They don't make 'em like that any more -- thank G-d...

Let me add my voice to the chorus of people praising Orthomom for her excellent series on Jewish Heroines (indeed, her whole site is great). See here, here and here for installments so far.
Kind of in the same vein, the Economist this week carried a wonderful obituary for Lillian Lux, a superstar of the Yiddish Theatre. She's not exactly a Jewish heroine in the sense Orthomom probably means, but she was certainly a personality and is a symbol of a lost world.
She was also somewhat sad. She performed with her husband and twin children across the globe almost obsessively, even while pregnant or when her kids had measles. According to the magazine,

Ms Lux's devotion to her enterprise was complete. Travelling and performing were the only life she wanted. Even her children's bar- and bat-mitzvahs were staged as ticket-only events.

You gotta love it. She then couldn't understand why her children left her act as teenagers...