Fritz Feld; Character Actor’s Career Spanned Many Eras

Fritz Feld, veteran character actor who played movie directors, spies, conductors, psychiatrists, waiters, heavies and comedians for seven decades in 425 films, 500 television shows, 1,000 radio programs and 80 commercials, has died. He was 93.

Feld died Thursday at Pacific Convalescent Home in Santa Monica after a lengthy illness.

If his name was not a household word, his easily disguised face was familiar and so was his trademark “pop,” a sound like a cork being pulled out of a champagne bottle that he created by bringing the flat of his hand sharply against his rounded mouth. He hit upon the idea while playing in Eddie Cantor’s “If You Knew Susie” in 1948.

Feld’s career endured from the silent era through the development of radio and television and to modern comedy films such as “The Sunshine Boys” in 1975 and Mel Brooks’ “History of the World Part I” in 1981.

He performed with so many stars--from Norma Talmadge and John Barrymore in the silent era to Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Barbra Streisand and Gene Wilder--that he created a collection of still photographs of himself playing chess with more than 300 leading actors and actresses. The collection has been exhibited at the Library of the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center in New York.

Among his films were “I Met Him in Paris” in 1937, “Bringing Up Baby” in 1938, “The Phantom of the Opera” in 1943, “Call Me Madam” in 1953, “Hello Dolly!” in 1969, and “The World’s Greatest Lover” in 1977.

Television appearances included “The Bill Cosby Show,” “The Hardy Boys,” “The Merv Griffin Show,” “The Tonight Show,” “The Mike Douglas Show” and “General Hospital.”

When 20th Century Fox staged “A Tribute to Fritz Feld--60 Years in the Movies” at Hollywood’s Tiffany Theater in 1977, Feld preferred to talk about the people he had worked with.

John Barrymore, he said, was “a classic wit. I had a feeling of Balzac and Moliere around him. I loved the guy.”

Director Ernst Lubitsch, he said, was “a genius, a great artist.” He rated Jerry Lewis, with whom he made seven pictures, “a classic clown and a very interesting man. Brooks and Wilder, he said, were “talented men who are bringing back to us great motion picture comedy.”

With the late Joseph Schildkraut, Feld co-founded the Hollywood Playhouse and years later was coordinator for the Fritz Feld Community Theater in Brentwood, where he did some directing. He also wrote a number of screenplays, but acting dominated his durable career.

Born Oct. 15, 1900, in Berlin, Feld began as an unpaid extra in a performance of “William Tell” at Berlin’s Royal Theater in 1916. He made his film debut a year later in “Der Golem und die Tanzerin” and went on to work in several German plays and films. He was an assistant to producer Max Reinhardt in Germany and came to the United States in 1923 to perform in Reinhardt’s “The Miracle.”

Once here, Feld decided to stay.

“It was one of the two best decisions I ever made in my life,” he told The Times late in his life.

The other was marrying actress Virginia Christine, best known for her Mrs. Olson character in the Folgers coffee commercials. Lubitsch was best man at their wedding Nov. 10, 1940.

An avid pianist who could not read music, Feld was able to play any composition after hearing it a single time. He collected books, Bach recordings and tropical plants, and traveled voraciously.

In addition to his wife, Feld is survived by their two sons, Danny and Steve; a brother, Rudi, and two grandchildren and two nieces.

Memorial services are scheduled at noon Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles.