Borrah Minevitch

Borrah Minevitch, born Boruch Minewitz on November 5, 1902, in the village of Borovino near Minsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), was a Russian-American harmonica player, comic entertainer, entrepreneur, and leader of the ensemble known as the Harmonica Rascals. He appeared on Broadway between 1928 and 1930, with credits including the musical Good Boy and the revue Sweet and Low. He died on June 26, 1955, at the age of 52.

Minevitch emigrated to the United States with his parents and six siblings in 1906, settling in Boston, Massachusetts. Following the unexpected death of his father, his mother supported the family by operating a guest house. As a young man, Minevitch sold newspapers and taught himself piano, violin, and harmonica. At eighteen he relocated to New York City to pursue his studies, supporting himself by working in a shoe shop and playing his chromatic harmonica for customers. He subsequently took a position at the Wurlitzer store, where his playing drew in shoppers. His academic work on the chromatic harmonica attracted the attention of the Hohner company, which distributed thousands of reprints of his graduate paper and hired him as a publicist. It was reported that Minevitch sold the rights to his research to Hohner for one million dollars, after which the company produced a successful line of harmonicas bearing his name.

By the early 1920s, Minevitch had begun performing as a soloist in concert halls and in vaudeville. He conceived the idea of a harmonica orchestra and recruited approximately twenty-five young players from local schools, training them as the Symphonic Harmonica Ensemble. The group performed popular classical and jazz repertoire, appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House and on Broadway, and made their first recording in 1926 with "Hayseed Rag." Minevitch also appeared in a short film produced by Lee DeForest using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process, titled A Boston Star: Borrah Minevitch, which premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on April 15, 1923.

After Minevitch encountered the diminutive performer Johnny Puleo, he restructured the Ensemble into a smaller group of roughly nine players and shifted the act's emphasis toward slapstick comedy, renaming the group the Harmonica Rascals. Minevitch himself took on the role of an elaborately costumed showman conductor. The Rascals became one of vaudeville's most popular acts and continued to appear regularly on Broadway, including in Sweet and Low in 1930. Their prominence contributed to the rise of numerous other harmonica-based groups during the late 1920s and 1930s. The Rascals recorded for Brunswick Records in 1933 and later for Decca Records, where Minevitch hired Richard Hayman as an arranger. Additional recordings were led and arranged by Leo Diamond and by Minevitch himself. Notable performers within the group included Ernie Morris and Fuzzy Feldman, though Minevitch himself rarely performed alongside the ensemble after the late 1930s. According to Variety editor Abel Green, the act ranked alongside Sophie Tucker's as one of the longest consecutively booked acts at the William Morris agency.

Minevitch promoted the Rascals through publicity stunts, including a staged kidnapping in the Mediterranean, and he actively marketed his own harmonica line, eventually constructing a harmonica factory in southern California. At the height of the group's popularity, as many as three simultaneous lineups operated under his name, with Minevitch maintaining the core unit centered on Puleo. The Rascals appeared in numerous films, including Lazy Bones (1934), a part live-action, part animated Fleischer Studios Screen Songs release; the Vitaphone short Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (1935); and Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica School (Warner Bros., 1942), directed by Jean Negulesco. Feature film appearances included One in a Million (20th Century Fox, 1936), Love Under Fire (20th Century Fox, 1937), Hit Parade of 1941 (Republic Pictures, 1941), Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (Columbia Pictures, 1941), Always in My Heart (Warner Bros., 1942), and Top Man (Universal Pictures, 1943).

As demand for the act declined in the late 1940s, Minevitch relocated to France in 1947 and developed interests in film and nightclub productions. He became a devoted Francophile, and his Paris home served as a gathering place for show-business acquaintances. He assisted in arranging United States distribution for his friend Jacques Tati's films Jour de fête (1949) and Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953).

Minevitch's first wife was actress Betty Henry, described by Variety as one of the original Tondelayos in White Cargo. They had one daughter, Lydia, born in 1932. On June 4, 1955, he married professional artist Lucille Watson-Little, formerly married to composer and author Deems Taylor, whose annulment had delayed the union. Only three weeks into the marriage, Minevitch suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and arrived unconscious at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he died on June 26, 1955. He was survived by his wife, his daughter, five sisters, and a brother.