Felix Basch

See: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Basch

See also: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0059648/bio

Vienna marriage record: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-LBK5-JY1?i=247&wc=...

Felix Basch was born on September 16, 1885 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. He was an actor and director, known for Patience (1920), Eines großen Mannes Liebe (1921) and Hannerl und ihre Liebhaber (1921). He was married to Gretl Basch. He died on May 17, 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

NOTABLE FACTS ABOUT FELIX BASCH:

1. Father of famed photographer Peter Basch.

2. When he didn't find the the working circumstances he was used to, he went to Paris via England and wrote scripts which weren't realized.

3. The Jewish Basch was forced into exile.

4. When the war broke out in Europe he went back to the USA again and inaugurated the restaurant "Grete's Viennese" in New York in 1940. When his plan to inaugurate a restaurant in Hollywood too failed he turned to the film business again. But the working system for American movies gave him problems - like for most of the film working emigrants. In the following years he impersonated many support roles in B movies.

5. His cousin was the famous tenor Richard Tauber. [*Note by Robert Hanscom, 7/17/2017: they were second cousins to each other. Richard Tauber's paternal grandfather, Moritz L. Tauber (1825-1892), was the older brother of Felix Basch's maternal grandfather, Ignaz Tauber (b. 1831).]

6. After a transfusion with contaminated blood (hepatitis B), he died at the age of 58.

7. He emigrated together with Grete Freund to the USA in 1933.

8. In the 1920s, he founded the film company "Kronen-Film GmbH" and together with his wife and actress Grete Freund the "Basch-Freund-Film, Berlin".

9. The actor and director Felix Basch took acting lessons at the Burgtheater and got his first theater engagement in the play "Wilhelm Tell" in 1904. After a tour through Russia in 1912 followed engagements at the Theater des Westens and at the Metropol-Theater.

10. Also in 1915 he shot his first movie as a director called "Der Herr Herr Baron" (15) and he soon became an experienced expert of his line. In the next years he concentrated on his work as a director, only sometimes he also appeared as an actor in his own movies or took part as an actor in movies of other directors.

11. Felix Basch made his film debut as an actor in 1913.