Marinoff, Fania, 1890-1971

Biography

Fania Marinoff was an American actress and a dancer whose career lasted for 50 years. She was born in Odessa, Russia, on March 20, 1890, was the thirteenth child and seventh daughter born to Mayer and Leah Marinoff. Leah died shortly after Fania was born. Mayer remarried and immigrated to America in 1893, when Fania was five or six years old, settling in Boston. At age seven, Fania was sent to live with her older brothers in Denver, Colorado. A year later, Marinoff made her stage debut as a little boy in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Elitch Theater in Denver. Fania first arrived in New York in 1903, finding steady work in theater there. Although she had little formal schooling, she showed considerable promise as an actor, and by age twelve she was earning her living playing roles in repertory in New York. In 1912, she met Carl Van Vechten, the author and photographer, and the two were married in 1914. Marinoff continued to act on the stage after her marriage, appearing as Ariel in the tercentenary revival of The Tempest in 1916, and as a lead in the Greenwich Village Players from 1916 to 1917. She was also a pioneer of the early silent film industry. In 1942, Marinoff became one of the early volunteers for the Stage-Door Canteen, a troupe established to entertain the armed forces.

His sister Fania Marinoff was associated with one of the most vibrant artistic circles in the United States and Europe. Fania Marinoff and her husband, Carl Van Vechten, played a prominent role in the bohemian social and artistic life of New York, particularly of the Harlem Renaissance. They hosted parties and salons that included Gertrude Stein, Eugene O'Neill, Georgia O'Keeffe and many luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. She and her husband continued to entertain a large circle of friends in the arts until his death in 1964. Fania Marinoff died seven years later, on November 16, 1971, in Englewood, New Jersey.

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