידישען בוי, א הארצרייסנדע אפיל צו די מיידלעך זיך אפצולאזן פון די גויאישע ליבע, זיין
א חזינדל אין אמעריקע איז אויך נישט שלעכט.
דאס וואס יענער שרייבט דארט:
Aaron Lebedeff (1873--1960)
In the years when the Yiddish theatre flourished in the United Stales one of the most cheerful and original personalities in Yiddish musical comedy was Aaron Lebedeff, Gifted with a lyric voice, an engaging stage presence, a unique zest for improvisation, clowning and dancing, he undoubtedly had the longest career as a juvenile song-and-dance man in the history of the New York theatre, Yiddish or English. In 1936, Variety cited him, at the age of sixty-two, as "the world's oldest juvenile"; in 1955, at eighty-two, he was still appearing in musicals in what then remained of the Yiddish theatre.
The ever-young Aaron Lebedeff was born in Homel, White Russia in 1873. As a boy he sang in the local choir, but since he showed no interest in study, his parents, who kept a clothing shop, early apprenticed him to learn a trade. The boy ran away from home to join a Russian theatre troupe touring Bohroisk. Minsk and other cities. After hard times disbanded the group, he returned to Homel, where he opened a dancing school and dabbled in amateur Yiddish theatricals. When one of the early professional Yiddish troupes, headed by Lazar Bernstein, passed through the town, Lebedeff begged for a job with the company and promptly got one - combination chorus boy, porter, wardrobe assistant and prompter. It was not long before he became a character actor, making his debut as the Pipkincr Rav in Shomer's Baal Tshuva. Then he moved over to operetta, which gave wider scope to his varied talents.
After many years on the road with travelling shows, he finally became a star in Warsaw in 1912-13, where he was known as Der Litvisher Komiker. This was the start of a lifetime career in the theatre, interrupted only by a brief period of military service in Kerensky's Revolutionary Army in Harbin, Manchuria. Eventually he gathered all his savings together to buy his way out of the army, and began a long trek to the United Stales by way of Siberia. Manchuria, China and Japan. All in all, he spent a year barnstorming in the Orient and in that time managed to master one dialect of Chinese.
Whcn he finally arrived in New York in 1920. he scored an immediate personal success at Boris Thomashcfsky's storied National Theatre in a play called Liovka Molodez. Thus began sixteen years on Second Avenue, during which he played a full season each year, never missing even a week. Ever gay, in his straw hat and faultlessly tailored clothes, he seemed to many the Maurice Chevalier of the Yiddish stage. He became famous for roles like The Rumanian Litvak, and though after awhile his vehicles assumed a typed character, the audiences loved him. The New York Times in a review in October 1932 commented that he delighted the public in roles in which he was invariably "an ingratiating provincial who is always the victim of misfortune in the first act, only to shine forth resplendent with simoleons and a slick sennet in the closing act."
At sixty-one, when he was stilt playing romantic leads (albeit wearing a hat to hide a receding hair fine), he divulged to a reporter for the New York American his formula for perpetual youth: "Dress well, eat and drink what you like, and remain constantly in love." Though he was surrounded by adoring females wherever he went, he remained happily married to the actress Vera Lebedeff (Rebecca Shehtman).
Even the rise of talking pictures and the decline of the Yiddish stage dimmed his luster only slightly, for he went on to star m Yiddish vaudeville at the National and Clinton Theatres, where Yiddish talkies and eight live acts shared the bill. To list all the ephemeral Yiddish plays in which he appeared is almost impossible. Among his notable musicals were My Malkele (1937) and Bublitchki (1938) in which he co-starred with Molly Picon, Yankele Litvak, Yoshke Chvat, Motke from Slobodke, Money Talks, (with Michael Michaclesko, 1952), The Magic Melody (1953) and My Weekend Bride (1955). In 1953 he was one of the famous Yiddish stars honored at a special anniversary performance for Israel Bonds at the National Theatre (and the only one, true to his usual form, who was called back for several encores).
It is interesting to note that Lebedeff wrote many of his Yiddish and English lyrics himself. Most of the lines virtually defy translation, for they are highly idiomatic, with a humor that is difficult to render into English. Ail the songs breathe nostalgia and are magically evocative of the Russian-Rumanian milieu and the immigrant world in New York. The allusions to food and drink are legion; the homesickness is for the village life of the vanished prewar world. For sheer exuberance and uninhibited merry-making, few performers can match Aaron Lebedeff at his best.
