Louis Gilrod (1879-1930), was an actor and lyricist for the Yiddish theater. Louis Gilrod was born in the village of Ruizana, near Ulanov, Podolia/Poltava region of the Ukraine. At 12 his father brought him to the United States and left him with an uncle in Newark, New Jersey who engaged him in the hairdressing business. He was, however, drawn to the stage; at 17 he founded a drama club and began to write lyrics. Actors started to notice him and brought him to New York where he became a professional lyricist. The Yehudah Katzenelenbogen Company (later absorbed into the Hebrew Publishing Company) and other music publishers paid him to write Yiddish parodies of currently popular American songs of Tin Pan Alley.