Born on May 12, 1899, in Vienna, Bella Erdoes began performing in smaller roles at the Stadttheater and the Sommerarena in Baden between 1918 and 1920, in addition to undertaking occasional guest engagements at the Stadttheater in her hometown of Wiener Neustadt. In September of 1922 the singer and actress became a permanent ensemble member of the Josefstädter Theater in Vienna, where she remained until 1924. In 1925, she toured with a Viennese theater company, performing in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Italy. That same year, she was engaged at the Linz State Theater, where she quickly became a “mainstay of the ensemble”. Between 1926/27 and 1933, she performed at various theaters in Dresden: the Komödienhaus; the Residenz-Theater; and, in 1932/33, the Central-Theater. She also worked as a voice actress in various radio plays broadcast by the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk AG in Leipzig between 1929 and 1932. On July 26, 1932, Erdoes married Hermann Herzfeld, an engineer from Dresden.
Because she was Jewish, Erdoes was only permitted to perform at events hosted by the Jewish Cultural Federation after the Nazis came to power in 1933. In the autumn of 1933, she performed at an operetta evening in Dresden; in November of 1934, she took part in a performance of Offenbach works; and in March of 1936 and January of 1937, she gave song recitals. She also performed a repertoire of folk songs on smaller stages in Vienna and Prague until this was no longer possible due to the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
It is unclear how Bella Erdoes managed to survive persecution by the Nazis, though we know that she and her husband traveled to Miami, Florida, by airplane on October 2, 1947, and settled in the United States. By 1950, the two had moved to San Francisco, California, where Erdoes worked as a saleswoman. She became an American citizen in February of 1953. Bella Erdoes died on May 22, 1957, in San Francisco.
1899 Vienna
1957 San Francisco