Yetta Zwerling was born in Kalievo, near Lemberg, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Choliv, near Lviv, Ukraine).
[1] She emigrated to the United States with her family, finishing high school there and playing juvenile roles in variety theaters and English-language vaudeville.
She toured and ended up in New York, playing Yiddish vaudeville with Sam Klinetsky at the Grand Theater, then doing four years of English-language comedy with Leon Errol and then six seasons in Philadelphia with Anshel Schorr, who improved her Yiddish and gave her the opportunity to play the soubrette opposite, among others, Celia Adler, Samuel Goldenberg, and Boris Thomashevsky.
She then played at the National Theater in Student Prince and with Bertha Kalich in Di neshomeh fun a froy (The Soul of a Woman).
[1] She played alongside Yitskhok Feld, Julius Nathanson, Eli Mintz, Isidore Meltzer, Adof Fenigshtayn, Irving Jacobson, later Menasha Skulnik and Leo Fuchs in Yiddish movies such as Motl der opereytor and Ikh vil zayn a mame.