Jeff Goldblum — actor with roots in the Russian Empire
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum was born on 22 October 1952 in West Homestead, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, to Jewish parents: Harold Leonard Goldblum (1920-1983), a physician who had served as a major in the US Army in the Second World War and became chief of medicine at a Pittsburgh hospital, and Shirley Temeles (1926-2012), a radio broadcaster who later ran a kitchen-equipment firm. His connection to the Russian Empire runs through his father's father.
Both his parents were American-born children of immigrant fathers who had arrived as teenagers. His paternal grandfather, Josef Povartzik, emigrated from the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1911 and changed his surname to Goldblum; Wikipedia gives the family's roots as Starobin, now in Belarus, and a family history also mentions Timkovichi and Turov in the same governorate. "I'm not Goldblum; I'm Povartzik," Goldblum has said. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Louis Temeles, came in 1910 from Złoczów, then in Austria-Hungary, now Zolochiv in Ukraine. Josef and his wife ran a confectionery shop and put two sons through college; their younger son, Charles, served in the war.
The family belonged to an Orthodox synagogue in Homestead, and Jeff had a bar mitzvah. His parents loved jazz and show business; his father had nearly become an actor. At seventeen he moved to New York, studied under Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse and made his Broadway debut in the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona.
His first film role was as a thug in Death Wish (1974), followed by Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). He became widely known for David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986), as the mathematician Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequels, and in Independence Day (1996), and has worked repeatedly with Wes Anderson, including The Grand Budapest Hotel. In 2024 he played the Wizard in Wicked. On television he played Detective Zack Nichols in Law & Order: Criminal Intent and has presented The World According to Jeff Goldblum since 2019.
A jazz pianist since childhood, he leads the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, whose first album, The Capitol Studios Sessions, appeared in 2018.
"Paternal grandfather Josef Povartzik emigrated as a teenager from the Minsk Governorate in 1911 and took the name Goldblum; maternal grandfather Samuel Louis Temeles came from Złoczów, Austria-Hungary, in 1910."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Starobin, Minsk Governorate (now Belarus)
His paternal grandfather, Josef Povartzik, emigrated from the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire in 1911 and took the name Goldblum; Wikipedia names Starobin as the family's town. His maternal grandfather came from Złoczów, then in Austria-Hungary.
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Starobin, Minsk Governorate (now Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Life, uh... finds a way."