Frida Richard

Frida Richard, also often referred to as Frieda Richard (1873-1946), was an Austrian actress who acted in almost 275 German and Austrian silent and sound films.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, unnumbered. Photo: Fox Film.


German collectors card by Ross Verlag in the series Vom Werden Deutscher Filmkunst - Der Stumme Film, no. 45, group 43. Photo: Tobias-Film. Bruno Kastner, Dorrit Weixler and Frida Richard in Dorittchens Vergnügungsreise / Little Dorrit's Pleasure Trip (Paul Heidemann, 1916).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 51/4. Photo: Koop Film, Berlin. Walter Slezak as Walter Thiermann, an engineer in the service of industrialist Franz Großmann, surrounded by his old mother (Frida Richard) and his sister Renate (Elza Temary) in Die Wacht am Rhein. Aus des Rheinlands Schicksalstagen / The Watch on the Rhine. From the fateful days of the Rhineland (Helene Lackner, 1925-1926). Elza is misspelled as Elga here, and Walter as Walther.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 66/7. Photo: Ufa. Camilla Horn and Frida Richard in Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926).

Worried mothers or servants and counsellors

Frida (or Frieda) Richard was born in 1873 as Friederike Raithel in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. She was the daughter of a room painter. Frida attended a theatre school in Vienna. Her fellow students included Max Reinhardt and Fritz Richard, whom she married in 1898. She did not practise her profession at first but became an English teacher.

It was only after she moved to Berlin with her husband in 1905 that she appeared on the theatre stage there from 1908. In addition to Berlin, she also performed in Vienna at the theatres under Max Reinhardt and at the Salzburg Festival.

From 1910, Frida Richard was frequently seen in films, initially often alongside Henny Porten. Richard debuted in Das vierte Gebot (Charles Decroix, 1910), produced by Deutsche Mutoskop- und Biograph. She mostly played worried mothers or servants and counsellors. In such roles, she eventually became one of the busiest supporting actresses of the silent film era.

In the early 1910s, she acted at the companies Duskes, Luna, and, in particular, Messter, where she often co-acted in films with Henny Porten, such as Adressatin verstorben (1911/12), Komtess Ursel (1913), Ihre Hoheit (1913), and Eva (1913). Richard continued co-acting with Porten during the First World War in such films as Nordlandrose (1914), Feeenhande (1916), Gelöste Ketten (1916), Der Liebesbrief der Königin / The Queen's Love Letter (Robert Wiene, 1916), Die Ehe der Luise Rohrbach / The Marriage of Luise Rohrbach (Rudolf Biebrach, 1917), and Das Geschlecht derer von Ringwall / The Ringwall Family (Rudolf Biebrach, 1918).

Richard also co-acted in several Dorrit Weixler films directed by Franz Hofer at Luna and Oliver-Film, in films starring Fern Andra including Ernst ist das Leben (1916), Der Seele Saiten schwingen nicht (1917), and Drohende Wolken am Firmament (1918) - all at Fern-Andra-Film, and in films starring Mia May directed by her husband Joe May, like Ein einsam Grab (1916) and Wogen des Schicksals / Waves of Fate (1918). She also acted in films with Alwin Neuss, Bruno Decarli and Bruno Kastner, such as Kastner's Die Fürstin von Beranien (1918).


German postcard by Rotophot in the Film Sterne series, no. 513/5. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra in Ernst ist das Leben / Life is Serious (Fern Andra, 1916). The man on the left of Fern Andra could be Fritz Delius. The dying woman in the bed is Frida Richard, who plays Andra's mother in the film.


German postcard in the Film-Sterne series by Rotophot, no 514/1. Photo: Fern Andra Atelier. Fern Andra, Alfred Abel and Frida Richard in Der Seele Saiten schwingen nicht / The Strings of the Soul Do Not Vibrate (Ferna Andra, 1917).


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 2165. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (Paul von Woringen, 1918). Her co-stars were Bruno Kastner and Frida Richard. The man behind Neumann is Rudolf Lettinger.


German postcard by Photochemie, no. K. 2167. Photo: Lotte Neumann-Film, Berlin. Lotte Neumann in Die Ehe der Charlotte von Brakel / The Marriage of Charlotte von Brakel (Paul von Woringen, 1918). Her co-stars were Bruno Kastner and Frida Richard. The man collapsing is Rudolf Lettinger.

A rich career as a supporting actress

After the First World War, Frida Richard continued her rich career as a supporting actress in films with Lotte Neumann, like Der Weg der Grete Lessen (1919), with Walter Janssen like Der Tänzer (1919), and Asta Nielsen in Rausch / Intoxication (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919). In the 1920s, Richard played the grandmother in the Expressionist film Von Morgens bis Mitternachts (Karlheinz Martin, 1920), the old princess in Die Erbin von Tordis / The Inheritance of Tordis (Robert Dinesen, 1921) with Ica Lenkeffy, and the manager's wife in Frauenopfer (Karl Grune, 1921) with Henny Porten.

Richard was the protagonist's mother in Phantom (F.W. Murnau, 1922), starring Alfred Abel. Other mother roles were Shylock's mother in Der Kaufmann von Venedig / The Merchant of Venice (Peter Paul Felner, 1923) starring Henny Porten, the fairy godmother in the Cinderella adaptation Der verlorene Schuh / The Lost Shoe (Ludwig Berger, 1923), the pushy mother and grandmother of the mountain guide and his son in Der Berg des Schicksals / Mountain of Destiny (Arnold Fanck, 1923-24), the possessive mother in the Kammerspiel drama Sylvester / New Year's Eve (Lupu Pick, 1924), the mother in the comedy Auf Befehl der Pompadour / By Order of Pompadour (Friedrich Zelnik, 1924) with Lya Mara.

She also played the aunt of Asta Nielsen in Hedda Gabler (Franz Eckstein, 1925), and she had a minor part in the two-part epic Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924). Memorable were her parts as Gretchen's mother in Murnau's Faust (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 1926) and the mother in Fancks's Der heilige Berg / The Holy Mountain (Arnold Fanck, 1926). Richard also appeared in two films by Arthur Robison, Pietro, der Korsar / Peter the Pirate (1925) and Manon Lescaut (1925-26).

In the mid-1920s, Richard also acted in Die vom Niederrhein (1925), Der Farmer aus Texas / The Farmer from Texas (Joe May, 1925), Die Wacht am Rhein / Watch on the Rhine (Helene Lackner, 1926), Die Brüder Schellenberg / The Brothers Schellenberg (Karl Grune, 1926), and Wien, wie es weint und lacht / Vienna, How it Cries and Laughs (Rudolf Walther-Fein, Rudolf Dworsky, 1926). In the later 1920s, Richard acted e.g. in the social drama Die Vorbestraften (1927), Das deutsche Lied (1928), Ludwig Berger's Das brennende Herz (1928-29) with Mady Christians, Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt (1929) with Marlene Dietrich, Katharina Knie (Karl Grune, 1929) In the early sound era, she appeared in Der Mann, der den Mord beging / The Man Who Murdered (Kurt Bernhardt, 1931) with Conrad Veidt, and the comedy Der Sieger / The Victor (Hans Hinrich, Paul Martin, 1932) with Hans Albers.

In 1932, Frida Richard and her husband moved to Salzburg. Fritz Richard died in Berlin the following year. Frida continued to appear in front of the camera during the Nazi era, even if less frequently, both in Germany, and before and after the Anschluss also in Austrian films. Her films included Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld / The Priest from Kirchfeld (Jakob Fleck, Luise Fleck, 1937) with Hans Jaray and Der Postmeister (1939) with Heinrich George. During the Second World War, she acted in minor parts in Helmut Käutner's Auf Wiedersehn, Franziska / Goodbye, Franziska (1941), Rembrandt (Hans Steinhoff, 1942), Die goldene Stadt / (Veit Harlan, 1942) and Leni Riefenstahl's Tiefland (1940-44/1953). In 1944, Richard was included in the Gottbegnadeten list of the Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Soon after the war, in 1946, Frida Richard died in Salzburg. Richard acted in almost 275 films.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. K. 2331. Photo: Alba-Film. Stella Harf and Bruno Kastner in Die Fürstin von Beranien / The Princess of Beranien (Ernst Reicher, 1918). Prince Ernst von Beranien announces his daughter Elisabeth (Stella Harf) will become crown princess. She asks for a last sidestep, and as a 'common countess', she is granted to take a holiday in the mountains, though escorted by the stern countess Elvira (Frida Richard) and her daughter Kitty.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 637/3. Photo: Maxim-Film. Frida Richard, Lotte Neumann, and Georg John in Der Weg der Grete Lessen (Rudolf Biebrach, 1919). Plot: Father Lessen torments his daughter. The film was based on the story 'Arme Mädchen' by Paul Lindau.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, Berlin, no. 51/5. Photo: Koop-Film, Berlin. Walter Slezak as Walter Thiermann, engineer of Franz Großmann, surrounded by his old mother (Frida Richard), his beloved Maria (Maria Zelenka), and his sister Renate (Elza Temary) in Die Wacht am Rhein. Aus des Rheinlands Schicksalstagen / The Watch on the Rhine. From the fateful days of the Rhineland (Helene Lackner, 1925-1926). Elza is misspelt as Elga here.


German postcard by Ross Verlag, unnumbered. Photo: Döring film company, Hannover, under guidance [Protektorat] of the Deutsche Sängerbund (DSB). Theodor Becker as Graf Otto von Meran (Otto, Count of Merania) and Frida Richard as Frau Hilde (mother of Walther von der Vogelweide) in the historical part of Das Deutsche Lied / The German Song (Karl Pindl, 1928). The film premiered in Vienna, Austria, at the 10th German Sängerbundesfest 19.-23.July 1928.

Sources: Wikipedia (German and English), Filmportal and IMDb.