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The Barry Sisters, Hubert Castle and Margeret Tynes onstage with two unidentified people
- Level
- Item
- ID
- Fonds 80; Series 6; File 3; Item 1
- Source
- Archival Descriptions
- Level
- Item
- Fonds
- 80
- Series
- 6
- File
- 3
- Item
- 1
- Material Format
- graphic material
- Date
- Aug. 1959
- Physical Description
- 1 photograph : b&w (negative) ; 14 x 6 cm
- Admin History/Bio
- In August 1959, the Ed Sullivan show travelled to the USSR and taped a show in Moscow titled, "Invitation to Moscow". It aired September 27, 1959. Sylvia Schwartz photographed the show as she was in Moscow at the time.
- Acts that were featured at the show included the Barry Sisters (vocal group), Margaret Tynes (opera singer) and Hubert Castle (tight-wire aerialist).
- Clara and Minnie Barry were popular American Jazz and Klezmer entertainers of the 1940s to the early 1970s. Born in the Bronx, New York in a Yiddish-speaking home to a Russian-born father and a mother from Vienna, when the sisters decided to entertain by singing in Yiddish, their father told them they would need to do it in the manner of the Old World and not with American accents. The young girls got their first break as singers on WLTH Radio's "Uncle Norman" show for children and were then known as The Bagelman Sisters. They made their first recordings with RCA Records in the late 1930s and began to make a name for themselves as Yiddish jazz singers.
- When the Andrews Sisters' version of the Yiddish song, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön", became a hit, musician and composer Sam Medoff started his "Yiddish Melodies in Swing" radio program on New York's WHN. Before joining the radio show, the sisters made a change of their stage surname from Bagelman to Barry. From 1937 until the mid-1950s they performed on the program, where they would sing jazz recordings in the Yiddish language. Their recordings included popular tunes, such as "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head" translated into Yiddish (Trop'ns Fin Regen Oif Mein Kop). They also performed in the New York Catskills resort hotels. They eventually toured with Mickey Katz.During the height of their popularity, they even made appearances on the Ed Sullivan and Jack Paar shows and were one of the few American acts to tour the Soviet Union in 1959. The sisters also entertained Israeli troops during the Yom Kippur War.
- Hubert Castle, born Hal Silvers, was a tightrope walker for Ringling Brothers for 20 years and owned his own circus. Born and raised in Oklahoma until the age of 14, he married Mary "Bunny" Tanner, and had two children, Hal Junior and Jan.
- Margaret Tynes is an African-American opera, concert and oratorio soprano and singing actress. She earned a Bachelors Degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Tynes continued her studies at Julliard School in New York City and later earned a Masters in Music Education from Columbia University. She has performed in the United States, Canada and throughout Europe. She has appeared with leading opera companies of the United States and Europe, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna Staatsoper. Her roles range from Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Carmen (Carmen), Aida (Aida) and Dido (Dido and Aeneas). She gained international acclaim for her role as Salome at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. She became the first American to perform behind the Iron Curtain when she went to Russia with Ed Sullivan for the U.S. State Department.
- Scope and Content
- Item consists of a group portrait of the Barry Sisters, Hubert Castle and Margeret Tynes onstage with an unidentified man and woman, all waving American flags.
- Notes
- This item has no proofs. This item shares a negative with F80_s6_f3_i2.
- Subjects
- Portraits, Group
- Repro Restriction
- Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the archives to obtain permission prior to use.
- Source
- Archival Descriptions