Mina Bern

Mina Bern Biography

Mina Bern (May 5, 1911 – January 10, 2010) was a Polish-born American actress. She was a star of the Yiddish theater.

Biography

Mina (Bernholtz) Bern was born in Bielsk Podlaski. Her theatrical debut was in Bialystock under the director Yehuda Greenhoyz. In 1930, through her relative Moishe Broderzon, she shortened her name and auditioned successfully to join the Ararat Yiddish cabaret theater in Lodz. and then played at the Warsaw Scala and later, the Kaminska theaters and the local folk theater. With Dina Halperin and Sam Bronetski she worked in the collective Our Theater, and later with Zygmunt Turkov. A few years later, she established a small cabaret theater in Bia"?ystok.

Bern fled to Russia with her daughter after the Nazi invasion of Poland; there she played with the "Bialistocker yidishn miniatur-teatr" (miniature revi-teater) of Shimon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher. In 1944 she was sent to a camp in Uganda where she did children's theater for Poles stationed there. Through Jewish family connections she went to Kenya in 1945 and from there to Israel where she worked with Jenny Lavitz in the revue Rozhinkes mit mandlen, favorably reviewed and subsequently staged at the Hebrew Li-La-Lo revue theater.

In 1949, after an incident in which she was found guilty of sending a thug to beat up theater critic Haim Gamzu, who had written a bad review of her performance, she emigrated to the United States. She married the actor and producer Ben Bonus. She was a member of the Hebrew Actors' Union and recorded songs in Hebrew.

Awards

Bern received an Obie award in 1999.

Filmography

Brooklyn Babylon (2001) .... Nanna
Flawless (1999) .... Mrs. Spivak
Celebrity (1998) .... Elderly Homeowner
The First Seven Years (1998) (TV) .... Landlady
I'm Not Rappaport (1996)
Everything Relative (1996) .... Grandma Kessler
Little Odessa (1994) .... Grandma Tsilya
It Could Happen to You (1994) .... Muriel's Neighbour
Pressure Drop (1994) .... Ida Potashner
Avalon (1990) .... Alice Krichinsky
Crossing Delancey (1988) .... Would-be Victim
Tenement (1985) (as Mina Bern Bonas) .... Ruth

Mina Bern

Mina Bern Biography

Biography

Awards

Filmography

See also