Fritzi Scheff
Fritzi Scheff | |
|---|---|
| File:Fritzi Scheff.jpg Fritzi Scheff in 1913 | |
| Born | Friederike Scheff August 30, 1879 |
| Died | April 8, 1954 (aged 74) New York, U.S. |
| Occupations | Actress and opera singer |
| Spouse(s) | Baron Fritz von Bardeleben John Fox, Jr. George Anderson |
.jpg)
Fritzi Scheff (born Friederike Scheff; August 30, 1879 – April 8, 1954) was an American actress and singer.
Biography
[edit | edit source]Born Friederike Scheff in Vienna to Dr. Gottfried Scheff and Anna Yeager, she studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. She made her debut on January 10, 1897, in Nuremberg.[1] She debuted in Munich at the Royal Opera House.[2]
In 1901 she first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, singing roles in La Bohème,[2] Die Meistersinger, Die Walküre, and Don Giovanni. She sang in the Victor Herbert operetta Babette at Washington, D.C., and New York (1903).
Toward the end of the 1904-05 season, Scheff became ill and was replaced by her understudy Ida Hawley to close out the remaining performances of Babette.[3] Scheff had immense success as Fifi in Mlle. Modiste (1905–1908, 1913) and appeared also in The Prima Donna (1908), The Mikado (1910), The Duchess (1911), and The Love Wager (1912). From 1913-18, she appeared principally in vaudeville, returning in the latter year to the musical opera stage in Glorianna.[4] Among the rôles she sang with the Fritzi Scheff Opera Company was that of Adele in Johann Strauss operatta Die Fledermaus including at the Belasco Theater in Washington, D.C., in 1912.
Movies and television
[edit | edit source]In 1915 Scheff appeared in her first film, Pretty Mrs. Smith, based on a Broadway play she starred in. It was to be her "vehicle", but critics were mostly negative about her performance and the film; instead, they were positive about Charlotte Greenwood.[5] She made no other silent pictures. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Scheff ventured into sound movies and television. She appeared in night clubs,[6] and died a month after being in Ralph Edwards' This Is Your Life.[7]
Personal life and death
[edit | edit source]She married, first, Baron Fritz von Bardeleben a Prussian nobleman, then in 1908 John Fox, Jr. author of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and, in 1913, George Anderson, an actor. The unions were all childless.[8]
Scheff died on April 8, 1954, in New York.[1]
Notes
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Daily Gazette And Bulletin - May 23, 1904, Williamsport, Pennsylvania
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).[permanent dead link]
External links
[edit | edit source]
- Fritzi Scheff at IMDb
- Fritzi Scheff at the Internet Broadway DatabaseLua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Fritzi Scheff at Find a GraveLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Fritzi Scheff portrait gallery at NYP Library
- Fritzi Scheff; PeriodPaper.com about 1910
Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- 1879 births
- 1954 deaths
- 19th-century Austrian actresses
- 20th-century American actresses
- 19th-century Austrian women opera singers
- Austrian stage actresses
- Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to the United States
- American stage actresses
- American film actresses
- American television actresses
- American opera singers
- Actresses from Vienna
- Musicians from Vienna
- American vaudeville performers
- Burials at Kensico Cemetery
- 20th-century American women singers
- 20th-century American singers