Joseph Buloff

Joseph Buloff (December 6, 1899 – February 27, 1985) was a Jewish actor and director born in Vilna, then part of the Russian Empire and now Vilnius, Lithuania. His career spanned Broadway and Yiddish theatre across several decades, and he earned recognition in both arenas, receiving the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in 1974 and the Itzik Manger Prize for contributions to Yiddish letters that same year.

Buloff began his stage career with the Jewish State Theatre in Vilna before joining the Vilna Troupe as a teenager. His first major success with that company came in a production of Day and Night by S. Ansky. During his time with the troupe he met Luba Kadison, who became his wife and remained his partner until his death. They had a daughter, Barbara. In 1927, Buloff immigrated to the United States and joined Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish theatre company. In the early 1930s, he and Kadison toured Europe and the Western Hemisphere with Yiddish troupes, performing in productions that included adaptations of works by Dostoevski and Tolstoy as well as translated works by Chekhov, Molière, and Pirandello.

Buloff's Broadway career extended from 1936 to 1979. His earliest credits included Don't Look Now (1936), Call Me Ziggy (1937), To Quito and Back (1937), and The Man from Cairo (1938). He appeared in Morning Star and My Sister Eileen, both in 1940, followed by the comedy Spring Again in 1941. His role in Oklahoma! in 1943 brought him to one of the most prominent productions of that era. Subsequent Broadway appearances included The Whole World Over (1947), Mrs. McThing (1952), Once More, With Feeling (1958), Moonbirds (1959), The Wall (1960), The Fifth Season (1975), and The Price (1979).

Buloff died on February 27, 1985, at his Manhattan home at the age of 86. He left behind a memoir written in Yiddish, which was translated by Joseph Singer and published by Harvard University Press in 1991 under the title From the Old Marketplace. His papers are preserved at YIVO, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of that institution.