Molly Picon sings "Where is My Soulmate (zivig)?" מאָלי פּיקאָן זינגט "װוּ איז מײַן זיװג?"
Molly Picon canta en idish "¿Dónde está mi alma gemela?"
Молли Пикон поет на идиш "Где моя родственная душа?"
Picon was born as Małka Opiekun in
New York City, the daughter of
Polish Jewish emigrants:
Clara (née Ostrow), a wardrobe mistress, and
Louis Opiekun, a shirtmaker. Opiekun is a
Polish language name meaning "guardian" or "caretaker". Her surname was later changed to Picon. Her career began at the age of six years in the
Yiddish Theatre. In 1912, she debuted at the
Arch Street Theatre in
Philadelphia and became a star of the
Yiddish Theater District, performing in plays in the
District for seven years. icon was so popular in the
1920s that many shows had her adopted name,
Molly, in their title. In 1931, she opened the
Molly Picon Theatre. She appeared in many films, starting with silent movies. Her earliest film still existing is the 1923
East and West, which deals with the clash of new and old
Jewish cultures. She played a
U.S.-born daughter who travels with her father back to
Galicia in
East Central Europe. Her husband
Jacob Kalich played one of her close relatives.Picon's most famous film,
Yidl Mitn Fidl (1936), was made on location in
Poland and shows her wearing male clothing through most of the film
. In the film, a girl and her father are forced by poverty to set out on the road as traveling musicians. For her safety, she disguises herself as a boy, which becomes inconvenient when she falls in love with one of the other musicians in the troupe.
Later Mamele was made in
Poland. In 1934, Picon had a musical comedy radio show, the Molly Picon
Program, on
WMCA in New York City. In
1938, Picon starred in I
Give You
My Life on the same station. That program "combined music and dramatic episodes that purported to be the story of her life." Two years later, she starred in Molly Picon's
Parade, a variety show (also on
W.M.C.A.). Picon made her
English language debut on stage in
1940.
On Broadway, she starred in the
Jerry Herman musical
Milk and Honey in
1961. She had a bit part in the
1948 film The Naked City as the woman running a news-stand and soda fountain towards the climax of the film. Her first major Anglophonic role in the movies was in the film version of
Come Blow Your Horn (
1963), with
Frank Sinatra. She portrayed Yente the
Matchmaker in the film
adaptation of the
Broadway hit
Fiddler on the Roof in
1971.On an ironic note, in
1959 she was featured on an episode of the
N.B.C.-T.V. series
Startime. This particular episode was an adaptation of
Samuel Raphaelson's play "
The Jazz Singer" starring
Jerry Lewis, in which she played
Lewis's mother,
Sarah Rabinowitz. In one scene,
Lewis says the line, referring to Picon as his mother, "She's still in our presence, ladies and gentlemen, the Matchmaker". In the
1970s, she was featured as a madam named
Mrs. Cherry in
For Pete's Sake, starring
Barbra Streisand. She played the role of Molly
Gordon in an episode of
CBS's
Gomer Pyle, USMC and had a recurring role as Mrs.
Bronson in the
NBC police comedy
Car 54, Where Are You?. She later played a role on television on the soap opera
Somerset and appeared in
a couple of episodes of
The Facts of Life as
Natalie's grandmother, and her final roles were cameo appearances in the comedies
Cannonball Run &
Cannonball Run II as
Roger Moore's mother.