![]() Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. We must find out if you can act." He gave her a bit part in The Rose of the Rancho (1906), and the following year, he extended her a contract, at which time she changed her surname to "Yurka", a homophone of her true surname. According to her autobiography, he said to her: "Your diction is clear and pure. Through persistence, she managed to get an audition with the theater impresario David Belasco. Having lost her chance at an operatic career, she took the Institute director's suggestion and tried for a career on the theater stage. She transferred to the Institute for Musical Art (1905–07), forerunner of the Juilliard School but was dismissed from there for the same reason. She continued her studies at the Met Opera School but was dismissed when she injured her voice singing the role of Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore in an amateur production. In his review of the premiere performance, New York Tribune music critic Henry Krehbiel singled out her contribution: "And while pointing out the beauty of the work of the principals, it is a pleasant privilege to lay a wreath at the feet of the little lady who carried the Grail with such reverent and touching consecration to her sacred duties." She appeared in an amateur Czech-language production of Michael William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl and made her Metropolitan Opera stage debut in the Christmas 1903 production of Wagner's Parsifal - the first staged performance of the opera outside of Bayreuth - appearing as a flower girl and as the Grail-bearer. Her vocal talent attracted the admiration of composer and singer Harry Burleigh, and she won a scholarship at age 15 to study voice and ballet at the Metropolitan Opera School (1903–05). Her parents used their modest income to provide Blanche with singing lessons in New York even before she entered high school (1901–03). He found a new position with the Czech Benevolent Society in New York and moved the family to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1900. She finished grade school before her father lost his job teaching Czech language at the Jefferson School in St. She inherited her father's artistic and scholarly interests, including a love of music and acting. Paul, Minnesota, she was the fourth of five children of Karolína and Antonín Jurka, ethnic Hungarian Roman Catholic emigrants from Bohemia. ![]() Another memorable role was as Zachary Scott's widowed mother in The Southerner (1945).īorn Blanch Jurka, apparently in St. ![]() Her most famous film role was Madame Defarge in MGM's version of A Tale of Two Cities (1935), but she was also the compassionate aunt in The Song of Bernadette (1943). She remained active in theater and film until the late 1960s. ![]() In addition to her many stage roles, which included Queen Gertrude opposite John Barrymore's Hamlet, she was an occasional director and playwright. She was an opera singer with minor roles at the Metropolitan Opera and later became a stage actress, making her Broadway debut in 1906 and established herself as a character actor of the classical stage, also appearing in several films of the 1930s and 1940s. Blanche Yurka (born Blanch Jurka J– June 6, 1974) was an American stage and film actress and director.
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