Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce (born Yehoshua Pinkhes Perelmuth;[1] June 3, 1904 – December 15, 1984) was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce.[2]
Family life[edit]
Jan Peerce was born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth[3] (though his Hebrew gravestone gives his first name as יהושע, or Joshua, not Jacob), to a Jewish family.[4] His parents, Levi (anglicized to Louis) and Henya Perelmuth, came from the village of Horodetz, formerly in Poland, now Belarus.[5] Their first child, a daughter, died in an epidemic. In 1903 they emigrated to America along with their second child, a boy named Mottel. A year later, on June 3, 1904, their third child, Jacob Pincus, was born in a cold water flat in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York. He was nicknamed "Pinky" by his neighborhood friends. When he was three years old, his older brother Mottel was killed in an accident as the boy hitched a ride on an ice wagon.[5] Jacob attended DeWitt Clinton High School and Columbia University. At his mother's urging he took violin lessons,[5] and gave public performances, including dance band work as Jack "Pinky" Pearl. Sometimes he also sang and it was soon discovered he was an exceptional lyric tenor.
Peerce became the brother-in-law of fellow American tenor Richard Tucker when Sara Perelmuth, Peerce’s only sister, married Tucker, who was then a part-time cantor, in 1936. Jan remained on the Lower East Side until his 1930 marriage to Alice Kalmanovitz (1907–1994), a childhood friend to whom he was married for 54 years, until his death. He died at his home in New Rochelle, New York on December 15, 1984 at the age of 80.[6][7] Peerce is interred at Mount Eden Cemetery in Valhalla, Westchester County.
Film appearances[edit]
Peerce was cast in a number of films including Something in the Wind, in which he played Tony the jailer. In this 1947 role, Peerce sang the Miserere from Il trovatore in a duet with his jailed charge, the film's star, Deanna Durbin. This performance is available on DVD. In 1953 he was heard (but not seen) as the voice of the tenor-character Gregory Lawrence in “Tonight We Sing,” a film based upon the life of Sol Hurok. In 1969, his son Larry Peerce cast his father and his uncles Max and Sender Peerce for a scene in “Goodbye Columbus,” which the younger Peerce directed for Paramount Pictures.