Hedwig Reicher as Salome
German postcard, mailed in France. PH (Photochemie, Berlin), 4522/2.
Hedwiga Reicher (born June 12, 1884 as Hedwig E. Reicher in Oldenburg; died September 2, 1971 in Los Angeles, California, United States) was a German-born stage and screen actress.
The daughter of Emanuel Reicher and half-sister of Frank Reicher and Ernst Reicher, Reicher made her theatrical debut in October 1902, playing Zoë in Adolf von Wilbrandt's Der Meister von Palmyra in Hamburg. She remained in Germany for five more years before accepting an engagement to the Deutsches Theater (the Irving Place Theatre) in New York City in 1907. Hedwig Reicher then remained in the United States. In the summer of 1908, she came to Germany once again and performed alongside her father in Goethe's Iphigenia at the Esperanto World Congress in Dresden. On September 19, 1929, the artist was naturalized under the slightly different name Hedwiga Reicher (as some Americans thought Hedwig was her last name).
Prior to that, she continued her theatrical work (now in English-language plays) on Broadway, then still as Hedwig Reicher. She was seen in plays including On the Eve in 1909, The Next of Kin in 1909/10, The Lady from the Sea and The Thunderbolt in 1911, June Madness in 1912, The Stronger in 1913, When the Young Vine Blooms in 1915, and Cleopatra in Caliban of the Young Sands in 1916. In 1916 she also performed Oscar Wilde's Salome at the Punch & Judy's Theatre, a part which she already performed in Germany in 1907 or earlier on (our card may rather refer to the German performance). She then moved to Los Angeles.
In Hollywood, Hedwiga Reicher played a number of supporting roles beginning in the mid-1920s, mostly as an immigrant or in maternal roles, e.g. as the prison matron in Cecl B. deMille's The Godless Girl (1928) and Janet Gaynor's mother in Lucky Star (1929) by Frank Borzage. In early 1939, Hedwiga Reicher also appeared in the first decidedly anti-Nazi U.S. film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy. For this film she adopted the pseudonym Celia Sibelius for fear of Nazi reprisals against her family in Germany, at least that is what Lya Lys claimed. A few months later, with the beginning of World War II, Hedwiga Reicher ended her film work, but continued to reside in Los Angeles until her death.
Sources: English and German Wikipedia, IMDb.
Hedwig Reicher as Salome
German postcard, mailed in France. PH (Photochemie, Berlin), 4522/2.
Hedwiga Reicher (born June 12, 1884 as Hedwig E. Reicher in Oldenburg; died September 2, 1971 in Los Angeles, California, United States) was a German-born stage and screen actress.
The daughter of Emanuel Reicher and half-sister of Frank Reicher and Ernst Reicher, Reicher made her theatrical debut in October 1902, playing Zoë in Adolf von Wilbrandt's Der Meister von Palmyra in Hamburg. She remained in Germany for five more years before accepting an engagement to the Deutsches Theater (the Irving Place Theatre) in New York City in 1907. Hedwig Reicher then remained in the United States. In the summer of 1908, she came to Germany once again and performed alongside her father in Goethe's Iphigenia at the Esperanto World Congress in Dresden. On September 19, 1929, the artist was naturalized under the slightly different name Hedwiga Reicher (as some Americans thought Hedwig was her last name).
Prior to that, she continued her theatrical work (now in English-language plays) on Broadway, then still as Hedwig Reicher. She was seen in plays including On the Eve in 1909, The Next of Kin in 1909/10, The Lady from the Sea and The Thunderbolt in 1911, June Madness in 1912, The Stronger in 1913, When the Young Vine Blooms in 1915, and Cleopatra in Caliban of the Young Sands in 1916. In 1916 she also performed Oscar Wilde's Salome at the Punch & Judy's Theatre, a part which she already performed in Germany in 1907 or earlier on (our card may rather refer to the German performance). She then moved to Los Angeles.
In Hollywood, Hedwiga Reicher played a number of supporting roles beginning in the mid-1920s, mostly as an immigrant or in maternal roles, e.g. as the prison matron in Cecl B. deMille's The Godless Girl (1928) and Janet Gaynor's mother in Lucky Star (1929) by Frank Borzage. In early 1939, Hedwiga Reicher also appeared in the first decidedly anti-Nazi U.S. film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy. For this film she adopted the pseudonym Celia Sibelius for fear of Nazi reprisals against her family in Germany, at least that is what Lya Lys claimed. A few months later, with the beginning of World War II, Hedwiga Reicher ended her film work, but continued to reside in Los Angeles until her death.
Sources: English and German Wikipedia, IMDb.