Edition of a Sherlock Holmes magazine that contains a brief account of Olga Katzin’s life
A photograph of Olga Katzin, probably in the early 1920s, as Cleopatra
Katzin also wrote for Tribune as ‘Roger Service’, for the Herald as ‘Scorpio’, for the Manchester Guardian as ‘Mercutio’ and for Time and Tide as Fiddlestick.
Olga seems to have been born in 1896 in Hendon (her full name was Queenie Olga I …. Katzin, but she was always referred to as Olga). Her birthdate is sometimes shown as 1895. During World War I, there are records of her travelling with her mother and siblings, or alone, to and from South Africa. She describes her profession at the age of 22 as an ‘elocutionist’.
Of Russian-Jewish descent, she may well also have had South African connections. In later life, she wrote at least two genealogical guides relating to emigration to the USA from Central Europe, as well.
In the 1920s and 1930s, she is associated with the theatre in the UK and USA – appearing as an actress (e.g. in a version of Pickwick), and as a director, most notably of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson which she staged in America in 1931 and revived in London in 1935. She also has a film to her credit.
New Statesman Competitions and New Statesman satirical poems: a history 