Sara Adler

Sara Adler
סערע אַדלער
Born
Sara Levitskaya

(1858-05-26)26 May 1858
Died28 April 1953(1953-04-28) (aged 94)
OccupationActress
Years active1866–1928
Spouses
  • Maurice Heine
    (m. bef. 1883; div. 1890)
(m. 1891; died 1926)
Children6; including Jay, Julia, Stella, Luther

Sara Adler (née Levitskaya, some sources give Levitsky or Levitzky, changed to Lewis; 26 May 1858 – 28 April 1953) was a Russian actress in Yiddish theater who made her career mainly in the United States. She was known as the "mother" or "duchess" of Yiddish theater.

She was the third wife of Jacob Adler and the mother of prominent actors Luther and Stella Adler, and lesser-known actors Jay, Julia, Frances, and Florence Adler. The most famous of her 300 or so leading roles included the redeemed prostitute Katusha Maslova in Jacob Gordin's play based on Tolstoy's Resurrection and Batsheva in Gordin's The Homeless. She introduced "realism" in acting before it became an American movement.