Kálmán Róth, known on stage as Pesti Kálmán
Pesti Kálmán (Kálmán Róth, 1869–1935), Hungarian actor. Portrait published under his stage name, Pesti Kálmán.
Kálmán Róth (1869–1935), the youngest child of master glazier Zsigmond (Sigmund) Roth and Mária (Marie) Duller, was another artistic brother of the celebrated Hungarian stained-glass artist Miksa Róth. While Miksa and their brother Manó followed their father into glasswork, Kálmán ran away from home to become a traveling actor, performing under the stage name Pesti Kálmán, “Kálmán from Pest,” after the city of his birth. He died in 1935, the same year as Manó, and the two brothers are buried near each other in the Kozma utca Jewish Cemetery in Budapest.
A Family Falls Apart, 1873
In 1873, a financial panic swept through Pest and struck the Róth family glass business.
As Tibor Fényi, Hungarian historian and author of a monograph on the Róth family and the work of stained-glass artist Miksa Róth, explains, Kálmán’s father, Zsigmund Roth, “Guilds had been organized along religious lines since the Middle Ages, and as a Jew, it would have been difficult for him to join the Catholic guild. He merely passed his master’s examination before the guild (after several years of struggle), primarily so that he could work as a glass merchant.
Losing his business in what Hungarians simply called a nagy krach, the great crash, must have been devastating. As Fényi explains, “By that time, Zsigmond Róth was already much more than a simple glass entrepreneur; he was perhaps Budapest’s largest glass merchant.”
Zsigmund lost his entire fortune. Then he moved into the apartment provided by the Jewish boys’ orphanage. The Jewish orphanage gave the family two rooms on Holló Street. Fényi reassures me, “It wasn’t a bad place; Ignác Goldzicher, the world-renowned scholar of the East and rabbi of the Dohány Street Synagogue, had previously lived there as well, albeit in a much larger apartment. Before his bankruptcy, Zsigmond had supported the orphanage and many other charitable organizations with substantial sums of money.
But newly located primary records suggest that what happened afterward was more complicated than a simple descent into poverty and dispersal.
Roy C. Grant, who contacted me after the story's original publication, identified a series of Budapest notarial and court records concerning the family. In 1877, Zsigmond and Mária entered into an out-of-court settlement involving another Budapest glazier, Ignác Márkus.
The paper trail becomes even more intriguing. As Fényi wrote to me, “Zsigmond lived for another twelve years after the bankruptcy; the bank tried to collect the debt from him until his death. For this reason, he could not have any assets in his name, as the bank would have seized them immediately. However, among his children, Márta was already of legal age by then, and the family used various schemes to transfer all remaining assets into Márta’s name.” This explains the peculiar stories I found, in which his wife, and then his mother-in-law, gifted various items to Márta.
As Fényi explained, once, when the contents of Zsigmond’s apartment were being auctioned off, the Duller family hired someone to buy up as much as possible at a low price after the failed auction, so that part of the family’s wealth could be recovered. After the great crash, Márta continued to run Zsigmond’s company under the name “Roth és Tsa” (Roth & Co). She often had to declare before a notary public that this was her company and that Zsigmond Róth had no ownership stake in it.”
One such transaction is remarkable: an inventory comprising 134 numbered lots of glass merchandise, dated January 5, 1879.
What is clear is that the children’s lives eventually moved in very different directions. Helén went to America. Miksa remained in the glass trade and became one of Hungary’s most celebrated stained-glass and mosaic artists. And the youngest son, Kálmán, ran away from home and became a wandering actor.
This is his story, as much of it as the record allows
The touring years: the stops of a thirty-eight-year stage career, from a runaway debut in Turkevén in 1888 to retirement in 1926.
Birth and Origins
Kálmán Róth was born in Pest on December 21, 1869, the son of Zsigmond Róth and Maria Duller, who had married in Pest on November 16, 1856. By then, his father, Zsigmond, was the last guild master of the united Pest glaziers’ guild and the father of a family that would eventually produce two internationally recognized glass artists, Miksa and his brother Manó. Kálmán’s path led elsewhere, though, not quite as cleanly as the family split might suggest.
Running Away to the Theater, 1888
Kálmán finished secondary school and, rather than settle into a trade, ran away from home. In the summer of 1888 he joined a traveling theatrical troupe performing in Turkevén, taking his very first role: the Gypsy in a folk play called Sárga csikó (“The Yellow Foal”). It was the beginning of a stage career that would run, with a few detours, for nearly forty years.
He soon grew restless with that itinerant company and enrolled instead at Budapest’s acting academy, today the Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem, as a member of the “Drámai színész (régi)” class of 1888–1892. After completing his training, he contracted with actor-manager Pál Rakodczay and made his formal academy debut in March 1892 in Szolnok, in a role that would recur throughout his career: the Fool in King Lear.
Caricature of Pesti Kálmán (Kálmán Róth, 1869–1935), an actor and brother of stained-glass artist Miksa Róth. The drawing identifies him by his stage name, Pesti Kálmán.
A Career on the Road, 1892–1911
For the better part of two decades, Kálmán Róth, now performing as Pesti Kálmán, “Kálmán of Pest,” a stage name announcing the city of his birth, moved through the touring circuit that supplied Hungary’s provincial towns with theater. Across the surviving lexicon accounts of his career, one from the Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár’s digitized reference edition, the other from Volume 3 of Aladár Schöpflin’s 1930 Magyar Színművészeti Lexikon, his engagements can be traced through Győr, Szombathely, Nyitra, Kassa, Sátoraljaújhely, Nyíregyháza, Arad, Makó, Zombor, and Baja, before he signed in 1893 with Imre Halmay’s well-regarded company in Kassa. From there the record continues: the Óbuda Kisfaludy Theatre in the summer of 1893; Losonc that winter; Kecskemét in 1896 under Rakodczay; Leszkay’s company in Arad in 1897; Dobó Sándor’s company in Győr in 1898; a stint at the Népszínház in Budapest; Relle István’s company from 1899 to 1901; Pécs under Tiszay Dezső in 1901; Albert Kövessy’s company in 1902–3 and again in 1905; and, for five consecutive seasons from 1906 to 1911, Lajos Makó’s company at the National Theatre of Szeged.
The theatre’s own published company rosters independently confirm the Szeged years, listing Pesti Kálmán by name in every season from 1906–07 through 1910–11. In that final Szeged season, he is credited specifically as “komikus,” comedian. His fellow company members that year included a young actor billed as Lugosi Béla in the men’s chorus, quite possibly, though not conclusively established, the same Béla Lugosi who would later leave Hungary for Hollywood and become Dracula.
The lexicon entries sum up the shape of his career: a dramatic actor, a “pedantic comic” who also had a taste for tragic material, the Fool in King Lear was a role he returned to across his career, and, as both performer and director, one of the notable figures of provincial Hungarian theater. His other documented roles include Polilla, Lancelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, Biberach, Tóth bácsi, Cochenille in Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann, the Critic in Ferenc Molnár’s The Guardsman, Lothár in Varázskeringő, Plumpudding in Jenő Huszka’s Bob herceg, and Zsupán in Strauss’s The Gypsy Baron.
Playwright, Critic, and Editor
Kálmán’s relationship to the theater world went well beyond acting. He tried his hand at playwriting, producing at least two works of his own: A hetedik (“The Seventh,” an operetta in three acts with music by Richárd Kun), which premiered 1 April 1909 in Szeged, and a one-act piece called Szelemlek. He also wrote a string of monologues, Nem házasodom! (“I Won’t Marry!”), Nem megyek férjhez! (“I Won’t Get Married!”), and A jó fiú (“The Good Son”), published in the trade journal Színészeti Közlöny in 1900.
Alongside his stage work, he was a working theatrical journalist and critic, contributing numerous pieces to the Pécsi Napló, Győri Hirlap, Színészeti Közlöny, Alföld, and Szegedi Hirlap. He was, by the account of the lexicon itself, a member of its own editorial staff, meaning Kálmán Róth helped compile at least part of the very reference book that preserves his biography today.
A Turn Before the Camera, 1912
In 1912, between his Szeged and Kassa engagements, Kálmán appeared in Nővérek (“The Sisters”), a production of the Uher Filmgyár directed by Andor Garvay and the younger Ödön Uher. At roughly 890 meters of film, Nővérek ranks among the first feature-length Hungarian films, a distinction rivaled only by Mihály Kertész’s Ma és holnap, released the same season. Kertész would later reach Hollywood as Michael Curtiz.
No print of Nővérek survives. A full review of the September 1912 issue of Színházi Hét, the magazine that covered the film’s press premiere, includes production photographs and detailed coverage of the film and its leading players, doesn’t mention Kálmán by name, and includes no photograph of him among the surviving images. His presence appears only in a later filmography, not in contemporary press coverage.
A Detour Into Glass
For a time, in the middle of his touring years, Kálmán’s acting career faltered financially; the lexicon says simply that he “went bankrupt,” and he turned, at least briefly, to glass painting: the very trade his father and brothers had built their lives around. It didn’t last. His heart, as the record puts it, pulled him back to the painted world of the stage, and he returned to acting for good.
Quoting a contemporary newspaper article, Kecskemét Newspaper, June 23, 1911, shared by Fényi,
“Poor Kálmán Pesti. The former charming and lovable comic actor of the Kecskemét theater has suffered a stroke of bad luck. At least, this is what the Szeged newspapers write about him: Without a contract. Among the members of the Szeged theater company, Kálmán Pesti has been unable to secure an engagement. His singing voice is now completely gone, and he could barely make his mark in operettas any longer. The new, more accomplished generation of actors is replacing the old. Pesti is therefore retiring from the stage and will become a stained-glass artist, a profession in which he may fare better. We would only add that he will be better off working with his older brother, Miksa Róth, a stained-glass artist of European renown. He also created the stained-glass work for the Kecskemét Town Hall.”
It’s a small, telling detail: Zsigmond Róth’s sons, Miksa and Manó, are remembered as the family’s glass artists, and Kálmán as the actor, but for a stretch of his life, the line between those two paths blurred.
Later Career and Retirement, 1913–1926
Kálmán’s later engagements took him to the short-lived Új Színpad in Budapest in 1913, back to Kassa under Ödön Faragó from 1914 to 1916, to Székesfehérvár in 1917–18, and to Sátoraljaújhely, where he celebrated his thirty-year stage jubilee on 10 February 1921. He retired from the stage on February 1, 1926, closing out a career of roughly thirty-eight years, dating from his first role in Turkevén in 1888, almost all of it spent in the touring provincial theater that formed the backbone of Hungarian dramatic life outside Budapest.
He was a prominent figure in the Hungarian theatrical community; he served as a long-serving member of the Board of Directors (Igazgató Tanács) of the Országos Színészegyesület (National Actors’ Association), which also managed the country’s prominent actors’ pension and retirement funds.
Death Amid the Vészkorszak
Many historians and I had assumed Kálmán died in the Holocaust.
What happened to Kálmán after his retirement in 1926, and exactly when and how he died, was resolved when Tibor Fényi found the year of Kálmán’s death, which was 1935. He wrote about it in an email to me on September 30, 2026, and I’ve paraphrased it here. He rushed to the Chevra Kadisha, went through all the entries letter by letter, and to his astonishment, found that the entry for 1935 did not mark the death of Kálmán, but that of Manó, his older brother. Fényi couldn’t figure out how Kálmán Róth’s name could appear in the first written document when Manó Róth had actually died of tuberculosis. Then, feeling confused, he kept flipping through the papers and suddenly saw him too: Kálmán had also died in the same year, 1935, just a few weeks after his older brother. He also found their graves in the registry; he literally ran from the office to the cemetery on Kozma Street, where, three and a half kilometers from the entrance, near the farthest wall, on either side of the very last plot, lie the two graves he had searched for in vain for some 15 years.
Gravestone of Kálmán Róth (1869–1935) at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery, Budapest, Hungary.
Detail of Kálmán Róth’s (1869–1935) gravestone at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery, Budapest, Hungary, showing the heavily weathered Hungarian inscription.
Gravestone of Manó Róth (1868–1935) and his wife, Etel Kühn Róth (1875–1945), at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery, Budapest, Hungary.
Kálmán Róth left the glass business, though not for good. He ran away to the theater at eighteen and stayed there for close to forty years, playing the Fool in King Lear, comic servants, and operetta eccentrics. He wrote plays and reviewed other people’s. He acted in a film that has no existing copies. When his voice failed and the contracts stopped coming, he went back to glass painting, the trade his family had built, but he was back on stage again soon after. After he died, he went missing from the record for decades, not surprising for a man who spent most of his working life touring the provinces under another name.
He had been at Kozma Street all along, in the far corner of the cemetery, buried a few weeks after his brother Manó and only a few meters away from him. Finding him took fifteen years of searching and one historian stubborn enough to run three and a half kilometers across the cemetery once he knew where to look.
Sources & Research Notes
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to Tibor Fényi and Roy C. Grant for sharing research, records, and images after this story was first published. Their findings led to this revised version.
Primary Sources
Records
Hungary, Jewish Birth Records collected by Rabbis in Various Counties, 1789–1921. Entry for Kalman Roth, b. 21 December 1869, Pest, Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, Kingdom of Hungary; father Zsigmond; mother Maria Duller. Ancestry.com.
Hungary, Jewish Marriage Records from Various Counties, 1800–1914. Entry for Maria Duller, age 23, married Sigmund Rott on 16 November 1856 in Pest; her father, Jacob Duller, also served as a witness. Ancestry.com.
Budapest notarial and court records concerning Zsigmond Róth, Mária Duller Róth, Regina Duller (widow Haslinger), and Márta Róth, 1877–1879. They include an 1877 out-of-court settlement involving glazier Ignác Márkus and a January 1879 deed of gift from Regina Duller to Márta Róth. The deed has an attached inventory of 134 numbered lots of glass merchandise dated 5 January 1879. Identified by Roy C. Grant.
Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem (SZFE) Archívum, student record for Pesti Kálmán, class of “Drámai színész (régi), 1888–1892.”
Chevra Kadisha (Budapest Jewish burial society), burial register, 1935. Entries for Manó Róth and Kálmán Róth, who died a few weeks apart. Located by Tibor Fényi.
Gravestones of Kálmán Róth (1869–1935) and of Manó Róth (1868–1935) and Etel Kühn Róth (1875–1945), Kozma utcai izraelita temető, Budapest. Located and photographed by Tibor Fényi.
Find a Grave. Memorial for Manó Roth (1868–1935). Memorial ID 168280476. Citing Kozma utcai izraelita temető, Budapest, Hungary. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/168280476/manó-roth.
Periodicals
“Kecskemét Newspaper” [English title as supplied], Kecskemét, 23 June 1911. Reports that Pesti Kálmán had not been re-engaged at Szeged and planned to leave the stage for stained-glass work. Quoted in translation from a copy shared by Tibor Fényi.
Színházi Hét, 1912, 3. évfolyam, 30. szám (15–22 September 1912), full issue examined page by page. Contains the press-premiere review and production photographs of Nővérek. Pesti Kálmán is not pictured anywhere in the issue.
Correspondence
Tibor Fényi, correspondence with the author, 30 September 2026 and later. Covers Zsigmond Róth’s standing as a glass merchant and his master’s examination before the Pest guild; his 1873 bankruptcy and the bank’s pursuit of the debt until his death; the family’s move to orphanage housing on Holló utca; the transfer of assets into Márta Róth’s name and her running of “Roth és Tsa”; the Duller family’s buy-back after the auction of Zsigmond’s household goods; the 1935 deaths and graves of Kálmán and Manó Róth; and the 1911 Kecskemét newspaper item.
Roy C. Grant, correspondence with the author, 2026. Identified the notarial and court records in source 3.
Secondary Sources
Aladár Schöpflin, ed., Magyar Színművészeti Lexikon [Hungarian Dramatic Arts Encyclopedia], vol. 3: Komlóskert–Püspöki Imre (Budapest: Országos Színészegyesület, 1930), s.v. “Pesti Kálmán,” 465. Covers his 1888 Turkevén debut as the Gypsy in Sárga csikó; his March 1892 academy debut in Szolnok as the Fool in King Lear; his interlude as a glass painter; the premiere of A hetedik (1 April 1909, Szeged); his 30-year jubilee (10 February 1921, Sátoraljaújhely); his journalism for the Pécsi Napló, Győri Hirlap, Színészeti Közlöny, Alföld, and Szegedi Hirlap; and his membership on the lexicon’s editorial staff. Digitized at Arcanum Digitheca.
Magyar Színházművészeti Lexikon, s.v. “Pesti Kálmán” (Budapest, 1994), Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, Magyar Elektronikus Könyvtár. Gives his birth date, training, engagements year by year from 1893 to 1921, notable roles, playwriting credits, and 1926 retirement.
Sándor János, A szegedi színjátszás krónikája: A kőszínház és társulatainak története (1883–1944), Somogyi-könyvtár, Szeged. Company rosters name Pesti Kálmán in every season from 1906–07 through 1910–11, credit him as “komikus” in 1910–11, and list Lugosi Béla in the men’s chorus that season.
Hangosfilm.hu, filmográfia, “Nővérek” (1912), Uher Filmgyár. Cast list including Pesti Kálmán; production details; notes the film’s place among the earliest Hungarian feature-length films and that no print survives.
Gottdank Tibor, “Dinasztiák: az üveges Róthok — Miksán innen és túl,” Építészfórum, 6 June 2021. Covers the family’s circumstances after the 1873 crash, the scattering of the Róth children, and Kálmán’s flight into itinerant acting. (Gottdank gives the family’s orphanage lodging as Hold utca 4; Fényi places it on Holló utca.)
Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Reisz T. Csaba, “Róth Miksa címeres üvegablakai a levéltárban,” 13 June 2014. States that Kálmán and Manó Róth, with nephew Artúr Elek, fell victim to the vészkorszak around the time of Miksa’s death in June 1944. The burial records (primary sources 5–6) correct this.
Research Notes
Kálmán and Manó’s deaths. Earlier published accounts, including the 2014 Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár article, placed the deaths of Kálmán and Manó Róth in the Holocaust era. Tibor Fényi searched the Chevra Kadisha burial records and found entries showing that both brothers died in 1935, only weeks apart. He then located their graves at the Kozma Street Jewish Cemetery.
Image sources. Tibor Fényi provided the portrait and cartoon of Kálmán Róth (Pesti Kálmán) and the photographs of the Róth family gravestones reproduced in this story.
Online Sources
Sándor János, A szegedi színjátszás krónikája, Társulati névsorok
Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Róth Miksa címeres üvegablakai a levéltárban
What stories are hidden in your past? At The Untold Branch, I help people tell them.
