Frank Reicher

Frank Reicher, born Franz Reichert on December 2, 1875, in Munich, Germany, was an actor, director, and producer whose career spanned legitimate theater and film across more than five decades. The son of actor Emanuel Reichert, Reicher experienced significant family disruption in his early years: his parents divorced in 1881, and his mother died two years later in Trieste. His half-sister, Hedwiga Reicher, and his half-brother Ernst Reicher both pursued careers in performance, with Ernst gaining popularity in early German cinema of the 1910s as gentleman detective Stuart Webbs.

Reicher immigrated to the United States in 1899, the same year he made his Broadway debut, and became a naturalized American citizen approximately twelve years after his arrival. He had married his wife Ella, a native of Oldenburg, shortly before emigrating, and she joined him in America the following year. The couple remained together until her death in 1948. His Broadway debut came in Harrison Fiske's production of Becky Sharp, a comedy by Langdon Mitchell adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, in which Reicher played Lord Tarquin. He would continue appearing on Broadway through 1926, with credits including About Town, Ambush, The Goat Song, and other productions.

During his theater years, Reicher took on several notable roles in significant productions. He played the cashier in the first Broadway production of Georg Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight, appeared in the title role of Percy MacKaye's The Scarecrow in its original production, and performed in the United States premiere of Leonid Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped. He served as head of the Brooklyn Stock Company, where Jacob P. Adler performed The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish while the remainder of the cast performed in English. For a number of years, Reicher was also affiliated with the Little Theatre on West Forty-Fourth Street as both actor and manager.

Reicher began his film career with an uncredited role in the 1915 picture The Case for Becky and ultimately appeared in more than two hundred motion pictures as a supporting character actor. He is most closely associated with the role of Captain Englehorn, which he played in both the 1933 monster film King Kong and its follow-up, The Son of Kong. His film work also included The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in 1947 and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in 1950. His final Hollywood appearance came in Superman and the Mole Men in 1951, the first theatrical Superman film. Reicher died on January 19, 1965, at a hospital in Inglewood, California, at the age of 89, survived by a sister and a brother. He was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.