Celebrated musical comedy entertainer who began her career with Philadelphia's Arch Street Theater in 1912, later becoming a beloved star of New York's Second Avenue Yiddish stage and a cross-over Broadway performer.
Petite and energetic, Picon worked prolifically in plays and vaudeville, making her Yiddish film debut in "Mazel Tov" (1924). In 1936 she traveled to Poland with Polish-born American director Joseph Green to star in the charming semi-musical "Yiddle With His Fiddle". Picon played an itinerant musician posing as a boy in order to travel the Polish countryside without sexual harassment. (The actress often used her slight stature and unglamorous looks to portray girls masquerading as boys.) While in Poland she also starred in Green's "Mamale" (1938) and, upon her return to the US, made a belated English-language starring debut in the Broadway play, "Morning Star".
Picon spent much of the 1950s on tour with the USO and in various international fundraising efforts. The 1960s saw her career boosted by her spirited featured role in Jerry Herman's first Broadway musical, "Milk and Honey", which she soon followed with her English-language film debut as the mother of two playboy sons in Neil Simon's "Come Blow Your Horn" (1964). Picon played the definitive Jewish matchmaker, Yente, in "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971), and a bossy madam trying to recruit Barbra Streisand to prostitution in the comedy "For Pete's Sake" (1974). An indefatigable trouper, she continued to appear on stage in her one-woman show into her eighties.
Family
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Father: Lewis Picon.
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Mother: Clara Picon.
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Sister: Helen Silverblatt. survived Picon
Milestones
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1904 Appeared in Yiddish repertory in "Gabriel", "The Silver King," "Sappho", "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Shulamite" in Philadelphia and on tour
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1904 Stage debut at age six in Philadelphia under the management of Michael Thomashefsky
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1923 New York stage debut in "Yankele"
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1924 Film debut in Yiddish-language film, "Mazel Tov"
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1931 Performed in vaudeville at the Palace Theater in New York and on tour
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1931 Starred at the Molly Picon Theater in "Girl of Yesterday"
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1940 Broadway stage debut and first English-language starring part in "Morning Star"
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1942 The Venice Theater (formerly the Jolson) renamed the Molly Picon; opened with "Oy Is Dus a Leben!", A musical autobiography with Picon starring as herself
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1951 Toured Korea and Japan for the USO
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1953 Toured US and Canada for Israel Bonds
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1955 Performed Yiddish plays in New York, London and Israel
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1959 Returned to Second Avenue theater to star in a Yiddish vehicle, "The Kosher Widow"; also wrote lyrics to music by Sholom Secunda
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1961 Featured on Broadway in Jerry Herman musical, "Milk and Honey"
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1964 English-language film debut in Neil Simon's "Come Blow Your Horn"
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1965 Starred on Broadway in "Dear Me, The Sky Is Falling"
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1967 Appeared in the musical revue, "How to Be a Jewish Mother"
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1979 Wrote and starred in one-woman show, "Hello Molly" and "Those Were the Days"
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Appeared in Yiddish repertory with her husband's troup at the Boston Grand Opera
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At age five won a teddy bear in a burlesque-house amateur program; mother recognized her talent and encouraged Picon, who started singing for 50 cents a night
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First appeared in cabaret
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Moved to Philadelphia as a child
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Starred in various productions at Kessler's Theater in New York
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Starred opposite her husband in "Love Thief" in Europe, the Near East, South America
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Toured European theaters with husband's company where she perfected her Yiddish
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Toured US military camps and displaced person camps in Europe with her husband
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Toured vaudeville in an act called "Four Seasons"