Search a film or person :
FacebookConnectionRegistration
Ida Kamińska is a Actor Polonaise born on 4 september 1899 at Odessa (Ukraine)

Ida Kamińska

Ida Kamińska
If you like this person, let us know!
Nationality Pologne
Birth 4 september 1899 at Odessa (Ukraine)
Death 21 may 1980 (at 80 years) at New York City (USA)

Ida Kamińska (September 18, 1899 – May 21, 1980) was a Polish-Jewish actress.

Biography

Born in Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine), Kamińska was the daughter of Yiddish stage actress Ester Rachel Kamińska (1870–1925) and actor, director and stage producer Avram Izhak Kamiński (1867–1918).


Early career and family life
Ida Kamińska began her stage career at the age of five. One of her earliest roles was in Jakob Gordin's play Mirele Efros, as the grandson of the title character, who was played by her mother. She was acting in both tragedies and comedies, as well as directing plays in her father's troupe by the time she was 18.

In 1918 she married the Yiddish actor and director Zygmunt Turkow (1896-1970), who was a member of her parents' troupe. She and Turkow had a daughter, Ruth Kamińska-Turkow, who was born in 1919. Following a three-year tour of the Kamiński theater in the Soviet Union, the young couple settled in Warsaw, and together established the Warsaw Jewish Art Theater, in 1922, with Ida Kamińska as the principal actress. They divorced in 1932, and in the same year Ida organized her own company in Warsaw, the Drama Theater of Ida Kamińska, which she continued to direct until 1939. In July 1936 Kamińska married the Yiddish actor Marian (Meir) Melman (1900-1978).

In October 1939, in the early part of the Second World War, Kamińska and family members, including her husband, Melman, and daughter, Ruth, fled to Lwów (Lviv, Ukraine), which was under Soviet occupation. There she was able to direct a Yiddish theater funded by the Soviet authorities. Kamińska and her family subsequently migrated to various localities in the Soviet Union. Her and Melman's son, Victor, was born in Frunze (Bishkek), in Soviet Central Asia, in fall 1941. In 1944 they arrived in Moscow, where Kamińska again acted in Yiddish productions.


Postwar career
After the war, Kamińska and her family returned to Warsaw. The Polish Jewish population had been decimated by the events of the Holocaust. Nevertheless, Kamińska and Melman made the decision to try to reestablish the Jewish theater; a Yiddish theater reopened in Warsaw in November 1946. In 1949 the Polish government granted a subsidy for the establishment of the Jewish State Theater of Poland, with Kamińska serving as its artistic director. In its early period the theater toured between the cities of Łódź (1949-1953) and Wrocław (1953-1955). In 1955 it was established permanently in Warsaw, as the State Jewish Theater, which was later named after Ida and her mother Ester (the Ester Rachel Kamińska and Ida Kamińska State Jewish Theater). Ida Kamińska continued to direct the theater until 1968.

In 1965, she starred in the Czechoslovak movie The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze, directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos), for which she received a 1967 nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her last role was The Angel Levine (1970), directed by Ján Kadár.


Death
Ida Kaminska died of cardiovascular disease in 1980, aged 80. Her husband, Meir Melman, had died in 1978.

She was interred in the Yiddish theater section of the Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, New York.

Usually with

Ján Kadár
Ján Kadár
(2 films)
Elmar Klos
Elmar Klos
(1 films)
Juraj Herz
Juraj Herz
(1 films)
Source : Wikidata

Filmography of Ida Kamińska (3 films)

Display filmography as list

Actress

The Shop on Main Street, 2h5
Directed by Ján Kadár, Elmar Klos
Origin Tchecoslovaquie
Genres Drama, War
Themes Films about religion, Political films, Films about Jews and Judaism
Actors Ida Kamińska, František Zvarík, Juraj Herz, Ivan Palúch
Roles Rozalia Lautmannová
Rating81% 4.0955754.0955754.0955754.0955754.095575
During World War II, a mild-mannered Slovak carpenter Anton "Tóno" Brtko (Jozef Kroner) is offered the chance to take over the sewing notions store of an old, near-deaf Jewish woman Rozália Lautmannová (Ida Kamińska) as a part of the enactment of an Aryanization regulation in the town. As Tóno attempts to explain to Mrs. Lautmannová, who is oblivious of the world outside and generally confused, that he has come to be her supervisor and owner of the store, Imrich Kuchár (Martin Hollý, Sr.), a Slovak opponent of Aryanization, steps in and reveals to Brtko that the business itself is less than profitable, as Lautmannová herself relies on donations. The Jewish community then offers the amiable Brtko a weekly payment if he does not give up the store, which would otherwise be given to a new, possibly ruthless Aryanizer. Tóno accepts and lets Mrs. Lautmannová believe he is her nephew who has come to help in the store. Their relationship grows, until the authorities round up the town's entire Jewish population for transport, and Tóno finds himself conflicted as to whether he should turn in the senile Mrs. Lautmannová, or hide her. When the woman finally becomes aware of the "pogrom" all around her, she panics, and in attempting to silence her, Tóno accidentally kills her. The realization devastates him, and he hangs himself.
Border Street, 1h55
Directed by Aleksander Ford
Origin Pologne
Genres Drama, War
Actors Mieczysława Ćwiklińska, Jerzy Leszczynski, Jerzy Leszczyński, Władysław Walter, Tadeusz Fijewski, Maria Broniewska-Pijanowska
Roles Helena
Rating71% 3.565353.565353.565353.565353.56535
Le quotidien, à Varsovie, de plusieurs enfants juifs et polonais, et de leur famille, de 1939 jusqu'au soulèvement du Ghetto, en 1943.