Early Life and Career
Muni was born to a Jewish family in Lemberg, Galicia, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine (formerly Lwów, Poland). His family emigrated to the United States in 1902.
He began his acting career on the Yiddish stage in New York City, where his parents were actors with the Yiddish theatre. As a teenager, he developed an affinity for makeup and often played characters much older. Film historian Robert Osborne notes that his makeup skills were so creative, that for most of his roles, "he transformed his appearance so completely, he was dubbed 'the New Lon Chaney.'" In his first stage role, at the age of 12, he played the role of an eighty-year-old man.
He was quickly recognized by Maurice Schwartz, who signed him up with his Yiddish Art Theater. Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni were cousins to Charles M. Fritz, who was a notable actor during the Great Depression. In 1921, he married Bella Finkel (February 8, 1898 - October 1, 1971), an actress in the Yiddish theatre. They remained married until Muni's death in 1967.
A 1925 New York Times article singled out his and Sam Kasten's performances at the People's Theater as among the highlights of that year's Yiddish theater season, describing them as second only to Ludwig Satz.
Read more about this topic: Paul Muni
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)