Early Life and Family
Leon Jessel was born in the eastern German city of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland), in 1871, the son of Jewish merchant Samuel Jessel and his American wife Mary. Leon converted to Christianity in 1894 — the same year he premiered his first operetta Die Brautwerbung (The Courtship) — in order to marry Clara Louise Grunewald, and they were wed in 1896. In 1909 his daughter Maria Eva was born, and in 1911 the family moved to Berlin. In 1919, his first marriage ended in divorce. In 1921 he married his second wife, Anna Gerholdt, who was 19 years his junior.
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