Martha Schlamme

Martha Schlamme [Haftel] (1922–1985)

Martha Haftel was born in Vienna, 25 September 1922. Singer, pianist and actress. 

Martha was the only daughter of Meier and Gisa Braten Haftel, who were Orthodox Jews. Her father owned a kosher restaurant in Vienna, where Martha spent her formative years before escaping Nazis in 1938. She escaped through France to England, where her father became a butler and her mother a cook. She attended a Jewish school in England. Despite being refugees, her parents were considered "enemy aliens" and so were interned by the English government on the Isle of Man . Martha chose to join her parents there. 

At the camp she met Engel Lund, a singer from Iceland, who inspired her to become an international singer. He recommended her to good music teachers, and after WWII, she studied with Ferdinand Rauter (piano) and Emmy Heim (voice) in London. Schlamme came to the US in 1948, shortly after marrying Hans Schlamme, which marriage ended in annulment in the 1960s. 

She began her concert career in the Catskills singing in Hebrew and Yiddish. She continued vocal studies with Marinka Gurewich and Hans Heinz and later at Aspen where she studied with Jennie Tourel, who introduced her to Olga Ryss who became her coach. She began singing at good venues including college campuses, concert halls and nightclubs, such as Town Hall and the Village Gate in NY and Wilshire-Ebell Theater in LA. She was able to perform on tv and radio and concertized and recorded in twelve languages. On the Vanguard, Folkways, Columbia and MGM labels she produced fifteen albums.

Schlamme sang on Broadway, playing the role of Golde in "Fiddler on the Roof" in 1968.

At her later years Schlamme became a teacher of song and acting at the the Circle in the Square Theater School in New York and H.B. Studio. Schlamme was close to activists in leftist politics and later married Mark Lane, a Democratic politician. 

Martha Schlamme suffered a stroke onstage at the Chautaugqua in front of an audience of three thousand. She died in Jamestown, NY at October 6, 1985.