Leo Monosson

Leo Monosson (born December 7, 1897 in Moscow , Russian Empire , † April 22, 1967 in Jamaica ) was a German pop singer from the Weimar period .

biography

A big success; Don't always look at the tango violinist. Recording with the orchestras Dajos Béla and Leo Monosson alias Leo Frank

Leo Monosson was born in Moscow in 1897 and attended high school there. He was friends with the imaginist group (Vadim Scherschenewitsch, Anatoli Marienhof and Alexander Kussikow as well as some Sergei Jessenin ) and published his first and only volume of poetry in 1918. In the same year, during the establishment of the Bolshevik sole rule over Warsaw, Paris and Vienna, he fled to Berlin, where he lived from 1923. He had studied music and singing and began a career as a singer.

Initially often as an anonymous chorus singer, later also under various pseudonyms , such as Leo Moll, Leo Emm, Leo Frey, Leo Mond, Leo Frank or Leo Mossner, Leo Monosson made over 1,400 recordings for all well-known record brands. One of his most famous hits was “Liebling, mein Herz lets you greet” (with the Ben Berlin orchestra ). He also appeared in a number of films, including The Three of the Gas Station and Two Worlds in 1930 .

In 1932 Monosson married the budding photographer Stephanie Arnsdorff. He already had two children from a first marriage.

As a Jew, Monosson was no longer engaged after the NSDAP came to power in 1933 and therefore emigrated to France. There he recorded the two tracks “Deux cigarettes dans l'ombre” and “Tout le jour, toute la nuit” (Columbia) in 1935, in which he was accompanied by Alain Romans and his Orchester Du Poste Parisien in which Michel Warlop and Django Reinhardt played. In 1941, after the German invasion of France, the escape continued via Spain to the USA. He lived in Ardsley, New York, and worked as an international stamp dealer. After the war he visited his family who had stayed in France several times. He died on a trip to Jamaica in 1967 and was buried in the Westchester Hills, New York cemetery.

In 1952, Monosson applied for compensation to the Berlin State Office for Civil and Regulatory Affairs because of his forced emigration. Among other things, he stated: “After 1933 I never succeeded in earning money from singing. My type of presentation was developed through German culture and was strange and unpopular elsewhere. "

Others

Information about Leo Monosson's whereabouts after 1933 was published in April 2007 in the women's magazine Brigitte under the heading “Men ask Brigitte” after the actor and musician Ulrich Tukur asked: “What is actually about the most popular pop singer of the Weimar period, Leo Monosson, after he left Germany in 1933? "

Trivia

The tenth episode of Babylon Berlin opens with the hit song Mir ist so nach dir (1930) sung by Monosson , voiced by Paul Godwin , to which the series leading actors Volker Bruch and Hannah Herzsprung dance.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tom Lord: Jazz Discography (online)
2. ↑ Information from Francois Monosson, the grandson of Leo Monosson, given to Jerzy Placzkiewicz, who posted the corresponding letter on YouTube under his user name jurek46pink ( Leo Monosson returns ... with his true history! On YouTube )

Web links

• Leo Monosson in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Article in Brigitte magazine