Adeline Jaffe Schulberg (April 14, 1895 – July 15, 1977) was a talent and literary agent who founded the Ad Schulberg Agency.

Biography

She was born Adeline Jaffe to a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family on April 14, 1895, in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, the daughter of Hannah and Max Jaffe. While she was an infant, her family immigrated to the US in order to flee the rise in anti-semitic

pogroms A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews i ...

. The family settled on

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

. She had two older brothers, Joseph and David, and a younger brother Sam Jaffe. Her family was poor, and she became a committed socialist and personally knew many of the movement's leaders including

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

and George Sokolsky. She worked in the suffrage movement which enabled her to get her husband, B.P. Schulberg, then an agent with

Adolph Zukor Adolph Zukor (; ; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary ''Variety Obituaries, Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produced one of Ameri ...

’s Famous Players–Lasky, a job producing a film documentary about English suffragist leader

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (; 5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was an English Feminism, feminist and Socialism, socialist activist and writer. Following encounters with women-led labour activism in the United States, she worked to organise worki ...

. In 1918, she and her husband moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

where her husband took a job as a producer at

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

while Schulberg became an activist for child welfare, education, woman's rights, and promoting birth control by helping to establish birth control clinics throughout the West. In 1926, she graduated with a B.A. from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

. In 1929, she helped to found the first progressive school in California based on the principles of

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

. In 1932, she founded the Schulberg-Feldman talent agency with Charles K. Feldman which was soon joined by her brother Sam Jaffe and Noll Gurney. After her divorce from her husband in 1933, she established her own talent agency named the Ad Schulberg Agency which represented some of the biggest stars at the time including

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however, Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

Fredric March Fredric March (born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel; August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was an American actor, regarded as one of Hollywood's most celebrated stars of the 1930s and 1940s.Obituary '' Variety'', April 16, 1975, page 95. As ...

, and Herbert Marshall. In the 1930s, she sold the agency and then moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

where she set up another talent agency (she was forbidden to operate in the US due to a non-compete agreement); during World War II, she operated an "underground railroad" that assisted Jewish refugee talent to flee from Nazi-occupied Europe. After the war, she moved back to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and worked as a talent scout for

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

where she discovered

Shelley Winters Shelley Winters (born Shirley Schrift; August 18, 1920 – January 14, 2006) was an American film actress whose career spanned seven decades. She won Academy Awards for ''The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 film), The Diary of Anne Frank'' (1959) and ' ...

; she then formed her own literary agency where she represented her son

Budd Schulberg Budd Schulberg (born Seymour Wilson Schulberg; March 27, 1914 – August 5, 2009) was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his novels '' What Makes Sammy Run?'' (1941) and ''The Harder They ...

, Vicki Baum, Fannie Hurst,

Ruth McKenney Ruth Marguerite McKenney (November 18, 1911 – July 25, 1972) was an American author and journalist, best remembered for ''My Sister Eileen'', a memoir of her experiences growing up in Ohio and moving to Greenwich Village with her sister Eileen ...

, Roger Price, Mark Harris, and Rex Reed.

Personal life

In 1913, Schulberg was married to then

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 to 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers as a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publisher Jo ...

reporter, B.P. Schulberg; they had a son

before divorcing in 1933. She died in New York City on July 15, 1977. Her son was married and divorced from actresses Virginia Lee Ray (known as Jigee Viertel) and Geraldine Brooks.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schulberg, Adeline 1895 births 1977 deaths American talent agents American Jews Jaffe family Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States