Tenen Holtz

Elihu Elye Tenenholtz was born in the Russian hamlet of Azran near the city of Rovne in 1887 and came to the US at the age of ten His first appearance in amateur Yiddish theatricals occurred in 1903 in staged readings of the works of Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem the first person to do that He augmented his theater appearances by writing for and editing a Yiddish satirical magazine under the penname Moishe McCarthy In 1916 he made the leap to the professional Yiddish stage and befriended by the great doyenne Bessie Thomashevsky helped her pen her memoirs the first publication documenting a Yiddish actors life By 1920 he was appearing on both the Yiddish art stage with Maurice Schwartz and on Broadway quickly rising to the top leadership of the Hebrew Actors Union the first arts union in America In 1925 he cofounded a theater company with Celia Adler halfsister of Luther Adler and Method teacher Stella Adler In 1926 he was summoned to Hollywood and given a fiveyear contract at MGM Like most Jewish actors when he arrived in Hollywood he changed his name choosing to bifurcate it into Tenen Holtz During that time he regularly appeared in films alongside such stars as Greta Garbo Norma Shearer Joan Crawford Jean Harlow and Marion Davies and under directors like King Vidor and Victor Fleming This period would prove to be Tenenholtzs most prolific and would account for the majority of the 50 films in which he would appear While in Hollywood he helped jump start its fledgling Yiddish theater founding a popular Yiddish theater company that included other transplanted Yiddish actors including Muni Weisenfreund aka Paul Muni father and son Rudolph Schildkraut and Joseph Schildkraut When his contract at MGM ended he moved over to Warner Brothers where he made films with Leslie Howard under the direction of Michael Curtiz By the late 1930s the only calls he got were from Poverty Row studios so Tenenholtz moved to nearby Monrovia and opened a chicken ranch Though he would occasionally go back in front of the camera he retired from film By the time TV emerged he landed a few roles on shows such as Perry Mason 1957 and Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1955 He died in 1971