Fritzi Scheff

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Friederike "Fritzi" Scheff (born August 30, 1879 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † April 8, 1954 in New York City , New York , United States ) was an Austrian-American opera singer ( soprano ) and actress .

Life

Fritzi Scheff as Fifi in Mlle.Modiste (1905)
Fritzi Scheff , portrait of Franz von Lenbach
Fritzi Scheff at the wheel of her Mercer Type 35R Raceabout (1913)

Fritzi Scheff was born in Vienna on August 30, 1879 as the daughter of a regimental doctor and the then 17-year-old Anna Jäger . Through her mother, an opera singer, she too came to music at an early age and received corresponding training in Munich , Vienna, Dresden and the Dr. Hoch's Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main . In 1898 she made her operatic debut in Munich and she was engaged at the Munich Court Opera for three years . Scheff, a soprano who sang mainly French and Italian operas, was also engaged for a year at the Theater an der Wien and enjoyed great success at the Covent Garden Opera in London .

From the beginning of the 20th century (around 1900/01) she played in about 30 roles at the renowned Metropolitan Opera in New York City in the US state of New York. In 1904 she gave up her operatic career and devoted herself to musicals , where she came to numerous Broadway appearances. Among other things, she worked as Fifi in Charles Dillingham's production of the Victor Herbert opera Mlle. Modiste . She had numerous other Broadway appearances, including until the mid-1910s. From 1913 to 1918, she toured America with the Maurice Grau Opera Company . During the First World War , it advertised war bonds such as the Fifth Liberty Bonds .

In 1932 Scheff largely withdrew from the profession and appeared only sporadically on the radio, in cabaret and at the 1939 World's Fair in New York . In 1915 she worked for the first time in a film production. In Pretty Mrs. Smith , based on the Broadway play of the same name from 1915, she starred in the lead and title role of Pretty Mrs. Drucilla Smith . This remained her only silent film production . After appearing again on Broadway in the late 1920s, she was in the play Bravo! From mid-November to mid-December 1948 . last seen on Broadway. On the east coast of the United States she appeared in numerous theaters, including in Maine .

Also in the 1940s she was able to record some television appearances. In the musical comedy Follies Girl by director William Rowland from 1943, she played herself among other things. In 1947 she was also seen in L'Éventail, directed by Emil-Edwin Reinert . In 1951 she had an appearance in Musical Comedy Time and in 1953 another appearance in the series Armstrong Circle Theater . Scheff was also invited to talk shows such as We, the People (one appearance, 1949) or The Ed Sullivan Show (four appearances, 1949–1953), as well as in documentary series such as This Is Your Life (one appearance, 1954). Often, especially in her later years, she also appeared in nightclubs and restaurants ; She also worked in the vaudeville sector in later years. On April 8, 1954, Scheff died at the age of 74 in New York City. She was buried at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla , New York. After the death of the actor Truman Gaige, born in 1906, in 2002, he was buried in the same grave.

Marriages

In the course of her life, Scheff was married three times. For the first time with Baron Fritz von Bardeleben, then with the writer and journalist John Fox junior (1862–1919) and from 1912 with the actor George Anderson (1886–1948). All three marriages quickly ended in divorce and remained childless.

literature

Web links

Commons : Fritzi Scheff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Milwaukee Journal, April 9, 1954 , accessed January 21, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Scheff, Fritzi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scheff, Friederike (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer (soprano) and actress
DATE OF BIRTH August 30, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1954
Place of death New York City , New York , United States