Herta Ware

The meek, gamin, child-like aura and unassuming tiny frame of this veteran character lady belied a surprising survivor instinct and strong, liberal fortitude. Herta Ware Schwartz was born on June 9, 1917 in Wilmington, Delaware, to Helen (Ware), a musician and violin teacher, and Laszlo Schwartz, an actor. Her father was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant from Budapest, and her mother, a violinist was a many-generations American of colonial stock. Her maternal grandfather was a union activist who joined the Socialist Party in America during the early 1900s, her maternal grandmother was labor organizer and socialist Ella Reeve Bloor, and her uncle was activist Harold Ware. . A guitarist and folk singer in the Washington D.C. area, she moved to New York City and began acting in the early 1930s. She made her Broadway debut in the 1935 leftist play "Let Freedom Ring" co-starring future husband Will Geer, whom she married in 1938. The couple appeared together in other New York plays as well, inc