Max Bacon - Jewface?

We have had much misguided talk about Jewface, where the addition of a prosthetic nose for Bradley Cooper has sent the usual suspects into a frenzy. Thank goodness that in a recent article about Julian Rose in the JC the record was put straight, but it is not the full story.

 There was a very English purveyor of what might be called the “Hebrew Actor,” who was at his peak was much better known and much better loved than Rose, but now seems to have been completely forgotten. Max Bacon 

To explain. By 1930 more people in the UK went dancing, than went to watch football. Dance Halls, Restaurants, Ballrooms, Village Halls all hosted Dance Bands of differing flavours. What they had in common was a style of music that bore more resemblance to Music Hall than Jazz, and many of the bandleaders and their sidemen were Jewish. 

The man at the top of the pile was Bernard Baruch Ambrose, who played at all the best restaurants and hotels, and employed the leading musicians of the time Bands played dance music, either slow (sweet) or fast (hot), but during a set a band would often play a novelty tune, such as “Makin' Wickey Wackey Down in Waikiki” or Teddy Bears Picnic to give dancers a break. 

There were comedy acts, too,  to give texture to the evening.

Ambrose’s ‘go to man’ for novelty songs/comedy was his drummer, Max Bacon, who was Jewish. Max was born British – in the East End in 1901 – but for his stage persona he adopted a Mittel-European accent, and laced his songs/monologues with mispronunciations and/or Yiddishism. 

Not for him the dissimulation of the bandleaders. He was a full-frontal Jew, and the version of Jewface that he adopted was more sympathetic (and homegrown) than that of Rose.

Unlike Julian Rose he gained a following amongst Jewish audiences, so much so that he released gramophone records for Decca and Parlophone. His song Beigels is somewhat of a classic, and pines for the good old Whitechapel days, and he also recorded Lokshen-Soup Jack; Beigels; Barmitzvah boy; Shmuel, pick up the Kishke; I can get it for you wholesale. 

He was not the only one. ack Hylton used Max and Harry Nesbitt for comedy intervasl, perhaps the best-known tune being the stereotypical Izzy Azzy Wozz. 

The Nesbitts original name was Horowitz, and interestingly Harry was the father of Derren Nesbitt who played the iconic evil Gestapo Nazi in Where Eagles Dare.

 Bacon’s talents as a drummer were somewhat understated, but he was recognised as a virtuoso on the drums, and indeed wrote a book on how to drum. When the Dance band era was over, he turned to acting and as an actor amongst others he appeared with Miriam Karlin in The Diary of Anne Frank (1956), The Entertainer (1960) as Charlie Klein opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, Chitty Chitty Bang, Band in 1968 

The following year he died, and despite his incredible CV, all he got for an obituary was one measly paragraph in the Jewish Chronicle. I have no idea why he was so badly forgotten, but we should celebrate him now.

Jewface? I think not. He may have played the stereotype but it was a robust Judaism that he portrayed, not a victim or parasite.

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Kosher Foxtrot
Jews and the Sea
The Definitive Guide to Jewish Miscellany and Trivia

Counting the Stars