Reizl Bozyk

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Reizl Bozyk (born 13 May 1914, Poland – 30 September 1993, New York, New York, USA), also known as Rose Bozyk, was a Polish-born American actress of the Yiddish theatre.

Her only claim to mainstream fame was her sole film role in which she played the interfering grandmother of Amy Irving in Joan Micklin Silver’s film Crossing Delancey (1988).

She had been an enduring star of the Yiddish stage in New York, and earlier in Poland and Argentina, appearing in hundreds of productions, often as a comedian and later as the familiar mother or mother-in-law character who often stole the show. She began acting in the Yiddish theater in Poland at the age of 5 or 6, performing first with her parents and then with Max Bozyk, whom she later married.

Max and Reizl Bozyk fled the Nazis in 1939, traveling first to Argentina, and, in 1941, to New York City. For three decades, they were inseparable on the Yiddish stage, starring in one play or revue after another.

In an interview when Crossing Delancey opened, Bozyk joked that the 37 years spent with her husband had been like 74 because they’d spent their entire days and nights together.

In 1970, after a performance at New York’s Town Hall, her husband collapsed and died. In 1989 she essayed her first stage role in English, appearing in the comedy Social Security at the Forum Theater in Metuchen, New Jersey. The following year she recreated her Crossing Delancey role on stage.

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