Alla Nazimova, 1915

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Adelaida Yakovlevna Leventon, who would come to be known as Alla Nazimova, was born in Yalta, Crimea. A child of the Russian Empire, no-one knows exactly when she was born; some say in 1879, others as late as 1908! Her coquettish charm seemed somehow ageless, untouched by the ravages of time. It was frankly rather rude, she thought, that they asked about her age at all. If Nazimova’s name name does not ring a bell, it is perhaps because her fame has slowly been forgotten. Yet she was once one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, that fledgling Californian hillside, and her face was shown on screens across the globe. She was even the world’s highest-paid actress for a time, earning a salary of $13,000 from Metro Pictures. In her day she was also known for belonging to the “Sewing Circle”, an underground society of lesbian actresses. But how much of her story do we really know?

Alla Nazimova had carried the weight of trauma from a young age. Her father, Yakov, was a poor Jewish pharmacist originally from Ukraine, who subjected Adelaida and her mother to regular whippings and other abuse. Far-off still were the neon lights of Broadway, or the blinding spotlights of Los Angeles. In 1882 her father moved the family to Switzerland, fearing the pogroms that were breaking out from Kiev to Odessa. Russian Jews were being persecuted and ostracized; Yakov had no choice. “We must leave, and right away!” he told his family without further explanation. In fact, he had never told his children they were Jewish, and it would be years before Alla understood the real reason for their move.

At the age of 10, the future prodigy joined her father, now remarried, in Yalta. Yakov was now a wealthy man, having won the favour of the tsar. He enrolled Alla in violin and theatre classes, but forbade her from performing as Adelaida Leventon for fear she would dishonour the family name. The girl respected her father’s wishes to the letter. Determined to perform, she took the stage name Nazimova, after a heroine in a Russian novel. Alla was the short form of Adelaida. Her stratagem worked, and her pseudonym would remain etched in the minds of American high society for many years thereafter. The theatre was a means of escape for Alla, and she showed a natural talent for the stage. When she moved to Moscow to study drama, she ended up having to use her body to make ends meet, becoming the mistress of a rich admirer whose generosity allowed her to focus on her acting. Alla performed in many plays, earning recognition for her powerful performances and absorbing stage presence.

One of her seminal plays was The Chosen People. With thousands of immigrants arriving in New York, Broadway was fertile ground for foreign theatre, and The Chosen People found great success among international audiences. Its viewers included the radical anarchist Emma Goldman, who became the leader of an acting troupe named after the play. Soon after, Alla Nazimova was “discovered,” as the parlance went. She quickly began acting on Broadway, and later made the move to Hollywood.

In 1927, she became a naturalized American. Before her death, she would say: “We are all the stories we tell,” and, with humble pride, “An artist is only dead when the last person to remember them dies.”

Alan Alfredo Geday