Torben Meyer
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Torben Emil Meyer (December 1, 1884 – May 22, 1975 was a Danish character actor.
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Meyer was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He started a stage career in Denmark and appeared in his first silent movie Vor tids dame in 1912. This would start a 50 year career in which Meyer appeared in over 180 films.
Meyer appeared in 20 more silent movies, before making Don Quixote in 1926. This movie achieved considerable international stature, and Meyer followed the migration of top European actors to Hollywood the following year. His first American film was the silent movie The Man Who Laughs (as the spy) starring Conrad Veidt in 1928.
Meyer arrived just when sound movies were being made. Unlike other European actors, his thick accent became a plus for him. He appeared uncredited in numerous movies throughout the 30s and 40s and despite his Danish origins, Meyer was almost always cast as a German.
In 1930, Meyer received a small part in a Michael Curtiz film A Soldier's Plaything. In 1932, Meyer appeared in a couple of Swedish language American films, Trådlöst och kärleksfullt and Halvvägs till Himlen. Later that year, he had a small part in Murders in the Rue Morgue, based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story and starring Bela Lugosi.
Also in 1932, Meyer had small parts as waiters in five different movies; in famed German director Ernst Lubitsch's film Broken Lullaby starring Lionel Barrymore, in George Cukor's What Price Hollywood?, where he plays a waiter in the famous Hollywood restaurant 'The Brown Derby', in Downstairs starring Paul Lukas, in Mervyn LeRoy's Big City Blues starring Joan Blondell and in The Match King. Also that year, he received a small part in The Animal Kingdom starring Leslie Howard.
Next Meyer went from waiter to butler in a number of films in the 1930s; The Crime of the Century, John Ford's The World Moves On, Preview Murder Mystery starring Reginald Denny, Piccadilly Jim and The First Hundred Years both starring Robert Montgomery, The King and the Chorus Girl starring Joan Blondell.
However, there was again the call to be a waiter throughout the 30s; in Reunion in Vienna starring Lionel Barrymore, in The Good Fairy starring Margaret Sullavan, in Break of Hearts starring Katharine Hepburn and Charles Boyer (in this one he was headwaiter at The Ritz), in Two for Tonight starring Bing Crosby, in The Gay Deception as a butler and in To Beat the Band.
In 1935, Meyer got to be strangled by Boris Karloff's Frankenstein in James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein. In 1937, Meyer had a number of bit parts; as a servant in Tovarich starring Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer and Basil Rathbone, as Raymond Massey's servant in The Prisoner of Zenda starring Ronald Colman in the title role and as Tyrone Power's chauffeur in Sonja Henie's Thin Ice. In 1938, Meyer played a German Police Prefect in a Simon Templar movie, The Saint in New York. the following year, he played a doorman in Topper Takes a Trip starring Roland Young and Billie Burke.
In 1939, Meyer received a bit part in Warner Bros. anti-Nazi movie Nurse Edith Cavell starring Anna Neagle. The following year, Meyer received a small part in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet starring Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon and Otto Kruger.
Later in 1940, he had a small role in the Charlie Chaplin movie, The Great Dictator. He also appeared that year in Four Sons starring Don Ameche. He is seen in the beginning of the movie as a farmer driving a hay wagon from Nazi Germany into Czechoslovakia and then gives Don Ameche's character a ride home. Later that year, he got to play 'Mr. Schmidt' in Christmas in July. This was his first with producer and director Preston Sturges, and ending with The Beautiful Blonde of Bashful Bend in 1949. Evidently as a private joke, Sturges nearly always cast Meyer as a character named "Schultz", with conspicuous exceptions as playing Dr. Kluck in The Palm Beach Story in 1942.
In 1942, Meyer received one scene in the anti-Nazi movie Berlin Correspondent with Dana Andrews. Here he plays a restaurant manager who is harassing Virginia Gilmore for her ration card.
Next in 1942, at age 57, he received a small part as a Dutch banker in Casablanca who is seated at a baccarat table. His female friend (played by Trude Berliner) wants to have a drink with Rick but is told no by Carl, the headwaiter (S.Z. Sakall). Meyer is annoyed by this rebuff telling Carl, "Perhaps if you told him I ran the second largest banking house in Amsterdam." He is informed that it wouldn't impress Rick, "the leading banker in Amsterdam is now the pastry chef in our kitchen" and "his father is the bellboy!"
In 1943, Meyer plays a waiter again in RKO's spy thriller Journey into Fear starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio and Orson Welles. Next, Meyer played a gypsy in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man starring Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. in the title roles. This was followed with a bit role in Warner Bros.'s war drama Edge of Darkness, starring Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan, where he plays a clerk for Kaspar Torgerson (Charles Dingle) in a Norwegian cannery. Next he played Gottwald in the spy drama They Came to Blow Up America starring George Sanders and Ward Bond.
The following year, Meyer, wearing a beard and mustache, plays a sympathetic Swiss Red Cross representative named Karl Kappel in the 20th Century Fox war drama of captured army pilots from the Doolittle Raid over Tokyo put on trial in Japan called Purple Heart starring Dana Andrews and Richard Conte. After this, he played Dr. Dahlmeyer in The Great Moment starring Joel McCrea. Next he played Emil Rameau's butler in the musical Greenwich Village starring Carmen Miranda and Don Ameche. Meyer received a bit part as a hotel manager in Once Upon a Time starring Cary Grant.
In Hotel Berlin in 1945, which starred Helmut Dantine and Peter Lorre, Meyer plays a barber named Franz. Later in 1945, Meyer played a town official in the Fred Astaire musical Yolanda and the Thief.
After World War II, Meyer continued to receive roles. In 1946, he played a Count in the Bob Hope comedy Monsieur Beaucaire. The following year, he received a small part in Millie's Daughter. Later that year, Meyer who once played a waiter in the famed Los Angeles restaurant The Brown Derby back in 1932, now gets to play the head waiter there in Variety Girl which had cameos from literally dozens of Hollywood stars. In 1949, Meyer got to play doctors in two movies; he had a small part as Doctor Shultz in the comedy The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend starring Betty Grable and a larger one as Doctor Hans Heinrich in the Bowery Boys film Hold That Baby! Later that year, Meyer played a captain of an ocean liner in the Bob Hope comedy The Great Lover.
In 1951, Meyer plays Donovan in Grounds for Marriage starring Van Johnson. Later that year, he got a part as an auto mechanic in Come Fill the Cup starring Jimmy Cagney. The next year, Meyer played the mayor of a small French town during World War I in the John Ford drama What Price Glory?. Later in 1952, Meyer played a station master in The Merry Widow starring Lana Turner. The next year, Meyer played appeared in the musical Call Me Madam starring Ethel Merman and Donald O'Connor. Next he played a waiter in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy The Caddy. He appeared as a chef in another Martin and Lewis comedy the following year called Living it Up.
Meyer appeared in the Bob Hope (This was the 4th Bob Hope movie that Meyer appeared in) comedy Casanova's Big Night also starring Joan Fontaine and John Carradine in 1954. Next, he got to play cards again, as he did in Casablanca, in Deep in My Heart starring José Ferrer and Merle Oberon. Meyer was out catching butterfly's in the Michael Curtiz comedy We're No Angels starring Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray and Peter Ustinov. Meyer played a scribe in the John Wayne film The Conqueror in 1956. Later he played a French waiter in the musical Anything Goes starring Bing Crosby and Donald O'Connor.
Meyer played Gaston in the sci-fly classic The Fly starring Vincent Price in 1958. Next he played Alex, the headwaiter at the Harmonica Club in The Matchmaker starring Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins and Shirley MacLaine. The following year, he played Hugo in The Earth is Mine starring Rock Hudson and Claude Rains. The year after, Meyer appeared in the Elvis Presley movie G.I. Blues. In the 1950s and 60s, Meyer made some guest appearances on TV shows such as I Dream of Jeannie, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and I Love Lucy.
In 1961, at age 76, he received his best role in the classic Judgment at Nuremberg starring Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift. Meyer plays guilt-ridden Werner Lampe, one of the ex-Nazi judges on trial in Nuremberg, in one of the stronger performances of a minor actor in the movie. Two years later, he received a small uncredited role in what would be the last movie of his career, A New Kind of Love.
Meyer died on May 22, 1975 of bronchial pneumonia in Hollywood, California at the age of 90. He was cremated and his ashes are in the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles along with Nigel Bruce (of Dr. Watson fame), Edmund Gwenn (Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street), Margaret Dumont ("straight woman" to Groucho Marx) and Ann Sheridan.
