Borrah Minevitch (sometimes spelled Minnevitch; 5 November 1902, Borovin,

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 26 June 1955,

Paris, France Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

), born Boruch Minewitz, was a notable harmonica player,

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 ...

, and leader of his group The Harmonica Rascals. The Harmonica Rascals, an ensemble of approximately ten pieces, recorded for

Brunswick Records Brunswick Records is an American record label founded in 1916. History From 1916 Records under the Brunswick label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company, a company based in Dubuque, Iowa which had been manufacturing prod ...

in 1933, and later for Decca Records where Minevitch hired

Richard Hayman Richard Hayman (March 27, 1920 – February 5, 2014) was an American musician who was the chief music arranger of the Boston Pops Orchestra for over 50 years, and served as a pops conductor for orchestras including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra ...

as an arranger for the Rascals. (Hayman later worked as an arranger for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

and the

Boston Pops Orchestra The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart. Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symp ...

.) In 1923, Minevitch sold the rights to his work on the chromatic harmonica to

Hohner Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG is a German manufacturer of musical instruments, founded in 1857 by Matthias Hohner (1833–1902). The roots of the Hohner firm are in Trossingen, Baden-Württemberg. Since its foundation, and though known ...

for one million dollars and the company subsequently made a successful "Borrah Minevitch" line of harmonicas.harmonica-brands.com
; accessed March 14, 2014. He spent the rest of his career as a music hall performer, comedy film actor, impresario, film financier, and film distributor.amazon.com
accessed March 14, 2014. Minevitch performed in numerous feature length Hollywood movies between 1934 and 1943 including ''Love Under Fire'' (

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

1937), '' Always in My Heart'' (

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

, 1942), ''Top Man'' (

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

1943), ''Hit Parade of 1941'' ( Republic Pictures, 1941), ''

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp ''Tramp, Tramp, Tramp'' is a 1926 American silent film, silent comedy film directed by Harry Edwards (director), Harry Edwards and starring Harry Langdon and Joan Crawford. Premise The film tells of Harry (Langdon) a ne'er-do-well who falls in ...

'' (

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

, 1941) and '' One in a Million'' (

, 1936).IMDb profile
accessed March 14, 2014. He appeared in a

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

made by

Lee DeForest Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element " Audion" triode v ...

in the short-lived

sound-on-film Sound-on-film is a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying a picture is recorded on photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog ...

process

Phonofilm Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s. Introduction In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film proce ...

, titled ''A Boston Star: Borrah Minevitch'', which premiered at the Rivoli Theater in

New York City 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 Un ...

on 15 April 1923. He and the Rascals appeared in ''Lazy Bones'' (1934), which was a part

live action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ...

, part animated film released by Fleischer Studios as one of their

Screen Songs ''Screen Songs'', formerly known as KoKo Song Car-Tunes, are a series of animated cartoons produced at the Fleischer Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures between 1929 and 1938. Paramount brought back the sing-along cartoons in 1945, n ...

series, the live-action short ''Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals'' (

Vitaphone Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one ...

, 1935) and ''Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica School'' (Warner Bros., 1942) directed by

Jean Negulesco Jean Negulesco (born Ioan Negulescu; – 18 July 1993) was a Romanian-American film director and screenwriter.Oliver, Myrna"Jean Negulesco 1900–1993 ''The Los Angeles Times'', 22 July 1993. He first gained notice for his film noirs and later ...

. In 1947, Minevitch retired from performing and moved to France. While living in Europe he worked as a film producer and distributor and opened a jazz nightclub on the Ile St Louis in Paris which he named "Au Franc Pinot". He helped arrange the United States distribution for his friend

Jacques Tati Jacques Tati (; born Jacques Tatischeff, ; 9 October 1907 – 5 November 1982) was a French mime, film-maker, actor and screenwriter. In an ''Entertainment Weekly'' poll of the Greatest Movie Directors, he was voted the 46th greatest of all time ...

's films '' Jour de fête'' (1949) and '' Monsieur Hulot's Holiday'' (1953) before his death in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

in 1955 at age 52.

References

Links

"Harmonicist in London"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

''. February 24, 1936.
''Jacques Tati: His Life and Art''
by David Bellos, (Random House, 2011), pp. 158–61

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Minevitch, Borrah 1902 births 1955 deaths Harmonica players Musicians from Minsk Russian Jews Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States American emigrants to France