Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni were cousins to Charles M. Fritz, who was a notable actor during the Great Depression. A 1925 New York Times article singled out Sam Kasten and Muni's performances at the People's Theater as among the highlights of that year's Yiddish theater season, describing them as second only to Ludwig Satz. Muni began acting on Broadway in 1926. His first role was that of an elderly Jewish man in the play We Americans, written by playwrights Max Siegel and Milton Herbert Gropper. It was the first time that he had ever acted in English. In 1921, he married Bella Finkel (February 8, 1898 – October 1, 1971), an actress in the Yiddish theatre and daughter of Moishe Finkel. They remained married until Muni's death in 1967. Hollywood In 1929, Muni was signed by Fox. His name was simplified and anglicized to Paul Muni (derived from his nickname of youth "Moony"). His acting talents were quickly recognized, and he received an Oscar nomination for his first film, The Valiant (1929), although the film did poorly at the box office. His second film, Seven Faces (also 1929), was also a financial failure. Unhappy with the roles offered to him, he returned to Broadway, where he starred in a major hit play, Counsellor at Law. Paul Muni soon returned to Hollywood to star in such harrowing pre-Code films as the original Scarface and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (both 1932). For the second, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. Muni's acclaim as a result of this performance impressed Warner Bros. that they signed him to a long-term contract, publicizing him as "the screen's greatest actor." Scarface, part of a cycle of gangster films at the time, was written by Ben Hecht and directed by Howard Hawks. Critic Richard Corliss noted in 1974 that while it was a serious gangster film, it also "manages both to congratulate journalism for its importance and to chastise it for its chicanery, by underlining the newspapers' complicity in promoting the underworld image." In 1935, Muni persuaded Warner Bros. to take a financial risk by producing the historical biography The Story of Louis Pasteur. This became Muni's first of many biographical roles. He starred as the forward-thinking maverick scientist who fights derision in his native country to prove that his medical theories will save lives. Until that film,