|
Biography of
|
|
Helena Modjeska
(Modrzejewska)
|
|
by Ellen K. Lee
|
|
Poland's greatest actress of all time was Helena Modjeska (1840-1909). |
| Today she is remembered and honored in her native land as well as in the United |
| States and England. She was one of the most celebrated stars of the Victorian |
| era, a golden age of the legitimate stage before the advent of motion pictures, |
| radio and television. Modjeska and her famous European contemporaries, Sarah |
| Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse, traveled across the United States in their private |
| railroad cars, captivating audiences in gas-lighted theatres with the mystery |
| and magic of their acting. Bernhardt always acted in French, Duse in Italian. |
| Only Helena Modjeska played her roles in English and became an American |
| citizen. She was the first theatre celebrity to choose southern California as her |
| permanent home. |
|
|
| Helena Modjeska was born in Krakow, Poland, on October 12, 1840. Her |
| parents were the widowed Jozefa Benda and Michael Opid, a high school |
| teacher who was also an amateur musician. As Helena Opid she grew up in a |
| household of six talented children. Four became actors, one a musician, and |
| one an architect. In her autobiography, Memories and Impressions of Helena |
| Modjeska (The Macmillan Company, 1910) she describes the sadness of her |
| childhood in the 1840s and 1850s, her longing to become an actress, and her |
| debut at an amateur benefit when whe was twenty years old. She chose |
| Modrzejewska as her stage name and became a provincial player in a strolling |
| company managed by Gustav Sinnmayer, father of her two children, Rudolf |
| and Marylka. Although he never married Helena, Sinnmayer was known as |
| Modrzejewski during his four-year association with her. |
 |
 |