Max Figman

Max Figman (March 9, 1866 – February 13, 1952) was a Vienna-born actor, composer, director, and writer whose Broadway career spanned from 1900 to 1934. He is also remembered as one half of a husband-and-wife performing partnership with Lolita Robertson, with whom he appeared on both stage and in silent films.

Figman made his stage debut at the age of 17 in A Scrap of Paper in 1883. Early in his career he joined Willie Edouin's company in Fun in a Photographic Gallery and subsequently appeared in four productions alongside Mrs. Fiske: Miranda of the Balcony, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, and Mary of Magdala. During the 1905–06 season he supported Florence Roberts in Ann La Mont and The Strength of the Weak. He achieved starring status through the stage adaptation of The Man on the Box, a property later filmed in 1914 by Cecil B. DeMille. Between 1909 and 1910 he toured in Mary Jane's Pa, and in February 1912 he appeared at Daly's Theatre in New York in The Truth Wagon.

Figman's Broadway credits include The Alaskan, Mackerel Skies, The Dubarry, Papavert, and The Well of Romance. In 1913, he co-starred alongside Wilton Lackaye and Robert Edeson in the hit play Fine Feathers, which opened at the Astor Theatre in New York in January of that year, having first played at the Cort Theatre in Chicago in August 1912. It was during the production of Fine Feathers that Figman began his relationship with Lolita Robertson, who had been brought into the cast after the originally scheduled actress, Alice Stone, fell ill. The two married and had two children, Max Jr. and Lolita Figman. Figman was 22 years Robertson's senior, and the couple remained together until his death. His final Broadway appearance was in The DuBarry in 1932, in which he played the role of Louis XV.

Beyond the stage, Figman and Robertson made films together with the short-lived Masterpiece Film Manufacturing Company, and the couple was present at the formation of the Lasky Company in 1914, the organization that would later become Paramount Pictures. Figman died on February 13, 1952, at Edgewater Rest, a nursing home in Bayside, Queens, at the age of 85.