12 February 2014

Ria Jende

German-Belgian actress Ria Jende (1896-1948) was a star and producer of the silent German cinema. She appeared in more than 40 silent entertainment films before she married an industrialist and retired.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K.3239. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/1, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/2, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 264/3, 1919-1924. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 277/4. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 4936. Photo: Atelier Balazs, Berlin.

A magician’s assistant


Ria Jende was born Elisabeth Felicita Elvira Jende in Grünberg in Silesia, Germany (or Brussels, Belgium), in 1896 (or 1898; the sources differ). She was the daughter of the painter Max Jende and his wife Emilie, née Marschall. She came from Silesia to Berlin as a young girl.

Before the First World War, Edison brought her before the camera in Das Stelldichein der Verehrer/The Gathering of Worshipers (Manfred Noa, 1912) and for another film pioneer, Oskar Messter, she acted in Problematische Naturen/Problematic Natures (Hans Oberländer, 1912) with Erich Kaiser-Titz.

After these two early films, she performed for four years in the theatre. For a while, she worked as a magician’s assistant, according to the film magazine Die Filmhölle.

In 1917, Jende accepted another film offer by Messter-film and co-starred with Viggo Larsen in his Der graue Herr/The Man in Gray (Viggo Larsen, 1917). Then she co-starred with Bruno Kastner and Mia May in Ein Lichtstrahl im Dunkel/A Beam of Light in the Darkness (Joe May, 1917).

For the next five years, she appeared in several insignificant entertainment productions. These included Der Ring der drei Wünsche/The Ring of Three Wishes (Arthur Wellin, 1918) with Alexander Moissi, Der Teufel/The Devil (Ewald André Dupont, 1918), and the mystery Die Japanerin/The Japanese Woman (Ewald André Dupont, (1919) with Bernhard Goetzke and Max Landa.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 3842. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 295/1. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 295/2. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 365/1. Photo: Alex Binder.

Ria Jende
German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 1018/1, 1927-1928. Photo: Alex Binder.

Her own film company


During the production of Nixchen (Paul Legband, 1919), starring Georg Alexander, Ria Jende met author and scriptwriter Franz W. Koebner. In 1919 she started the film company, Ria Jende Film. 

At the beginning of 1921, she married the businessman Wilhelm Boecker, who founded the production company Ria Jende Film GmbH in June of the same year. The company produced Madeleine (Siegfried Philippi, 1921) with Hermann Valentin, and Versunkene Welten/Sunken Worlds (Siegfried Philippi, 1922) with Victor Varconi, but the company was short-lived.

As an actress, she also appeared in films like Die Schlange mit dem Mädchenkopf/The Serpent with the Head of a Girl (Rudolf Walther-Fein, 1920) opposite Hans Albers, Der Held des Tages/The Hero of the Day (Rudi Bach, 1921) and Das Geheimnis der Santa Margherita/The Secret of Santa Margherita (Rolf Randolf, 1921).

In 1922, Ria Jende ended her film career. Her final film was Das blinde Gluck/The Blind Luck (Iva Raffay, 1922). After that, she only once returned to the cinema, for a part in Die Abenteuer des Kapitän Hasswell/The Adventures of Captain Hate Well (Rolf Randolf, 1925) with Ernst Pittschau.

In 1926 Ria Jende published a travelogue of Malta in the Berlin magazine Das Magazin. Her husband also wrote for the same magazine issue. After her marriage to Wilhelm Boecker ended in divorce in May 1928, she married the Frankfurt industrialist Paul Häfliger in October of the same year. They had a son and two daughters. This marriage also ended in divorce in 1944.  Ria Jende died in 1948 at the age of only 52 in the Landesheilanstalt (State Sanatorium) Hadamar in Hesse.

Rolf Loer and Ria Jende as Phantomas in Die erwachende Venus (1918)
German postcard by Verlag Hermann Leiser, Berlin, no. 3280. Photo: Greenbaum-Film. Rolf Loer as Phantomas and Ria Jende in Die erwachende Venus/The Awakening Venus (Adolf Gärtner, 1918), about a robbery-homicide cleared by a bronze statue (possibly the one visible in the back of this picture). The film was one of the episodes of the German Phantomas series (1916-1920).

Alexander Moissi in Der Ring der drei Wünsche
German postcard by Rotophot in the Film-Sterne Series, no. 537/8. Photo: Amboss-Film, Dworsky Co. Alexander Moissi, Ria Jende and Eduard von Winterstein in Der Ring der drei Wünsche/The Ring of Three Wishes (Arthur Wellin, 1918).

Bruno Kastner and Ria Jende in Die goldene Lüge (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 607/4. Photo: Ring-Film. Ria Jende and Bruno Kastner in the German silent film Die goldene Lüge/The Golden Lie (Erik Lund, 1919).

Bruno Kastner in Die Bodega von Los Cuerros (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 617/4. Photo: Ring Film. Bruno Kastner and Ria Jende in Die Bodega von Los Cuerros (Erik Lund, 1919), scripted by Ruth Goetz and cinematographed by Curt Courant. The man in the middle could well be Leopold von Ledebur.

Bruno Kastner in Das Herz des Casanova (1919)
German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 622/2. Photo: Ring-Film. Ria Jende and Bruno Kastner in the German silent film Das Herz des Casanova/The Heart of Casanova (Erik Lund, 1919).

Walter Janssen, Ena Mar and Ria Jende in Der Tänzer (1919)
German postcard by Verlag Ross, Berlin, no. 632/2. Photo: Maxim Film. Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen and Ria Jende in Der Tänzer/The Dancer (Carl Froehlich, 1919), based on the novel by Felix Holländer.

Ria Jende and Magnus Stifter in Seelenverkäufer
German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 3081. Photo: Greenbaum-Film. Ria Jende and Magnus Stifter in Seelenverkäufer/Seller of Souls (Lupu Pick, 1919).

Sources: Thomas Staedeli (Cyranos), Filmportal.de, Wikipedia (German), and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 19 November 2024.

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