Gluck Sandor

Gluck Sandor (1899–1978), also known as Senia Gluck-Sandor, was a New York-born dancer, actor, director, producer, mime, teacher, and visual artist whose career in American theater spanned more than four decades. Born in Harlem on July 4, 1899, Sandor left home at fourteen to pursue an independent life. He attended Townsend Harris High School at City College of New York, an institution for gifted students, and later joined the Henry Street Settlement, where he studied drama, dance, scene design, and theater arts.

Sandor made his stage debut in 1918 in the Metropolitan Opera production of Le Coq d'Or. His Broadway career began in 1922 and extended through 1964, encompassing productions that included Raymond Hitchcock's Pin Wheel, the 1925 edition of Earl Carroll's Vanities, Camino Real, and Fiddler on the Roof. He is credited with creating the first ballets presented on Broadway for the original Vanities in 1923. Throughout the 1920s, he performed and choreographed in major theaters across New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, including the Rivoli Movie Theater, the Earl Carroll Theater, the Hippodrome, and the Paramount Theater.

In 1930, Sandor traveled to Europe to study at the Wigman school of Modern Dance, returning to New York in September 1931. That same year, he and his wife, dancer and choreographer Felicia Sorel, opened The Intimate Theatre in New York City, where they offered instruction in dance, mime, choreography, and dance theory. Together they also established The Dance Center, which functioned as both a school and a professional dance company. In 1938, Sandor disbanded his dance theater to concentrate more fully on painting, pursuing studies in life drawing, technique, color, and graphic arts at the Art Students League in New York.

Among those who studied with or were directed by Sandor were Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, John Garfield, Bing Crosby, Lena Horne, and Dane Clark. His most celebrated Broadway role came in 1964, when he originated the role of the Rabbi in Jerome Robbins' Fiddler on the Roof, a production in which he remained through 1970.

Sandor's engagement with the visual arts dated to early in his life. He painted silk scarves at seventeen and began working on canvas in 1920. His solo exhibitions included showings at the Art Center in Brooklyn in 1955, as well as exhibitions in Tampa, Florida, Woodstock, New York, and the Prince Street Gallery in SoHo, New York City. In 1977, a retrospective exhibition of his paintings toured small galleries in Florida and New York. Sandor died in New York City in 1978.