Rosa Rosanova

Birthday

Jun 23, 1869

Bio: George Jessell sang "My Mother's Eyes" -- over and over again -- to this plumb Russian actress in the part-talkie Lucky Boy (1929), placing her in the same category as The Jazz Singer's better-known Eugenie Besserer. A veteran stage actress, Rosanova began appearing in Hollywood films in the early 1921 and she was much used to provide ethnic color in the 1920s,… More Bio: George Jessell sang "My Mother's Eyes" -- over and over again -- to this plumb Russian actress in the part-talkie Lucky Boy (1929), placing her in the same category as The Jazz Singer's better-known Eugenie Besserer. A veteran stage actress, Rosanova began appearing in Hollywood films in the early 1921 and she was much used to provide ethnic color in the 1920s, e.g. as Senora Augustias in Valentino's Blood and Sand (1922) and, again opposite the Latin lover, as Marie in Cobra, both extant. The Broadway success of Abie's Irish Rose initiated a fashion for ethnic comedies in the movies as well and Rosanova played her fair share of warm-hearted immigrant women, including Sarah in Paramount's 1929 screen version of Abie's Irish Rose. Lucky Boy, from the same year, was more of the same of course, but sound basically curtailed her screen career. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi