Alla Nazimova

Alla Nazimova, born Marem-Ides Leventon on June 3, 1879, in Yalta, in the Crimean region of the Russian Empire, was a Russian-born American actress, director, producer, and screenwriter whose Broadway career spanned from 1905 to 1939. The youngest of three children born to Yakov Abramovich Leventon, a pharmacist, and Sarah Leivievna Gorowitz, she grew up in difficult circumstances after her parents divorced when she was eight, spending her formative years among boarding schools, foster homes, and relatives. As a teenager she pursued acting in Moscow, studying at the Academy of Acting and later joining Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, where she also worked under Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, the theater's co-founder. The stage name Alla Nazimova combined a diminutive of her given name Adelaida with the surname of the heroine of the Russian novel Children of the Streets.

By 1903, Nazimova had become a prominent stage figure in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. She toured Europe with actor and producer Pavel Orlenev, and in 1905 the two relocated to New York City, where they established a Russian-language theater on the Lower East Side. When that venture failed and Orlenev returned to Russia, Nazimova remained in New York. Signed by American producer Henry Miller, she made her Broadway debut in 1906, with her English-language premiere that November in the title role of Hedda Gabler — a performance she prepared for by learning English in approximately five months. The role brought her immediate critical and popular recognition, and a Broadway theater on 39th Street was subsequently named in her honor. Her Broadway work drew on the classical repertoire of Ibsen, Chekhov, and Turgenev, and she went on to star in productions including Ghosts and Little Eyolf, as well as appearing in Mother, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, and Doctor Monica, among other productions.

Nazimova's transition to film began when she was 37, following her appearance in a 35-minute 1915 stage production called War Brides. The filmed version, produced by Lewis J. Selznick in 1916, marked her silent film debut; she was paid $1,000 per day, and the picture was a commercial success. A young Richard Barthelmess appeared in a small role in the film, and his mother, Caroline W. Harris, had been the woman who taught Nazimova English. In 1917, Nazimova negotiated a contract with Metro Pictures — a precursor to MGM — at a weekly salary of $13,000, relocating from New York to Hollywood. Working under Nazimova Productions from 1917 to 1921, she took on responsibilities well beyond acting, functioning as director, producer, editor, and lighting designer, and receiving costume design credit for the 1918 film Revelation. She wrote screenplays under the pseudonym Peter M. Winters and directed films credited to her partner Charles Bryant. Her independent productions included a 1921 adaptation of Camille, A Doll's House in 1922, and Salomé in 1923, the latter based on Oscar Wilde's play and created in close collaboration with designer Natacha Rambova, whose modernist aesthetic shaped the film's stylized sets and symbolic costuming. Though both A Doll's House and Salomé were commercial failures upon release, Salomé has since been recognized as a feminist milestone in cinema and was added to the National Film Registry in 2000. By 1925, financial backing for her productions had collapsed, and Nazimova could no longer sustain her independent filmmaking.

Her personal life during these years was marked by considerable complexity. She had married fellow actor Sergei Golovin in 1899, though she kept that marriage secret from the public and even from close friends. From 1912 to 1925 she maintained what has been described as a lavender marriage with British-born actor Charles Bryant. In 1923 she arranged a divorce from Golovin without traveling to the Soviet Union, receiving the official dissolution papers that summer. In November 1925, Bryant married Marjorie Gilhooley in Connecticut, listing his marital status as single on the license; when the press revealed the deception, the resulting scandal damaged Nazimova's career. During her years of Hollywood influence, she had also helped advance the careers of Jean Acker and Natacha Rambova, both of whom became wives of Rudolph Valentino. In 1927, Nazimova became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

With her Hollywood career diminished, Nazimova returned to Broadway, where she delivered what critics considered some of her most significant stage work. In 1930 she starred as Natalya Petrovna in Rouben Mamoulian's New York production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country, and her portrayal of Mrs. Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts drew particular acclaim. In the early 1940s she returned to motion pictures, appearing as Robert Taylor's mother in Escape in 1940 and as Tyrone Power's mother in Blood and Sand in 1941. She also created the Garden of Alla Hotel, which became a gathering place for celebrities of the era. Nazimova died on July 13, 1945. Her stage name was sometimes rendered as Alia Nasimoff in various publications, and she appeared in more than 20 films over the course of her career.