Lester Scharff

Lester Scharff (March 21, 1894 – November 30, 1962) was an American actor and producer who worked in stage, film, and television. Born in New York City to Isadore and Bertha Scharff, both of whom were German-born, his father had become a naturalized American citizen in 1876 and his mother nine years later. A bass by voice, Scharff built his early career in light opera and musical theatre before expanding into dramatic stage work and eventually film.

His first significant stage role came in Sigmund Romberg's light opera The Girl from Brazil, adapted from Robert Winterberg's 1915 German operetta Die schöne Schwedin. The production premiered under the title A Brazilian Honeymoon at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston in May 1916, with Scharff playing the role of Carfuso. He retained that role when the show transferred to Broadway's 44th Street Theatre on August 30, 1916, where it ran for 61 performances, and continued with the touring company, which included a stop at the Princess Theatre in Montreal in December 1916. On January 29, 1917, he appeared in the United States premiere of Oscar Straus's operetta Die Schöne Unbekannte, performed in English translation as The Beautiful Unknown, which subsequently toured to the Academy of Music in Baltimore.

During 1918, Scharff performed a pianologue number in vaudeville and worked as a theatrical booking agent for producer Henry W. Savage. He departed that position in December 1918 to join theatrical impresario Chamberlain Brown as head of his musical department. In 1919 he was a featured bass vocalist in Reginald De Koven's musical Yesterday, and that same year returned to Broadway in the small role of the Headwaiter in the musical Oh, What A Girl!, which played at the Shubert Theatre before touring to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Canada, with Scharff still in the cast when the tour reached the Shubert Theatre in Detroit in January 1920. In 1923 he performed in Harry Delf's musical Sun Showers and appeared on Broadway as Quinn in Owen Davis's play Home Fires at the 39th Street Theatre. He returned to Broadway in 1925 to portray the photographer in Theodore Westman Jr.'s play Solid Ivory at the Central Theatre, and made his final Broadway appearances as the Mock Turtle in Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus's stage adaptation of Alice in Wonderland at the Civic Repertory Theatre during the 1932–1933 season.

Scharff made his film debut in 1927 in the Paramount Pictures silent drama New York, playing the dual roles of Sharpe and Izzy Blumenstein. He continued working in film under his own name through the early 1940s, with credited roles including the First Zealot in The Great Commandment (1939), the Detective in Earthbound (1940), Henri Picot in The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1940), Eddie in Remedy for Riches (1940), and Deputy Duval in Secrets of the Lone Wolf (1941). In 1942 he adopted the pseudonym Lester Sharpe for his screen work, a name he used through the 1950s. Among his more substantial parts under that name was Blum, an elderly tailor, in the 1952 film Carrie. In 1944 he signed a contract with Republic Pictures as a producer and produced the film Thoroughbreds that same year, his only producing credit with the company. He also made television appearances from 1949 through 1957. Scharff died in Los Angeles, California on November 30, 1962.