Ida Kaminska

A celebrated stage actress in Poland and her native Russia, Ida Kaminska was almost literally "born in a trunk" and was fortunate enough to have her training from childhood amid the unique strengths of Eastern Europe's then-thriving Jewish theater culture. Her parents had been eminent stage actors in Yiddish-language theater in Poland and Russia, and Kaminska made her stage debut at five. By the time she was an adult, she had played many leading roles at the Kaminski Theater in Warsaw. Born in Odessa, she had nonetheless lived many years in Poland and, after touring the Soviet Union for three years, set up her own troupe in Warsaw, the Ida Kaminska Theater. Her earliest film work dates from this period of youthful productivity and eminence, and includes such folk-inspired dramas as "A Vilna Legend" (1924), alongside her mother and first husband, Zygmund Turkow. Kaminska's main venue of expression, however, was theater, and at her company she also directed and starred in many stage productions, while also making occasional films.