Leon Liebgold (July 31, 1910,

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

– September 3, 1993,

New Hope, Pennsylvania New Hope is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The population was 2,612 at the 2020 census. New Hope is located approximately north of Philadelphia, and lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. ...

) was an

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

in the

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...

and in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

language films, both in his native Poland and later in the United States, to which he emigrated. Liebgold is best known for his roles in ''

The Dybbuk ''The Dybbuk'', or ''Between Two Worlds'' (russian: Меж двух миров �ибук}, trans. ''Mezh dvukh mirov ibuk'; yi, צווישן צוויי וועלטן - דער דִבּוּק, ''Tsvishn Tsvey Veltn – der Dibuk'') is a play by ...

'' (1937), made in Poland, and '' Tevya'' (1939), a U.S. production. He was also featured in the highly successful 1936 film '' Yidl Mit'n Fidl'' with

Molly Picon Molly Picon ( yi, מאָלי פּיקאָן; born Malka Opiekun; February 28, 1898 – April 5, 1992) was an American actress of stage, screen, radio and television, as well as a lyricist and dramatic storyteller. She began her career in Yidd ...

. Liebman began his career as a vaudeville performer and actor on stages in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. He married his frequent co-star, (1913-1989), also rendered in English as "Lily" or "Lilly," in 1935. After completing ''The Dybbuk'', Liebgold and Liliana left Poland with their troupe, "Di Yidishe Bande," for a world tour, appearing in Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, and France. In 1939, when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out, they were in the United States, thus fortuitously escaping the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Liebgold served in the United States Army as a sergeant during

, and then performed as a stage actor in Yiddish theaters in America for decades, including the

Folksbiene The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, commonly known as NYTF, is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translat ...

Theater. He and Liliana also toured South America in the 1950s. In the late 1970s, he served as president of the

Hebrew Actors' Union The Hebrew Actors' Union (HAU) was a craft union for actors in Yiddish theater in the United States (primarily in New York City), and was the first actors' union in the United States. The union was affiliated with the Associated Actors and Artiste ...

in Manhattan, New York. Liebgold possessed both a resonant and fine melodic, cantorial-type voice which embellished both his speaking and singing on stage. Liebgold died in 1993 at age 83. He and Liliana, married nearly 60 years until she predeceased him in 1989, are buried together at Mount Hebron Cemetery, in

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liebgold, Leon American male film actors Yiddish theatre performers American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American male actors 1910 births 1993 deaths Yiddish film actors 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American Jews Polish emigrants to the United States