Bertha Kalich (also spelled Kalish, born Beylke Kalakh; 17 May 1874 – 18 April 1939) was a Jewish-American actress. Though she was well-established as an entertainer in Eastern Europe, she is best remembered as one of the several "larger-than-life" figures that dominated New York stages during the "Golden Age" of American Yiddish Theatre during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Historians estimate that, during her career, Kalich performed more than 125 different roles in seven different languages.
Life and career
Early life
Kalich was born Beylke Kalakh in Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (today Lviv, Ukraine), the only child of Solomon Kalakh, a poor brush manufacturer and amateur violinist.
After a series of performances in Budapest, Goldfaden offered her a permanent position with his company, and Kalich left later that year for Romania. She was able to pick up Romanian in a matter of months, and was subsequently able to appear in major roles there with the state theater. According to historian Daniel Soyer, "she was such a success that anti-Semitic theatergoers, who had come with the intention of pelting her with onions, threw flowers instead."
In her new home, Kalich set out to emphasize her dramatic skills over her musical talents, working hard as a proponent of the Yiddish theater movement, hoping to help the theatres gain credibility in addition to notoriety. Anti-semitism in America had initially led audiences to believe that Jewish immigrants were incapable of producing anything more than low-brow, minstrel entertainment, but the Thalia had made a name for itself with its revolutionary Yiddish-language translations of Shakespeare.
On the decline
By 1910, though, "she was having trouble finding suitable roles in the light American theater for her more emotional and tragic style."
thumb|[[Manuel Rosenberg caricature of Bertha Kalich]]
Later years
By the late 1920s, Kalich's eyesight was failing, and she gradually became blind. Though she officially retired in 1931, she continued to appear onstage occasionally, especially at evenings mounted in her honor that served to elevate her legacy in the Yiddish theatre community. Late in her life, she recorded scenes from Goldfaden's historical plays for "The Forward Hour" on radio station WEVD, but her poor health meant that she needed to rehearse long, grueling hours even for short parts. Her last public appearance came on February 23, 1939, at a benefit for her at the Jolson Theater, where she recited the final scene of Louis Untermeyer's poem Heine's Death.
Death
Bertha Kalich died on 18 April 1939, aged 64, from undisclosed causes. Her remains were interred at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens, New York.
Fifteen hundred people attended her funeral, considered a disappointing turnout, considering her status in the Jewish community. She had come to be seen as "a relic of the theatrical past, with a manner too romantic and grand even for the Yiddish stage", Soyer notes. "But, nevertheless, in the prime of her career at the beginning of the twentieth century, Kalich played an important role in efforts to improve the artistic standards of the Yiddish theater, whose status she also helped to raise with her success with English-speaking audiences."