Bill graham promoter biography

Bill Graham January 8, — October 25, was an impresario and rock concert promoter from the s until his death. He was given the nickname Wolfgang by his family early in his life. Graham was the youngest son of a lower-middle-class Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia prior to the rise of Nazism. Graham's father died two days after his son's birth.

Graham's mother placed her son and his younger sister in an orphanage in Berlin due to the increasing peril to Jews in Germany. The orphanage sent them to France in a pre—Holocaust exchange of Jewish children for Christian orphans. Graham's older sisters stayed behind with his mother. After the fall of France, Graham was among a group of Jewish orphans spirited out of France.

A majority of the children—including Graham's older sister Tolla—did not survive the journey. Graham's mother was killed in Auschwitz. His sister Ester survived Auschwitz.

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She later moved to the United States and was very close to Graham in his later life. His sister Rita escaped, first to Shanghai and then after the war to the United States. After being taunted as an immigrant and being called a Nazi because of his German accented English, Graham first worked on his accent, eventually being able to speak in a perfect New York accent, and changed his name "Graham" was found in the phonebook, it was closest to his real surname "Grajonca.

He was later quoted as describing his training as that of an "efficiency expert". Tito Puente, who played some of these resorts, went on record once saying that Graham was avid to learn Spanish from him, but only cared about the curse words.