Torben Meyer

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Torben Emil Meyer (born December 1, 1884 in Aarhus , Denmark , † May 22, 1975 in Hollywood , California ) was a Danish actor.

life and career

Torben Meyer began his acting career in Denmark at the theater. After his film debut in Afgrunden (1910), he was regularly used in supporting roles in Danish silent films. Meyer immigrated to America in the mid-1920s and worked in Hollywood from then on. In the silent film era, he mostly played larger roles, but with the beginning of the sound film in the late 1920s, his heavy accent became a disadvantage for Meyer, so that he was then mostly only offered smaller roles. In Casablanca (1942), for example, he played for just a few seconds the former president of the second largest bank in Amsterdam, who is now sitting as a refugee in Rick's Cafe. In the 1940s, the bald Meyer became a favorite actor of director Preston Sturges , who often used him in eccentric roles in comedies such as Christmas in July (1940) or Breathless to Florida (1942). Despite his Scandinavian origins, Meyer mostly played German characters, often waiters or butlers.

In one of his last roles, Meyer played an accused German Nazi judge in The Judgment of Nuremberg in 1961 , who in the course of the trial recognizes his guilt but cannot explain his actions. In total, he played around 250 films by the end of his career in 1966, and he also had several television appearances in the 1950s and 1960s. He died of pneumonia in Hollywood in 1975 at the age of 90 .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Torben Meyer | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved September 10, 2018 .