Olga von Root

Baroness Olga Vadimovna von Root (1901–1967) was a Russian stage actress and singer. Born into a noble family of German, Polish, and Greek background, von Root was educated at the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens in Russia. As a teenager, she ran away from home and travelled with a Romani family, studying their music and dance. During the Russian Revolution, while her father served in the White Army, von Root performed in cabarets and nightclubs to help support her family. After the war, she performed in Russia and other European countries as a stage actress and singer under the stage name Olga Vadina. She later married American industrialist Armand Hammer and moved to the United States, taking up residence in Manhattan. While living in New York, she worked to transcribe numerous Romani ballads. Von Root is the grandmother of American businessman Michael Armand Hammer and the great-grandmother of American actor Armie Hammer. Early life and family Baroness Olga Vadimovna von Root was born in Sevastopol, Crimea in 1901. She was the daughter of Baron Vadim Nicholaievitch von Root, a Czarist military officer and nobleman, and Lubov Karlovna Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, a member of a Polish landed gentry family. Von Root's paternal ancestors were Volga German nobles who came to Russia during the reign of Peter the Great to serve in the Imperial Russian Army. Her maternal grandfather, Karl Kazimirovich Kostsyushko-Valyuzhinich, was Catholic and the founder of the Archeological Museum in Chersonesos. Her maternal grandmother, Maria Pavlovna Revelioti, was a Russian Orthodox woman of Greek descent and the granddaughter of the landowner, Russian general, and Greek revolutionary Theodosius Revelioti. Through her mother, von Root was also a descendant of the Polish military leader Tadeusz Kościuszko. Revolution and stage career Von Root was educated at the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens in Saint Petersburg, where she trained as a singer. at the age of fifteen, she ran away and took up performing with a troop of Romani performers, learning their music and dances from Nikolai Kroutchine. She was later found and returned to her family. During the October Revolution, von Root's family moved from Moscow to Kiev. Her father, loyal to Nicholas II of Russia, commanded troops in the White Army throughout the war. To support her family while her father was off fighting, von Root began singing in cabarets and night clubs.