Morris Gest was a Jewish-American theatrical producer of the early 20th century.

Early life

Born in Vilna, now Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

, the son of Leon and Elizabeth Gershonovitz. Through his mother he was a member of the middle-class Michliszanski clan which included his cousin, later renamed as Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson

Bernard Berenson was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. He was a major figure in pioneering art attribution and therefore establishing the market for paintings by the "Old Masters".-Personal life:...

, the art historian.

His niece, Anya Teixeira

Anya Teixeira

Anya Teixeira was a street photographer and photojournalist.Teixeira's family escaped the Russian Revolution through a rescue mounted by her uncle Morris Gest, a New York impresario. The family settled in Berlin in 1924 so as to be near at hand for the expected overthrow of the Bolshevik regime...

, recalled that the family story went that as a teenager his antics in imitating the Rabbi had embarrassed his devout parents as told to her friend and executor, J. L. Gordon in 1961. Fortunately, a couple were emigrating to Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 and agreed to take him with them in 1890. Later, he attracted the attention of Mr. Thompson, for whom he worked in the library of the United States District Court who saw to it that he went to school.

Career

The theatre, was by his account, the first job that came his way and he gained experience of most of the skills involved. Some years later he went to New York and worked for Oscar Hammerstein

Oscar Hammerstein I

Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...

 at the Manhattan Opera House and was promoted to foreign representative. He also produced Broadway shows such as Morris Gest's "Midnight Whirl" (1919) with music by George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

 and lyrics by Buddy DeSylva.

After some false starts in production by himself, he teamed up with F. Ray Comstock and in the 1920s made his reputation by the import of Russian productions from the post-Revolutionary regime. In 1922 and 1923, Gest and Comstock presented Nikita Balieff

Nikita Balieff

Nikita Balieff , was an Armenian vaudevillian, stage performer, writer, impresario, and director best known as the master of ceremonies and creator of La Chauve-Souris theater group.-Theatrical career begins in Moscow:...

's company "La Chauve-Souris". They also presented the Moscow Art Theatre

Moscow Art Theatre

The Moscow Art Theatre is a theatre company in Moscow that the seminal Russian theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavski, together with the playwright and director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898. It was conceived as a venue for naturalistic theatre, in contrast to the melodramas...

 directed by Stanislavski which reigned over New York drama despite the handicap of Russian dialogue. In 1923, he organised the last U.S. tour of Eleanor Duse.

In 1924, he brought Max Reinhardt

Max Reinhardt

----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...

 from Germany to stage The Miracle to which Gest brought his own talents in publicity and casting. These were well needed as the heavy costs of the sets, costumes, and cast of 175 could have meant financial disaster.

Later life

The Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and the parting from Comstock seem to have curbed his productions for five years but there was a last production, Lady Precious Stream in 1936. The same year marked the onset of a nervous breakdown. However he recovered sufficiently to be involved in the "Morris Gest's Little Miracle Town: with the world's greatest midget artistes". This was in connection with the 1939 New York World's Fair

1939 New York World's Fair

The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...

. He died in 1942, leaving Reina, daughter of David Belasco

David Belasco

David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...

, his widow. She died in 1948.

External links

• Morris Gest at Internet Broadway Database
• http://www.archive.org/stream/PhotoplayMagazineJuly1915/Photoplay0715#page/n113Article written by Morris Gest in Photoplay
  Photoplay
  Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
  
  , July 1915]