Eva Puck

Eva Puck (November 25, 1892 – October 25, 1979) was an American entertainer born in New York City who built her career across vaudeville, Broadway musical comedies, and film. She was the middle child of Abraham and Lena (née Salmon) Puck, whose family surname appeared in early press coverage as both Puck and Salmon. Her father had immigrated from England in 1882, and her mother arrived from Poland in 1874; the two married in 1887. Puck had an older brother, Harry, and a younger brother, Laurence, known as Larry.

By 1899, Eva and Harry were already working performers, billed as the Two Little Pucks in a vaudeville song and dance act. Their early careers drew legal scrutiny: on May 10, 1903, police raided the Trocadero Music Hall in Manhattan's Fort George district, where the siblings were performing as headliners, and arrested their parents along with theater manager Freeman Bernstein on charges of unlawfully consenting to the employment of minors in a theatrical exhibition. Investigators cited the late hours the children were keeping and the presence of patrons smoking and consuming alcohol at the venue. All three defendants were found guilty in the Court of Special Sessions. The judge noted that the parents had been living largely on the children's earnings, which amounted to between $125 and $150 per month. Abraham Puck was fined $100 or thirty days in jail, Lena Puck was fined $25 or fifteen days in the City Prison, and Bernstein was fined $50.

The Two Little Pucks continued performing at venues outside New York in the years that followed. As they entered their teens, the act was billed as Eva and Harry Puck, and the partnership eventually disbanded around 1918. Harry went on to a career as a choreographer, composer, songwriter, and music publisher, including a business partnership with lyricist Bert Kalmar. Larry Puck became a radio and television producer and general manager of Unicorn Productions Inc., a subsidiary of CBS; he later married Mabel Withee, a singer and dancer active on Broadway during the 1920s.

After the act with Harry ended, Eva remained in vaudeville and began performing with song and dance comedian Sammy White (1894–1960). She joined the comedy act Clayton and White, and following Lew Clayton's departure around 1920, the act was renamed Puck and White. Among their well-known vaudeville sketches was "Opera vs. Jazz," in which White portrayed a scholarly music teacher and Puck played his inept student. The two married in 1922. That same year, Puck and White appeared in a short film produced by Lee De Forest using his Phonofilm sound-on-film process; the film captured their "Opera vs. Jazz" routine and premiered at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on April 15, 1923. It is preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection at the Library of Congress.

Puck's Broadway career spanned from 1919 to 1932. She appeared as Helen Cheston in the original Broadway run of the musical Irene, which ran from November 1919 to June 1921. Her subsequent Broadway credits included the musical The Magic Melody, the 1923 edition of the revue The Greenwich Village Follies, and the Rodgers and Hart musical The Girl Friend in 1926. The most prominent chapter of her stage career came with Jerome Kern's Show Boat, which opened on Broadway in 1927. Puck played Ellie May Chipley, a character who ultimately marries the comic dancer Frank Schultz, the role performed by White. In 1932, both reprised their respective roles in the first Broadway revival of Show Boat. When Universal Pictures released its 1936 film adaptation, however, Puck and White had divorced, and the role of Ellie was given to Queenie Smith, while White repeated his performance as Frank.

Puck had a daughter, Lauretta — sometimes spelled Laurette — born in New York in 1916. Lauretta's father was born in Hungary, though nothing further is known about him. Lauretta appeared in the short Leon Errol film Should Wives Work? (1937) and had previously toured with the Arthur Ashley Players. She later married William R. Golden, a Hollywood executive, and became a nationally recognized exhibitor and breeder of Irish Setters. A resident of Pacific Palisades, Lauretta died on July 17, 1972, predeceasing her mother by seven years.

In the mid-1930s, Puck married Robert Groves (also recorded as Graves), a California merchant, and retired from performing. She died on October 25, 1979, at Granada Hills Community Hospital in Los Angeles County, California, at the age of 86.