Richard Ryen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Ryen - An Hungarian born actor who was expelled from Germany by the Nazi's prior to World War II.
Richard Anton Robert Felix was born on September 13, 1885 in Hungary. He began working in Germany as an actor and later became a well respected stage director at the Münchener Kammerspiele (Munich Chamber Theater). His first movie was 1932 comedy Die Verkaufte Braut (The Bartered Bride). The following year, he had a bit part in Muß man sich gleich scheiden lassen with S.Z. Sakall. In 1934, Felix made three more movies, Weiße Majestät, Peer Gynt and Das Erbe von Pretoria in Germany before the Nazi's expelled him.
Felix emigrated to Hollywood and changed his name to Ryen. Ironically in Hollywood, as was the fate for so many German actors and actresses of that time, like Conrad Veidt, he was mainly cast in Nazi roles, which kept him working during the war years.
Working for Warner Bros., his first movie was as an uncredited role as a Nazi radio station manager in the anti-Nazi movie Berlin Corespondent in 1942 which starred Dana Andrews. Right after that movie, he received another small role as a German policeman in Desperate Journey starring Ronald Reagan, Errol Flynn and Raymond Massey. He appeared on screen for 15 seconds while he is checking a license plate.
Within weeks, at age 46, Ryen received his most renowned performance, that of Colonel Heinze in Casablanca, where he constantly had to tail his superior Major Heinrich Strasser (Conrad Veidt). His scenes took four week to shoot and, at $400 a week, he earned $1,600.
After Casablanca, Ryen appeared in 16 more films. His first credited film in America was in 1943, The Constant Nymph with Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine. It was one of eight movies he appeared in 1943. Later in the year, Ryen played a Nazi officer in the war drama The Cross of Lorraine with Peter Lorre and Hans Twardowski. In 1944, he appeared with John Qualen in An American Romance and The Hitler Gang showing the rise of Adolf Hitler.
With the end of the World War II, German actors playing Nazi's were not in demand and Ryen's role started to decrease. He received small roles in three movies in 1945; This Love of Ours starring Claude Rains, Salome, Where She Danced with Yvonne De Carlo and Paris Underground. Ryen appeared in one movie in 1946, playing a butler in Crack-Up with Pat O'Brien, and his last movie, which was another small role in A Foreign Affair in 1948 with Marlene Dietrich.
In 10 of the 19 films he made in America, including Casablanca, he did not appear in the credits (unlike today, they did not put everyone who appeared in a movie in the credits). He also appeared on stage in America and after 1946 took guest roles at a theater in [[Basle, Switzerland, before becoming a freelance writer.
Ryen died in Los Angeles on December 22, 1965 at the age of 80.
