Mitzi Hajos

Mitzi Hajos (April 27, 1889 – June 1, 1970) was a Hungarian-born American stage performer whose Broadway career spanned from 1911 to 1942. Born Magdalena Hajos near Budapest, she performed in music hall productions across Europe as a young teenager before relocating to the United States at age 20 at the invitation of impresario William Morris, who brought her over to appear in Barnyard Romeo, a production she had previously performed in Vienna.

During the peak of her American career, Hajos performed under the single name "Mitzi," as her surname proved difficult for American audiences. She specialized in comic and musical roles and was frequently cast as children or characters pretending to be children, a quality that drew favorable notice from critics. From 1914 to 1925, she worked exclusively with opera producer Henry Wilson Savage.

Her Broadway credits included La Belle Paree (1911), Her Little Highness (1913), Sari (1914 and again in 1930), Pom-pom (1916), Head over Heels (1918), Lady Billy (1920–1921), The Magic Ring (1923), Naughty Riquette (1926), The Madcap (1928), You Can't Take It With You (1936–1938), Mr. Big (1941), and Cafe Crown (1942). Between Broadway engagements, she toured the United States with her productions.

Beyond the stage, Hajos was named vice president of Sunbeam Motion Picture Corporation in 1916 and endorsed Mason & Hamlin Pianos in a 1919 advertisement. Two audio recordings of her singing, made in 1916, are preserved at the Library of Congress National Jukebox. Broadway illustrator Al Hirschfeld drew her on at least two occasions. The child actress Mitzi Green received her stage name in tribute to Hajos during the 1920s. Later in life, when stage roles became less available and her husband was ill, Hajos worked as a secretary for The Shubert Organization.

Hajos married her frequent co-star Boyd Marshall in 1920, a union through which she obtained American citizenship. Marshall died in 1950. Hajos died in Connecticut in 1970 at the age of 81 and was buried in her husband's family plot in Port Clinton, Ohio.