Broadway Rose gained notoriety in the 1940s as a panhandler in the Broadway Theater District of New York City. Biography Anna Dym was born in approximately 1913 in Woodburn, New Jersey. Her parents, Sam and Dora Dym, were Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They had five additional children. By 1920, the family had moved to 264 Grafton Street in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. Anna attended New York City's Public School 175. Beginnings According to the 1941 profile by Maurice Zolotow, Anna began her interest in stage when her uncle took her to the Brooklyn Orpheum to see vaudeville. Thereafter she became an autograph hunter and collector, and attended vaudeville, memorizing many routines she saw. From Hound to hunter According to Zolotow, her transformation occurred when she realized that theater performers were just ordinary people. She learned to tag and hound performers, dispensing well-crafted flattering phrases. After doing this for a week to Georgie Price, he offered to give her five dollars if she would stay away from him. It was the event that would create her reputation, for now she realized that she could get money by being so annoying to people, that they would give her cash to stay away. The coming of sound films led Anna away from vaudeville to Broadway. She started panhandling on Broadway in 1929, first attaching herself to Jack Benny. With the repeal of prohibition in 1934, columnist Louis Sobol renamed Anna "Broadway Rose," after an earlier apple vendor. Broadway By the late 1930s, she was to be found patrolling areas of the Broadway Theater District (particularly the intersection of Broadway and 50th Street). Dressed in a disheveled manner, she would solicit money from individuals, particularly those with fame. She had become so skilled in her use of language that most performers gave her something. If refused, she would resort to threats (she was familiar with the leading theater and gossip columnists of the day), or use foul language if rebuffed. Apparently some people would tip her just to keep her away. Others considered her a good-luck charm, and looked for the opportunity to see her almost every night. Her schedule was to arrive at Broadway by 3 PM and stay there until about 3 AM, when she would go home to sleep. She woke up at 10 AM, and would read the newspapers for articles on drama or gossip