Lillian Lux

Lillian Lux was born in 1918 in Brooklyn

Lillian Sylvia Lukashefsky was born in Brooklyn in 1918. Her father was a jeweler who had once wanted to be an actor, and he sent her to the Yiddish Art Theater. She performed there from the age of 7, and by 14 she sang and danced in vaudeville and took part in Yiddish radio programs.

In the Catskills she performed with a young Danny Kaye, and the two stayed friends for life. In 1938 the actor and director Pesach Burstein hired her for his company's tour of South America, and they married in Montevideo, Uruguay. In 1939 the couple toured Poland and left for the United States shortly before the German invasion.

Their twins, Mike and Susan, were born in 1945 and later joined their parents on stage as the Four Bursteins. Lux's roles included The Komediant and A Wedding in the Village, both directed by her husband. Her performance in Itzik Manger's Songs of the Megillah won praise from critics and was her only Broadway role.

In 1962 the family moved to Israel, but the couple later left because of a tax placed on Yiddish theater. Lux wrote songs and musicals, ran a cosmetics company called Lily of Israel, and appeared in films and TV dramas such as Law and Order. She co-wrote her husband's Yiddish autobiography in 1980, and she died in 2005.