DOVID DENK

DOVID DENK (April 25, 1895-December 28, 1973)

            He was born in Vinitse (Vinnytsa), Ukraine.  His father was a musician.  He studied in religious elementary school and in Russian and Polish schools.  For a time he lived in Galicia, and from there in the mid-1920s he emigrated to the United States and became a Yiddish stage actor.  He performed with the Vilna Troupe, among others.  He published stories, articles, and memoirs about Yiddish theater and Yiddish actors in Nyu yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper) and elsewhere.  He also authored the plays: Di froy velkhe got hot fargesn (The woman whom God forgot); Hinter di krates fun lebn (Under the bars of life); and Ire letste trern (Her last tears)—all performed on the Yiddish stage.  Among his books: Hinter di kulisn (Behind the scenes) (New York: Vokhnblat, 1954), 187 pp.; Shvarts af vays (Black on white) (New York, 1963), 445 pp., about Maurice Schwartz.  He was living in New York where he died.

Sources: Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1; Nyu yorker vokhnblat (December 31, 1957).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 201-2.]