Acting

Rita Karin

Born 1919-10-24 · Wilno, Wilenskie, Poland [now Vilnius, Lithuania]

She was a Polish-born American actress best known for her role as Jackie Mason's mother on the 1989 TV series Chicken Soup. Also appeared at the beginning of Sophie's Choice as Yetta, Sophie's (Meryl Streep) landlady. Her voice can be heard singing children's songs from the camps in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

Acting credits

Sophie's Choice poster
7.3

Stingo, a young writer, moves to Brooklyn in 1947 to begin work on his first novel. As he becomes friendly with Sophie and her lover Nathan, he learns that she is a Holocaust survivor. Flashbacks reveal her harrowing story, from pre-war prosperity to Auschwitz. In the present, Sophie and Nathan's relationship increasingly unravels as Stingo grows closer to Sophie and Nathan's fragile mental state becomes ever more apparent.

Sophie's Choice

1982

Matilda poster
5.7

A small-time talent agent discovers an amazing boxing kangaroo and figures to use it as his stepping-stone into the big time.

Matilda

1978

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight poster
5.2

A Brooklyn mobster and his gang try to rub out their rivals.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

1971

He Said, She Said poster
5.9

Womanising, right-wing Dan Hanson and quiet, liberal Lorie Bryer work for the Baltimore Sun. Rivals for the job of new writer of a vacant column, the paper ends up instead printing their very different opinions alongside each other, which leads to a similarly combative local TV show. At the same time their initial indifference to each other looks like it may evolve into something more romantic.

He Said, She Said

1991

Up the Sandbox poster
5.9

Bored with day-to-day life in New York City and neglected by her husband, a young wife and mother slips into increasingly outrageous fantasies: her mother breaking into the apartment, an explorer's demonstration of tribal fertility music at a party causing strange transformations, and joining terrorists to plant explosives in the Statue of Liberty.

Up the Sandbox

1972

The Big Fix poster
5.8

Private detective Moses Wine is hired by his former college girlfriend to investigate a political smear campaign and he sets out to find out who is responsible, with deadly results.

The Big Fix

1978

Enemies, a Love Story poster
6.2

A ghostwriter finds himself romantically involved with his current wife, a married woman and his long-vanished wife.

Enemies, a Love Story

1989

The Pickle poster
5.0

Harry Stone always dreamed of making "The Great American Movie." Instead, he made "The Pickle" - a teenage sci-fi flick about a flying cucumber. Harry just wanted to get out of debt; now everyone he's ever known, loved and neglected is standing in line for tickets.

The Pickle

1993

Starstruck poster
8.0

Aspiring teen folk singer is torn whether to continue her singing or to accept an educational scholarship.

Starstruck

1981

Kojak: The Belarus File poster
6.8

Lt. Theo Kojak uncovers a Nazi conspiracy.

Kojak: The Belarus File

1985

No artwork available
9.0

A close-knit Greek-American family, jeopardized when its Manhattan bakery goes up in flames, looks desperately for ways to solve the financial dilemma of repossession and property without destroying its heritage.

Nicky's World

1974

Age Isn't Everything poster
2.7

Young man gives up his dream of becoming an astronaut to go into business — and finds himself turned into a little old man.

Age Isn't Everything

1991