Fritzi Scheff

Fritzi Scheff, born Friederike Scheff on August 30, 1879, in Vienna, Austria, was an American actress and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1903 to 1948. The daughter of Dr. Gottfried Scheff and Anna Yeager, she received her musical training at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and made her performing debut on January 10, 1897, in Nuremberg before going on to appear at the Royal Opera House in Munich.

Scheff arrived in New York in 1901, making her American debut at the Metropolitan Opera House, where she performed roles in La Bohème, Die Meistersinger, Die Walküre, and Don Giovanni. Her transition to the Broadway stage came in 1903 when she appeared in the Victor Herbert operetta Babette, which played in both Washington, D.C., and New York. During the 1904–05 season, an illness forced her to step away from the production before its run concluded, with understudy Ida Hawley completing the remaining performances in her place.

Her greatest stage success came with the role of Fifi in Mlle. Modiste, which she performed from 1905 to 1908 and again in 1913. She also starred in The Prima Donna in 1908, and her subsequent Broadway credits included The Mikado in 1910, The Duchess in 1911, and The Love Wager in 1912. With the Fritzi Scheff Opera Company, she performed the role of Adele in Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, including a production at the Belasco Theater in Washington, D.C., in 1912. Her Broadway appearances further included the play Sherlock Holmes, the musical Pretty Mrs. Smith, and the production Bravo.

Between 1913 and 1918, Scheff worked primarily in vaudeville before returning to the musical stage in Glorianna in 1918. In 1915 she appeared in her first film, Pretty Mrs. Smith, adapted from the Broadway production in which she had starred. Critical reception of her film performance was largely negative, with reviewers directing their praise instead toward Charlotte Greenwood. Scheff made no further silent pictures, though in the late 1940s and early 1950s she appeared in sound films and on television, and also performed in night clubs.

In her personal life, Scheff married three times. Her first husband was Baron Fritz von Bardeleben, a Prussian nobleman. In 1908 she married John Fox, Jr., the author of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and in 1913 she wed actor George Anderson. All three marriages were childless. Scheff died on April 8, 1954, in New York, approximately one month after appearing on Ralph Edwards' television program This Is Your Life.