Tony Jay
Birth Name: Maurice Jacobs
Date of Birth: 2 February, 1933
Place of Birth: Hackney, London, England, U.K.
Date of Death: August 13, 2006
Place of Death: Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish, Sephardi Jewish
Tony Jay is an English-American actor, and voice actor. Known for his voice performances in animated projects, his roles included the films Love and Death, Time Bandits, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Twins, Asterix and the Big Fight, Beauty and the Beast (1991), Tom and Jerry: The Movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Rugrats Movie, and its sequel, Rugrats Go Wild; An American Tail: The Treasure of Manhattan Island, Race to Space, Treasure Planet, The Jungle Book 2, H. H. Holmes: America’s First Serial Killer, and Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation; the shows Beauty and the Beast, Peter Pan and the Pirates, TaleSpin, Rugrats, 2 Stupid Dogs, Mighty Max, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Skeleton Warriors, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Tick, as MegaByte in ReBoot, The Savage Dragon, Siegfried & Roy: Masters of the Impossible, Mighty Ducks, Jumanji, Invasion America, Xyber 9: New Dawn, House of Mouse, and Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends; the made-for-tv movies Rainbow Drive and Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids; as well as video game, audio books, and Fantasmic! at Disneyland and Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Tony was the son of Ethel and Jack Jacobs/Jay. His family was Jewish. His father’s family originated from Germany and the Netherlands. His maternal grandparents were from Odessa, now Ukraine. Tony spent some time in South Africa beginning in 1966, before returning to England, and moved to the U.S. to work in 1986. He gained U.S. citizenship later in life.
He was married to Marta MacGeraghty, until his death, with whom he had a son.
Tony’s paternal grandfather was Henry “Harry” Jacobs (the son of Moses Jacobs and Julia Woolf). Moses was the son of Henry Jacobs, alias Tzvi Hirsh; and of Amelia Mendoza, who was of partial Sephardi descent. Julia was from an Ashkenazi family, likely from Germany and/or the Netherlands.
Tony’s paternal grandmother was Hannah Ereira (the daughter of Aaron ben Isaac Ereira and Rebecca Jacob Van der Glass). Hannah’s parents were born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Aaron was the son of Sephardi parents. Rebecca was the daughter of Jacob Van der Glass and Heintje Bas, both of whom were likely Ashkenazi.
Tony’s maternal grandfather’s surname was Bart.
Sources: Birth record of Tony Jay – https://www.myheritage.com
Genealogy of Tony Jay – https://www.myheritage.com
Genealogy of Tony’s paternal grandmother, Hannah Ereira – https://www.myheritage.com
Genealogy of Tony’s paternal great-grandmother, Rebecca Jacob Van der Glass – https://www.myheritage.com
Hey, nice to see a post for the iconic Tony Jay! His niece made an extensive family tree on MyHeritage that helped me trace his tree, so if you could make the following updates, I would appreciate it. ☺
Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jewish, Sephardi Jewish
Tony Jay was born as Maurice Jacobs in 1933 to Jack Jacobs (later anglicized to Jay) and Ethel Bart, who were both English Jews. Ethel was of Russian Jewish descent; both of her parents were born in Odessa and left sometime before 1907. Jack was born in 1903 to a mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardi family who had lived in England for generations. Tony’s paternal grandparents were Henry “Harry” Jacobs and Hannah Ereira. [2]
Harry was the son of Moses Jacobs and Julia Woolf. Moses was the son of Henry Jacobs (alias Tzvi Hirsh) and Amelia Mendoza, who was of partial Sephardi descent. Julia was from an Ashkenazi family, likely from Germany and/or the Netherlands.
Hannah Ereira was the daughter of Aaron ben Isaac Ereira and Rebecca Jacob Van der Glass. Aaron was born in Amsterdam to Dutch Sephardi parents. Rebecca was also born in Amsterdam, to Jacob Van der Glass and Heintje Bas, both of whom were likely Ashkenazi Jewish.
So Tony was roughly ⅞ Ashkenazi and ⅛ Sephardi.
Sources:
[1] https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-200604581-1-500005/tony-jay-in-myheritage-family-trees
[2] https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-368953081-1-3389/hannah-jacobs-born-ereira-in-myheritage-family-trees
[3] https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-60115171-1-501472/rebecca-ereira-born-glass-in-myheritage-family-trees
[4] https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10442-108321465/maurice-jacobs-in-england-wales-birth-index
Update: recently found out some of his family were South Africans of Lithuanian Jewish descent. So this means add the tags South African Jewish and Lithuanian Jewish.
Please add tags for Ukrainian Jewish, Russian Jewish, Sephardi[c] Jewish, Portuguese Jewish, Dutch Jewish, and German Jewish!