Reizl Bozyk (born 13 May 1914, Poland – 1 October 1993,
New York, New York
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Uni ...
, USA), also known as Rose Bozyk and Róża Bożyk, was a Polish-born American actress of 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 revues ...
. Her claim to mainstream fame was her sole film role, playing the interfering grandmother of
Amy Irving
Amy Davis Irving (born September 10, 1953) is an American actress and singer, who worked in film, stage, and television. Her accolades include an Obie Award, and nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award.
Born in Palo Alto, Ca ...
in
Joan Micklin Silver
Joan Micklin Silver (May 24, 1935 – December 31, 2020) was an American director of films and plays. Born in Omaha, Silver moved to New York City in 1967 where she began writing and directing films. She is best known for ''Hester Street'' (197 ...
's film ''
Crossing Delancey
''Crossing Delancey'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. Joan Micklin Silver directed it, drawing upon a play by Susan Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay. The film also features performances from ...
'' (1988). She also appeared in a memorable ''
Law and Order
In modern politics, law and order is the approach focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime. Penalties for perpetrators of disorder may include longer terms of imprisonment, mandatory sentencing, three-strikes laws a ...
'' episode "Night and Fog" which aired in season 3.
Life and career
Reizl Bozyk was born into a stage family in
Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz ( , , ; german: Bromberg) is a city in northern Poland, straddling the meeting of the River Vistula with its left-bank tributary, the Brda. With a city population of 339,053 as of December 2021 and an urban agglomeration with more ...
, Poland, where her mother, the actress Lea Lewebrowska, was acting in
Joseph Lateiner
Joseph Lateiner (1853 – 1935) was a playwright in the early years of Yiddish theater, first in Bucharest, Romania and later in New York City, where he was a co-founder in 1903 with Sophia Karp of the Grand Theater, New York's first purpose-buil ...
's operetta ''The Jewish heart'' (''Dos yidishe harts''). Her father, Abram Lewebrowski, a character comic, died when she was only three years old. At a very young age, she began acting with her mother's troupe. In 1935 she married actor Max Bozyk.
Bozyk was an enduring star of the Yiddish stage in New York City, appearing in hundreds of productions, often as a comedian and later as the familiar mother or mother-in-law character who often stole the show. She began acting in the Yiddish theater in Poland at the age of 5 or 6, performing first with her parents and then with Max Bozyk, whom she later married.
Max and Reizl Bozyk were performing in Argentina in 1939 when the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
overran Poland. They had left behind a son in Poland, who was killed. They came to New York City in 1941. For nearly three decades, they were inseparable on the Yiddish stage, starring in one play or revue after another. Summers were spent performing in the
Borscht Belt
The Borscht Belt, or Jewish Alps, is a colloquial term for the mostly defunct summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in parts of Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster counties in the U.S. state of New York, straddling both Upstate New York and the north ...
.
In an interview when ''
Crossing Delancey
''Crossing Delancey'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy film starring Amy Irving and Peter Riegert. Joan Micklin Silver directed it, drawing upon a play by Susan Sandler, who also wrote the screenplay. The film also features performances from ...
'' opened, Bozyk joked that the 37 years spent with her husband had been like 74 because they'd spent their entire days and nights together.
In 1970, after a performance at New York's Town Hall, her husband collapsed and died. Reizl continued to appear in performances, touring the country in Yiddish revues. She went on to appear in New York's "Town Hall" with the celebrated Israeli star
Mary Soreano and all-star revues. In 1989, she played her first stage role in English, appearing in the comedy ''Social Security'' directed by
Peter Lowey at the Forum Theater in
Metuchen, New Jersey
Metuchen ( ) is a suburban borough in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The borough is a commuter town of New York City, located in the heart of the Raritan Valley region within the New York Metropolitan area. The borough, along wit ...
. The following year she recreated her ''Crossing Delancey'' role on stage in Florida, and was due to tour again when she suddenly died.
Death
She died at
St. Vincent's Hospital Medical Center in New York City, aged 79, from undisclosed causes.
She was buried at
Mount Hebron Cemetery in
Flushing, Queens
Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial and retail area, and the ...
.
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bozyk, Reizl
Actresses from New York (state)
American stage actresses
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American film actresses
Jewish American actresses
Polish emigrants to Argentina
Polish stage actresses
Yiddish theatre performers
1914 births
1993 deaths
20th-century American actresses
Argentine emigrants to the United States
Argentine people of Polish-Jewish descent
Jewish Argentine actresses
Burials at Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)
20th-century American Jews