Most everyone who has seen Molly Picon play on the stage, or on the silver screen, or on television, has grown to love her. Over the many years of her performances, she brought a great deal of joy and laughter to millions of her adoring fans, not only in the United States, but throughout the world.
Not only did she act in dozens of theatre productions, but being multi-talented, she also sang, wrote, created song lyrics, and she even headlined her own theatre in New York City, which was simply named the “Molly Picon Theatre.”
Molly not only performed on both the Yiddish and American stage, but she also acted on the silver screen, such as in the English film version of “Fiddler on the Roof," in which she played Yente the Matchmaker. She also starred in several Yiddish films, and she performed on the radio, where she had her own program in 1934.
Molly also appeared on the television many times, such as in the programs, “Gomer Pyle, USMC,” and “Car 54, Where are You?”
Her most famous appearance in a Yiddish film was in the 1936 production of "Yidl mitn fidl" (in English “Yiddle With His Fiddle”), which is the most successful Yiddish film of all time.
The diminutive Molly was born in 1898 in New York on Broome Street, but she actually made her performance debut in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she would sing for passengers who were riding on a trolley car.
She eventually performed on stage in Philadelphia in its Arch Street Theatre, where she performed in her first legitimate role.
When she was fourteen, she even appeared in the George M Cohan production of “Broadway Jones.”
After this, she toured around the country in stock company troupes, and she also appeared in a number of vaudeville productions.
While she was stranded in Boston with a vaudeville troupe, she met her future husband Jacob, who was then the manager of a Yiddish stock company. He convinced her that she could have even greater success as a top Yiddish comedienne, and we all know how well that worked out.
She very successfully followed her path onto the Yiddish stage and found stardom there.
Jacob and Molly fell in love, and they were married in 1919.
Molly was known to have traveled tens of thousands of miles every year to perform in plays and concerts in many countries around the world.
She also performed in various Yiddish theatre houses in the United States, such as the Second Avenue and the Public Theatres in New York City.
Some of us, and many of our parents and grandparents, fondly remember attending one of Molly’s performances when they were young, and her playing on the stage made a lasting impression on them.
To the masses around the world, Molly Picon was a darling. She exuded warmth, sincerity and generosity and made millions laugh, and she gave greatly to her profession whenever they needed her. Audiences adored her, and she will be remembered as one of the greatest performers ever to grace the Yiddish stage.
Here is a partial transcript from a 1977 interview with Quentin Melson, when Molly was nearly eighty years of age, where she talks about having a purpose in life, and the sound of laughter.
"“I think people should find some interest in life, something in which they can give of themselves to others, because I think giving is living. I don’t think living for oneself is living. But when you have something to give and share with somebody else.
I just finished writing a book that I hope my publishers, Simon and Schuster, will call, “The Sound of Laughter,” because the sound of laughter to me has been my cue in life, my reason in life, to make people laugh.
Now I’m going to tell you why I chose this title.
My husband and I went to the concentration camps, the DP camps, after the war, two months after the war, and we saw the whole picture, we found the whole picture. But the thing that impressed me the most was an old lady, not an old lady, a lady who brought an infant to one of the shows. And the child started crying, and Yankl went over while I was singing, and he said, “Why did you bring an infant, Lady, you know the show …?”
And she said, “My child has never heard the sound of laughter, and I don’t want her to grow up without hearing people laugh.” See? It makes me cry now … And from then on, this was our … sort of our goal in life, is to make people laugh, especially our people who have gone through so much tragedy …”
