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Elizabeth Elkin Weiss was a colorful local actress, a pioneer in the entertainment world, landing leading roles in such radio shows as The Lone Ranger. Her versatile voice graced countless local and national commercials -- including such ubiquitous campaigns as Chiquita banana -- prompting a newspaper to dub her "the woman of 1,000 voices."
Her career as a voice actress for commercials and radio shows spanned more than 50 years, from the 1940s to the 1990s, all the while her love for Yiddish theater remained an enduring passion throughout her life.
Just two years ago, at age 88, in a Yiddish speaking role, she played a grieving mother in the Michigan Opera Theatre production of the Shoah-era opera, Brundibar, which was directed by her grandson, Michael Yashinsky.
Detroit's New Monitor newspaper gave special notice of her appearance, noting the conviction she brought to the tragic role -- the same conviction she brought to her lifelong study of the subject material, the Holocaust.
Elizabeth Weiss
On Friday, she died at her home in West Bloomfield at age 90 of what the family said was natural causes. On Monday, a funeral service was held at Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield.
Weiss was born in Detroit in 1925 to Rebecca (Rifka), originally of Nikolaev, Russian Empire, and Benjamin Elkin, originally of Springfield, Mass.
She was a talented kid with a stigma: She was cross-eyed and paid the price. Kids teased her. Undaunted, she pursued her talents and still, while a child went on to have corrective surgery. But she had double vision the remainder of her life and never got a driver's license. She would rely on cabs to chauffeur her to household errands and recording gigs, leading daughter Debra Weiss Yashinsky to say that she felt "special and sophisticated growing up, like living in Hollywood by way of Oak Park."
She majored in commercial art at Cass Technical High School, and went on to become one of the youngest draftswomen during World War II, producing plans for fighter plane parts, according to to an obituary posted by the Ira Kaufman Chapel.
Weiss studied at Wayne State University, where she starred in a number of productions, including as Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" and Jocasta in "Oedipus Rex." She would later earn her Equity card while acting in summer stock theater in New York, first as an apprentice actress and set painter, and later as a leading lady.
While appearing as Gwendolen Fairfax in "The Importance of Being Earnest" with The Actors' Company in Detroit, she fell in love with the director, Rubin Weiss. In 1949, they married at Workmen's Circle in Detroit.
The two worked together as featured players in the radio shows, The Lone Ranger, Challenge of the Yukon and The Green Hornet in the 1940s and 50s. Rube Weiss, whose baritone voice became recognizable locally and nationally, did voice overs and on-camera commercials over the decades. He also played Santa Claus in the Hudson’s Day Parade for about 15 years.
“She found that acting was her primary art," said son Leon Weiss while delivering his eulogy. "That was the way she was going to express what she had inside of her.”
The couple raised five children in Oak Park: Leon, Debra, Mimi, Jon and David, who later went on to become David Was in the band, Was (Not Was).
Son Jon Weiss, the youngest of the children, recalled during the funeral how his mom would come to teacher conferences and sit there and sketch pictures of the teachers and write little notes underneath like “what a putz.”
Their house in Oak Park became the go-to place for their children and their friends.
“Our home was the gathering place,” recalled daughter Debra, the third oldest of the five children. “It was the place. People actually started calling us the Jewish Waltons.
She said her mother decorated the house like a movie set.
“My mom had a true sense of drama, and our house reflected that," Debra said in her eulogy. "I remember when she picked out new drapes and carpeting for our living room. And I felt actually embarrassed… Because she picked out a deep scarlet and it had a very romantic brocade going through it. And then my Uncle Danny was in the drapery business. She custom ordered these deep red velvet drapes that went over white sheers and it looked like a bordello. But it was beautiful. And when people came in they could see her."
She said her mother loved to cook and had hundreds of cookbooks with stains and notes on them. She described her as a gourmet cook, and said she would cook up a feast for dinner parties.
“When they did have parties, I have to say, it was like watching a great movie… These people… were brilliant scholars and authors and artists. .. . Not snobby people. I don’t mean to elevate them. It was just like watching a great movie. A lot of laughs."
Elizabeth Weiss was actively involved in working to liberate Soviet Jews, and at the Jewish Ensemble Theater in West Bloomfield, she performed excerpts of Yiddish literature and poetry - some of which she wrote herself - for "Reader's Theater" in the 1980s and 1990s. She starred as the Matchmaker in JET's Crossing Delancey in 1991.
She also worked as a makeup artist, and in the 60s, she did then-former President Dwight Eisenhower's makeup for a TV appearance in Detroit.
Weiss was a lifetime member of the actors unions, SAG and AFTRA, She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alliance for Women in Media, and was inducted into the Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 1988. For her work on behalf of Soviet Jewry and lifelong dedication to Jewish culture and causes, she was given Jewish Senior Life's "8 Over 80" award.
She was also a five-time, Golden Mike Award winner for her commercials and radio dramas. That award is given by AFTRA.
Her husband Rube passed away in 1996, but she kept her spirit, reading, performing, entertaining at home and playing host to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, serving as an inspiration to all of them.
“Every single time, no matter what age I was, you know, when the world was kicking my ass, and I needed a dose of unconditional love," her son Leon said, he would beat a path to his mother. Her belief in me "fueled my belief in myself. When I needed to feel protected and warm and safe and valued."
“It’s going to hurt because my mom’s not home. She’s not going to be home to go over there.”
Her family isn't the only one who will deeply miss her.
As one of her younger colleagues reflected:
"She was our beloved mentor. We owe so much to her. She'll always be Mama Liz to us."
